FIFA 19 introduces the familiar yet strange ‘survival’ mode, strange but familiar

FIFA 19 will have new gameplay, including survival mode. It sounds like a Battle Royale-style football game, but EA Canada insists it’s not.

In an interview with Eurogamer and IGN, EA Sports revealed that this Survival mode will have a rule that every time a team scores a goal, a player of that team will have to leave the field. However, the match still follows the official FIFA rules, which means the match will be abandoned if a team has less than 7 players. Therefore, to win the match, a team must score 5 goals against the opponent.

Eurogamer believes that this rule raises an interesting tactical question, which is whether we should ‘park the bus’ (concentrate all on defense) early and look for a chance to score later, or should we overrun it. Going up front then trying to fend off with fewer and fewer players?

Commentators Martin Tyler and Alan Smith in FIFA 19 even passionately comment and analyze match tactics. According to creative director Matt Prior, this mode is completely unlike current raging games like Fortnite Battle Royale or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

“I know people won’t believe me when I say that, but this mode has nothing to do with Fortnite and PUBG!” Matt told Eurogamer.

He also mentioned that FIFA Street 2012 also had a survival mode called “Last Man Standing”, in which each team also lost a player after scoring. It’s clear that FIFA Street’s Last Man Standing was long before the Battle Royale craze, and that was the true inspiration of FIFA 19’s survival mode.

In addition, FIFA 19 will also be highly customizable. For example, a player can play a match without a referee, or only headers and volleys will count as goals.

Last week, it was also announced in China that the Chinese Super League would join FIFA 19’s list of copyrighted tournaments. This means that stars who have played in European clubs like Brazil’s Hulk and Paulinho and Yannick Carrasco of Belgium will also feature with their club in FIFA 19.

China Super League will be included in FIFA19! Official confirmation from ACGHK 2018! @lucaspezzatti @gamer_matheusx pic.twitter.com/jrhBv8cfls

— Steven Lai (@laichifung) July 27, 2018

FIFA 19 will launch on September 28 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One. There will also be a version that supports previous generations of consoles such as PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.