FIFA 20: Football & VOLTA: Initial Thoughts And Review

It’s that time of the year again…FIFA 20 was released on Friday! That means it’s been a weekend of playing FIFA, or at least a few hours of playing 😉

This year there has been one big addition, which is VOLTA.

Here’s what it’s all about, and a small initial review of the game.

First of all I should mention the traditional FIFA game. I’ve been playing for a few hours, and the usual gameplay is kind of the same. There doesn’t feel like there’s been a whole lot of change, there’s no huge jumps in how the game plays, or anything like that.

The fun modes for games are still there, aka “House Rules”, but they’re something which I never really bothered with on the previous game. I’m glad they’re still there, as they make it a little bit different if you fancy a change.

But the biggest addition has been VOLTA.

What is it?

It’s basically street football. You can play in 3v3 4v4 or 5v5 games, all on pitches of various sizes, with various rules. There’s arenas which have walls, and those which don’t. The smaller 3v3 games focus more on a street football element, with small pitches, walls and the like.

This goes all the way up to a 5v5 futsal match, which is played in a larger pitch, and has lines so the ball can go out for a ‘kick on’. I’ve actually been watching a bit of Futsal, the Spain U19 team has just won the UEFA Euro Futsal tournament, so I’ve gained a little bit of interest in that format. It’s not very big in the UK, but is huge in Europe.

I have found the 3v3 games kind of hard. You don’t have a goalkeeper as such, the goals are small, and you only have to defend your goal with players, or attack. It can get really tricky in a 3v3 situation, and since there’s no goalkeeper, if you leave a player free at any time, you’ll concede a goal.

Another thing I have noticed with the 3v3 is that defending the goal is terrible. If you’ve got the last man back (or controlled by the CPU) and someone shoots, as long as it’s on target, it almost always goes in. I think the defenders need to be better in the AI, or perhaps I need to be better.

When it comes to VOLTA, there’s a full on story mode, kind of like what The Journey was like. I have played this for a little while, and you basically travel the world playing in VOLTA tournaments and is all a build up to the World Championships.

If you like a story mode, then this is something you’ll like. If you’re like me, you’ll probably start it, play a few hours, and then just go back to playing the usual way 😀

You could compare it to the old FIFA Street series. But I think that there was a lot more easy to pull off skills in those series of games, whereas VOLTA is more about the pass and move kind of things. The Street series was as much about the skills as scoring the goals, but VOTLA is about winning, but with skills if you can.

I like the VOLTA mode, I can see myself playing it a lot, and it’s a great addition to the game. It gives it more of a pick up and play kind of element, with shorter halves, less stoppages and rules such as first to 5 goals wins.

The verdict is, I like FIFA 20 and think it’s good. If you’re expecting the main game to differ a lot in gameplay, you may be disappointed, but in my view it’s not a bad thing, as FIFA 19 was pretty good.