FIFA 21 Reviews
FIFA 21 is the straw that breaks the camel's back. After initially impressing us with FIFA 18 (despite it being based on the previous year's outing, FIFA 17), EA has completely shut up shop and made no effort whatsoever to improve the series on Switch. By now giving us a second Legacy Edition in a row, while also removing the previous games from the eShop to ensure this is the only option that remains, EA has inadvertently created another, more realistic option: ignore this game entirely, and don't give out your hard-earned cash in return for being insulted.
FIFA 21 is not a bad game, but attitude of it's developers is bad. They are charging triple A prices for mediocre product, which is almost identical to it's preductor. Updated labels are just not worthy enough for buying.
Review in Czech | Read full review
There’s so much work to be done to make FIFA a viable contender again as a genuinely great sports game. The sad part is, I don’t think EA Sports really care anymore.
FIFA 21 does little to innovate and has almost no meaningful gameplay changes, making it little more than a roster update to FIFA 20 that most players could happily miss.
Look, at the end of the day Fifa will sell regardless of review scores. There are incremental changes across the different games but this is largely the same package, designed to encourage seasoned players to settle in like a comfy, tatty, serviceable pair of shoes – even if those shoes are full of holes and barely stay on your feet. It doesn’t matter what score critics give Fifa 21. It could get a 1/10 from every publication and fans will still buy Fifa. However, it’s hard not to come away from this one disappointed.
Stadia is battling with something as standard as FIFA 21, and that is honestly disturbing. It’s one more story of the greatest highs and the most minimal lows, and it spells further issues for the fate of the platform.
The Annual Product EA Keeps on publishing with minimal changes and with no reason
Review in Arabic | Read full review
FIFA 21 comes off as a straightforward update to last year’s game, with quality of life improvements that in any other game would have been implemented via a title update.
FIFA 21 is far from being a terrible experience. It is essentially a polished version of FIFA 20, which is one of the best football games to date. But instead of having, say, Thomas Partey in for Mattéo Guendouzi, it's more of a case of Victor Lindelöf in for Harry Maguire.
You know exactly what you are going to get with FIFA and FIFA 21 has some misses but a significant amount of hits. Player faces could be improved with some key players missing their actual faces but that’s only a minor point in the grand scheme of things. It feels substantially better than FIFA 20 and it’s definitely a game that will get a lot more game time from me than the previous title. There are still a lot of gameplay elements that need improving so hopefully, a patch will address them very soon.
Now though, EA Sports’ series really needs to be analyzed in regards to how and where it improves, and FIFA 21 is a mash up of incremental steps forward, baffling design choices, and seemingly ignored issues. It simply doesn’t do enough to make the overall experience significantly more enjoyable than it was last year.
FIFA 21 is not bad but it does not innovate at all the recipe initiated by FIFA 20. Very focused on the attack, the defense suffers from a significant imbalance, leaving the open door to matches filled with goals. It is a transitional opus, leaving known bases so as not to upset the players and thus draw great novelties for FIFA 22.
Review in French | Read full review
Global pandemic? What global pandemic?! The beautiful game might be struggling right now but the FIFA juggernaut rolls on
The moment-to-moment action may be better than last year's game, but this is nothing more than a glorified roster update. Only Career Mode fans have reason to celebrate.
FIFA 21 continues the recent trend of mediocre gameplay being held up by shiny features, new modes, and an overreliance on the Ultimate Team cash cow.
The few positives do not outweigh the negatives. EA Sports continues to phone it in with the FIFA series while single-player gamers cry out for better options.
I love football. And I still love FIFA. But it’s the former carrying the latter here. FIFA 22 will be a crucial game for this franchise.
Expect an even further expansion on this from their live content team as the year progresses, but do so with the understanding that at some point, you’ll be required to spend on top of the $60 you invested on the game itself just to keep up with the pack.
For the current generation, FIFA 21 is certainly a good title, although the potential was so much greater. Fortunately, Career Mode fans will be served at their beck and call this year, which was necessary after years of disappointment. The development of youth players has also improved a lot this year, although it is regrettable to see that elements such as the speed of players are still too big a factor for the core gameplay.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
FIFA 21 is not a huge leap forward from last year’s iteration. It does, however, take some strides forward and while not all the new features add to the experience in my opinion (I’m looking at you agile dribbling), these can be turned off in the settings. I do hope we see more gameplay additions in the next-gen version though.