Sorry, You Won't Be Winning the World Cup on Your PS4

As expected, EA Sports is working on a World Cup-themed title to tie in with this summer’s event – but it won’t release on the PlayStation 4. The publisher confirmed EA Sports 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil for the PlayStation 3 yesterday, but has stressed in a statement today that the game won’t be kicking off on Sony’s latest machine. Why? Well, because the organisation wants to focus on its largest audience.

“[The title] is coming exclusively to the PS3 and Xbox 360 as a fully featured console game,” a spokesperson for the firm explained. “For our fans on the new generation of consoles and playing FIFA 14, we will have a range of engaging content, promotions, and tournaments within FIFA Ultimate Team so that those fans can experience the World Cup in unique and fun ways.” Not really the same, though, is it?

The company continued: “When we made the decision we considered a number of factors, but most importantly we wanted to create a great game within our development resources that could reach as many people as possible and the way to do that was make our best game yet [on current-gen consoles]. We gave our team the mandate of setting a laser focus on building the highest quality game that they could, and that’s exactly what they are doing.”

The release itself – which is due out on 15th April in North America and 17th April in Europe – will include a number of tweaks over FIFA 14, including an ‘Explosive Movement’ mechanic which will allow you to accelerate and decelerate with more precision. Passing has also been improved, while over 100 animations have been added to the experience. Naturally, you’ll find 203 licensed national teams and thousands of players in the game, as well as a number of accurately rendered managers.

One other new feature in the title will see the camera cut to home nations when a team scores, showing the reactions of fans as their team shuffles towards glory. Hopefully there’s not a cut to London when England inevitably go out on penalty kicks. We’re not sure whether all of this warrants a full-price purchase, but we actually quite liked the festival atmosphere in 2010 FIFA World Cup: South Africa, so hopefully this will capture the same spirit.