EA Reveal How World Cup 2014 Made FIFA 15 Better

FIFA 15 Will Feature New GoalKeeping Animations and Mechanics

August 27th, 2014 By Dean Howard

EA's Nick Channon and crew have revealed just how this years world cup has influenced and shaped the upcoming FIFA 15. Using their simulation engine, Nick and Crew said they picked this years winner ironically to be Germany, despite people doubting  their prediction, favoring Brazil or Argentina instead. Germany did go on to win this years 2014 world cup proving Nick's computer simulated algorithms to be right.

"Every year we do a simulation before every major tournament, we chose Germany, despite people disagreeing with our decision." Said Nick.

At this years Gamescom Nick expressed to PlayStation just how much of a significant difference the world cup event has influenced their development of the latest FIFA 15. One particular area of attention he mentioned was goalkeepers.

"The prominent focus  in this years World Cup I felt was the position of the goalkeeper," said Nick. "USA's Tim Howard had the world record for most saves in a game and it was something we wasn't quite expecting -just how the World Cup turned into a story focused on goal keepers."

We think Nick is right, from our experience watching the World Cup, we were also amazed by Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa who phenomenally kept Brazil from scoring 6 times, with superhuman reflexes.

"When these sort of big events turn up the emphasis is usually on strikers as the media usually report on who they believe will win the golden boot, but this year definitely did feel like the goalkeepers were stealing the show." explained Nick.

Taking this knowledge Nick and crew said they have been working on the core mechanics of goalkeepers in the upcoming FIFA 15 for the past two years, because of how complex the goalkeepers position is both in real matches and FIFA 15. EA wanted to present something very different to what football fans have seen in previous iterations.

What was a major factor in getting their objective achieved was due to the raw horsepower the PS4 had to offer, said Nick.  In previous generation consoles, adding more animation around goalkeepers required the use of more memory. What FIFA 15 now has thanks to the PlayStation 4, is the ability to have goalkeepers make intelligent decisions on the fly capable of changing the direction of a match.

For example Nick explains that in past games if a cross was coming in from a corner kick, the goal keeper would most likely try to catch it than punch it away, even though in that spilt second decision a real life experienced goalkeepers would punch it away. FIFA 15 goalkeepers  can now make those sort of crucial decisions in real time depending on the situation.

Another great addition to this years FIFA 15, is that goalkeepers can now try and correct their body movements to help deflect the direction of the ball on goal. So for example if the ball was heading towards the top right corner of the goal, but takes a deflection along its route, the goalkeeper diving towards the right will now try and get back the other way to stop the ball from hitting its target.

Our Thoughts . . .

EA Sports continues to push the boundaries of its FIFA series, making the beautiful game look and feel much more authentic than ever before. Its great to hear so much attention and detail has gone into goalkeepers this year and we are looking forward to getting our hands ohm this game and of course providing you a full review come September 23rd.