FIFA 20: How Volta is borrowing from Fortnite to captivate gamers

EA Sports' new FIFA 20 mode Volta will be heavy on allowing gamers to be creative - much like the inventiveness that's been crucial to the success of video game rival Fortnite.

Volta, the Portuguese word for 'return', is the developer's latest innovation, which will allow FIFA players to take football back to the streets, away from the familiar arenas of big clubs.

While much of the focus has been on ensuring the format's gameplay debut is engaging, EA Sports have also worked significantly on making the product customisable - allowing for gamers to show their creativity and style with important parts of the Volta world.

With Fortnite giving its users a creative licence to modify skins, costumes, weapons and other parts of the environment, Volta will be unveiling a similar model which will allow gamers to show their imagination and individuality by customising such features as clothing, logos, stadiums and avatars.

EA Sports creative director Matt Prior explains the ability for creativity within the Volta game mode will be revolutionary for the FIFA franchise and it will be constantly evolving throughout its life cycle.

"I think Volta offers user creativity like we never have offered before in FIFA," Prior told Goal.

"That’s creativity in the sense of your look, the vanity but also when you create your team, you pick a logo, you pick a venue and the creativity around the venue makes such a big difference.

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"The Volta community itself will be ever expanding and changing. The teams you play with and against, whether online or offline, is user generated content. So there will be people coming to the game throughout the cycle. They will create avatars and teams and they will go into the pool of teams you can play against."

With the new trend for games to continually be updated and changed after their release, Prior revealed Volta will be following the FIFA Ultimate Team live service model and mentioned a few exciting features within the mode.

"We will be doing live seasons, so we will be introducing more vanity items over the course of the game’s cycle," he said.

"What you see on the disk is not just what is going to be available. If you stick around through the game, you will see the new content drop. We will also be introducing tournaments as well throughout so you will get new tournaments on the map.

"The days of a game not changing once it’s been packed and shipped are long gone. A lot of games, such as FUT, offer the live service model and it’s something gamers have come to expect. I think Volta is a great forum to do that because the fashion of the in-game players is a big part of it."

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For fans of famous clothing brands, EA Sports is also planning to collaborate with big names in the fashion industry to create game-related content.

These content drops are planned for both in the game and in the outside world, with Prior hinting at the involvement of the world's biggest sportswear manufacturer.

"We will be looking to work with brands such as adidas so there is an opportunity for some unique content within the game but also opportunities in the real world," Prior said.

Volta will be a part of the new FIFA 20 game - which will be released on September 27.

- Goal's Kieran Francis tested an early version of FIFA 20 and Volta at the EA Producers Tour in Shanghai, China.