If you’ve recently picked up EA’s latest offering to football fans, FIFA 21, good for you. It’s meant to be an incredible innovation on football simulation in games, bringing some of the best features ever to consoles. However, if you purchased FIFA 21 Legacy Edition for the Nintendo Switch, you’re probably feeling the sting of EA’s lack of care. IGN gave the edition a scathing 2/10, which should be a reality check for any publisher when it comes to one of their biggest releases for the year. This low score promted me to take a look at what was so bad. I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared for what the reviewer had to say.
As you’ll see in the video, the major issue with FIFA 21 Legacy Edition is that it’s the same game as FIFA 20, with no enhancements or upgrades to gameplay. The only thing that’s new are the kits and player databases, which is nothing. As the reviewer also points out, FIFA 20 Legacy Edition said exactly the same thing to fans last year, but all it did was update the kits and databases from FIFA 19.
In effect, FIFA 21 Legacy Edition is FIFA 19 for the Nintendo Switch, it just costs £50. This isn’t just an oversight on EA’s part, is massively insulting. There are millions of Switch players around the world, and plenty of us love a good game of FIFA. However, just like all FIFA fans, Switch players look forward to the innovations that EA make to the series every year. If those innovations don’t make the transition to the platform, what’s the point of even buying the game?
The bottom line is that EA has clearly looked at a spreadsheet at some point and deemed the Switch as a minor platform. As console sales have reflected over the past two years, they’re totally wrong though. The Switch has been the best-selling console for the last two years in a row, and it may even be for this year too, depending on how the next-gen consoles sell.
If EA doesn’t wisen up and offer a lot of innovation in FIFA 22 for the Switch, then they’re going to suffer. Konami is coming for EA with their renewed interest in the football simulation genre, and it’s only a matter of time before they put a game out that beats FIFA. Even if this is just a single year, it’ll put a huge dent in EA’s sales.