The addition of the Champions League promises to make FIFA 19 the most epic game in the franchise so far, with football fans excited to guide their club teams to the biggest trophy of all and watch Alex Hunter travel all the way to the showpiece final at the end of the season.
That enough would be a good reason for many fans to upgrade from FIFA 18 to the new version, but EA Sports has also unveiled a whole host of gameplay improvements to make the experience even more lifelike than ever before.
Dribbling and defending were improved in last season's edition, while the timing of volleyed shots was also made more accurate to reflect real-world football.
This year, EA Sports has once again looked at changes to dribbling and ball control, with shooting one of the biggest in-game changes thanks to the new Timed Finishing system.
Ahead of the September 28 release of the new game, Goal takes a look at the new features in FIFA 19 and how they will affect gameplay.
What new gameplay improvements are in FIFA 19?
Timed Finishing, Active Touch and Dynamic Tactics are the three biggest gameplay improvements in FIFA 19 as EA Sports look to make the game reflect real football even more than in previous years.
As the name itself indicates, Timed Finishing is a more accurate representation of shot-taking, with better-timed shots producing better results. Pressing the shoot button a second time after the initial shot can help boost the accuracy and power of the finish. It can be done with all aspects of shooting, including headers, volleys and even finesse shots.
FIFA 18 improved how dribbling worked in-game, and FIFA 19 continues to expand on this with Active Touch. Now you can determine how your players receive the ball, with multiple ways to trap the ball, while there is also a variety of methods for controlling the ball in the air, with player using their head, chest, knees and feet to bring the ball under their control or else flick it past defenders or into open spaces.
Dynamic Tactics is an overhaul of the tactics system from previous FIFA games, now allowing users to set specific approaches that can be applied during the course of the game or even take effect automatically when certain events happen e.g. parking the bus when you have the lead. These are all easily accessed using the D-Pad to make in-game changes happen swiftly.
How will the FIFA 19 changes affect gameplay?
EA Sports
Like in previous years, getting used to the new changes takes a while to get used to. To help assist you with the new gameplay features before you start playing competitive online or offline games, you can use the FIFA Trainer to guide you through the process.
When learning Timed Finishing, the FIFA Trainer will display a coloured bar over your player, with sliders indicating where to perform the second button press to produce a perfect shot. Anyone who has played golf games such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour will be familiar with this process, as you aim to push the button right in the green-coloured sweet spot.
With the FIFA Trainer turned off in proper games, you can still see that your timing was perfect as the player indicator will glow following a successful attempt - that and the ball rocketing into the corner of the net, of course!
EA Sports expects Active Touch to be the real game-changer in FIFA 19, claiming that "by unlocking so many innovative methods to interact with the ball and injecting a higher level of control into every movement, Active Touch makes FIFA 19 feel more realistic than any other moment in the series’ rich history."
It should provide for more varied games and also mean that gamers will have to look for spaces to exploit in opposition defences rather than attempt the same tried-and-tested approaches to goalscoring that exist in other video games.
Dynamic Tactics should ensure the end of ultra-defensive gameplay from some online gamers, who played deep and counter-attacked with speedy players on the wings or up front. Tactics like "Pressure or Heavy Touch" can be applied to close down defensive-minded opponents and cause them to make riskier choices or mistakes that result in winning the ball back.
The way off-the-ball players perform is also affected by the new Dynamic Tactics improvements. Possession-based tactics will see players move into positions to receive the ball safely, while counter-attacking approaches make players advance up the field quickly to break through the opposition defence.
After changing your tactics in-game using the D-Pad, the notification will stay on the screen for a couple of seconds, allowing you to ensure you've made the right change. This will stop you sending the centre-back up for the attack when you merely wanted the wide players to switch wings.
Gamers will also have to get used to the new 50/50 Battles system, which decides the outcome of each challenge based on the individual player's in-game attributes as well as how the user themselves reacts and responds using the controller. As a result, strong, slow defenders should easily outmuscle smaller, quick strikers - much like in real-life.
A minor but important change is the improvement of the mini-map to make one team have triangular icons and the other circles. This will help users quickly tell their players apart - something which was often a problem on smaller screens when teams were wearing similar colours.
Players who have already tried out the FIFA 19 Demo are getting to grips with these new gameplay changes, learning how to do timed finishing. The goalkeepers in the demo are set at world class difficulty level, which means that it will take a bit of practice before you can score timed finishes on a regular basis.
The timed finishing training game has proven a great way to learn exactly how to do it, so if you get this while a match is loading, take advantage of it to hone your skills ahead of the game's worldwide release on September 28.
Active Touch is receiving rave reviews from early adopters, as it not only makes controlling the ball better, but also puts you in a great position to perform a variety of skill moves and tricks to get past opposition defenders.
