If you’ve spent any length of time playing FIFA 21’s Ultimate Team, then you’ll have no doubt come across someone running the ball down the wing with the Adama Traoré. The winger is frustratingly fast, but has nothing on the loading times of the next-gen version of the game apparently.
According to EA, who announced that FIFA 21 is coming to next-generation consoles on December 4, the game will have “blazing fast load times” so you can get into the action right away. It’ll also have deferred lighting and rendering, enhanced animation technology, off-ball humanisation, and more next-gen specific upgrades.
Everyone who’s purchased FIFA 21 will get the opportunity to experience those upgrades for free if and when they move to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. The Dual Entitlement system, which EA hinted at before, will ensure you can carry on playing your game without any interruptions to your progress in both Ultimate Team and VOLTA.
Save data relating to Online Seasons, Co-Op Seasons, Career Mode, Pro Clubs, and more will not transfer though – so be careful if you’ve sunk most of your time into one of these so far.
So how does it all work? Well upgrades are fairly painless. If you bought a digital version of the game, you’ll be able to download the game from the store once your new console is set up. If you bought a physical copy of the game, you’ll still get a free upgrade, but you’ll need to contact EA Support first to validate your purchase.
If you also get your console before December 4, you’ll be playing the backwards compatible version of FIFA 21, so don’t expect to see any major improvements until then.
There’s also no word on what sort of experience we can expect. We know that games like PUBG can hit 60fps on the new consoles, as can Rainbow Six Siege, so expect the same here.