On September 27th, 2016, the newest soccer game, FIFA 17, was released in the United States. With many new features such as The Journey, Squad Builder Challenges, and FUT Champions, this FIFA feels new.
The Journey puts the player into the shoes of a professional soccer player. You take control of Alex Hunter, a young English talent who is a star on the rise. The mode starts by picking a Premier League club to play for. After the player chooses a club, they get to experience the highs and lows on the journey to stardom. Hunter’s behavior both on and off the pitch influences how his career will pan out.
FIFA 17 once again features Fifa Ultimate Team (FUT), the franchise’s most popular game mode. FUT allows players to create their dream team from the ground up. The player gets to name their team, as well as give it any logo and jersey in FIFA 17. The player plays games to earn coins and with those coins they can go on the transfer market and buy players listed by other gamers from all around the world. They can also open packs with coins which contain different players in them. They can then sell those items on the transfer market to get coins. Currently, there are over two million live auctions on the transfer market, showing the popularity of the game mode. EA sports decided to add another great feature to FUT with the introduction of Squad Builder Challenges.
Squad Builder Challenges, or more commonly known as SBC’s are a new feature that adds another dimension to FUT. SBC’s allow players to build squads with certain requirements, which players exchange for bigger and better rewards. For example, an SBC might require the player to build a minimum 79 rated team with three players from Brazil. Once the player goes out on the market and buys the correct players for the squad, they submit the squad, losing all of the players. In return, they get a reward for completing the challenge, which could be packs, coins, or even rare players. The more difficult and expensive the challenge is, the better the rewards tend to be. Sometimes completing a SBC can be difficult or risky, as there are tricky requirements in some and some are expensive. But, risks are not unusual when trying to reap the benefits of FUT.
The most game-changing addition to FIFA 17 also relates to FUT, and is the FUT Champions Weekend League. The weekend league is the competition that the most hardcore FIFA players play. The weekend league is a 60 hour period over the weekend in which a player has to complete 40 games. Obviously, they want to win as many games as possible. The more games won out of the 40, the higher tier the player is. The higher the tier, the better the rewards.
The rewards include a combination of packs and coins. If you win one out of the 40 games, then you receive 1,000 coins and 2 gold packs usually valued at 5,000 coins each. If you win 40 out of 40 and finish number one, you receive 250,000 coins, an ultimate pack giving you 12 rare players that are worth minimum 9,000 each, as well as four jumbo rare players packs, usually valued at 100,000 coins each. Futwiz lays out the full rewards and tiers for FUT Champions.The better the FIFA player you are, the more rewards you’ll get from playing against other good FIFA players.
Only the best FIFA players get to play in the weekend league, as there are only two ways to qualify. The first way is by winning a daily knockout tournament. These tournaments are held all week long and in order to win one, the player must win four straight games. Once that is done, they are in. The second way to qualify can be done once a player is already in the weekend league. The player will qualify for the next week if they win eighteen games in the weekend league. It may sound easy, but winning about half of your games isn’t easy when you come up against other top FIFA players. If you’re good enough, FUT Champions can be your holy grail.
New additions such as The Journey, Squad Builder Challenges, and FUT Champions make FIFA 17 is a game that is great. New features and game modes combined with the new Frostbite gameplay engine make this FIFA feel new. It always gives the player something to do and a goal to reach. EA Sports are still adding new SBC’s and keeping the rewards and servers for FUT Champions fresh. FIFA 17 feels nothing like previous FIFA games and that’s a good thing. The FIFA community has widely liked the new features and modes implemented in FIFA 17. It seems as if it is a step in the right direction for the FIFA franchise.
