FIFA 19 adds some fun twists to a familiar sport with its House Rules modes
How long until a battle royale mode?
Football... Football never changes. Well, maybe this time. Among a slew of features expounded on in this development blog post, EA have let slip some rather exciting alternate playmodes for their upcoming hyper-budget football sim FIFA 19. All gathered under the broad 'House Rules' tag, they sound a little like mutators as you'd see in a competitive FPS, putting strange new spins on the mechanics, including a no-holds-barred mode bereft of referees. Truly, this is football as god intended.
While I hope the final cut of the game offers more options, the House Rules modes listed so far do sound a fun bunch. Survival Mode randomly exiles a member from your team (except for the goalie) every time you score a goal, providing an odd sort of balance. No Rules mode does just what it says on the tin - no fouls, no bookings, no offside. Long Range mode takes some inspiration from basketball, with shots from outside the box scoring double.
With the First To... rule, you can set your requirements for victory. First to three goals? Sudden death? Options will let you tweak and tune this one further, and you can play to the clock (or not), have extra time, penalties or whatever else you feel fits you personal vision. Also fun-sounding is the Headers & Volleys mode, where you can only score goals using your head, or from off the ground. If you can combine House Rules (hopefully), this seems like a good one to pair with 'first to score wins immediately', unless you really want a three hour match.
The development blog also goes into great details on the stats the game will be tracking, showing you exactly what kinds of goals were attempted and where, even going so far as to giving you a visual heatmap for where you were most likely to hit in the net. On top of the usual (and less usual) playmodes, you can also choose to play matches framed as Cup Finals, complete with special broadcast overlays, kits, badges and so on. Y'know, for extra drama.
FIFA 19 will be launching on Origin this September 27th for £55.