FIFA 23 | Pitch Notes - Pro Clubs/VOLTA FOOTBALL Deep Dive

Cross-play

Hello everyone, my name is Richard Walz, Game Design Director for Pro Clubs and VOLTA Football. I wanted to start off by speaking to an important topic in the community, cross-play.

I share your desire to see cross-play in Pro Clubs, and understand the frustrations for not seeing it included in the launch of FIFA 23. While we're excited with the first steps to bring new cross-play features to FIFA 23, we also recognize what cross-play functionality could mean to the Pro Clubs mode with the potential for improving matchmaking and allowing friends from different platforms of the same generation to play together.  

With the scale of such an important feature, our goal is to bring you the best possible experiences.  As we look at our cross-play future, we’re focused on matchmaking in Pro Clubs, VOLTA, and FUT Co-op, as well as cross-platform lobby invites and ultimately cross-platform Pro Clubs.

We’re eager to provide updates in the future as the team continues to execute the plan for the future of cross-play. We love the passion of our community, and you help strengthen our resolve to push the mode forward and to bring quality changes for you to enjoy as players.

FIFA 23’s Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL experience

It's important to explain why we're talking about these two modes at the same time. Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL are both modes designed to be played with your friends, where you share experiences and spend time, and compete with and against each other. The key difference being that Pro Clubs is where you go for an authentic football experience, and VOLTA is where you and your friends go to relax in a mode where anything can happen.

This year we built features that bring the Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL experiences closer together, so that regardless of how you and your friends feel like playing on any given day, you’ll be making progress. Climb the Ranks in Pro Clubs, or Battle each other across the range of Party Games in VOLTA Arcades, you'll make progress however you want to spend time with your friends in FIFA 23 across the two modes. We’re also bringing a live service element to Pro Clubs through shared Seasons Progress across Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL, to earn and unlock new content for your Avatar all year round.

Play your way and grow your Pro

In FIFA 23, you’ll be able to level up your Virtual Pro in more ways than ever before. 

Skill Games in Clubs

A common piece of feedback we receive from Pro Clubs players is that the mode requires more ways to play when your clubmates are offline. With this in mind, we’re excited to introduce the ability for players to take their Virtual Pro onto the training pitch to play our catalog of Skill Games in FIFA 23.

We’ve included some short summary clips for many sections of this FIFA 23 Pro Clubs/VOLTA FOOTBALL Deep Dive featuring Timothy Abel and Mbuso Rabede. If you don’t have time to read through this entire article in one go, the summary videos provide an overview of what’s new in FIFA 23 along with footage of our new features in action.

Watch the full trailer

Through 66 Skill Games, you’ll be able to earn Player Growth XP up to a weekly cap, while competing for bragging rights for the top spot on each of the Skill Games leaderboards against your club teammates. 

This means if you only have a few minutes to play, you can still spend it sharpening your skills while making progress and growing your Pro. As for how much XP you’ll earn, we’re still tweaking that, but the harder the Skill Game and the higher your rank, the more XP you’ll earn.

So next time you’re waiting for that last clubmate to come online, hop on over to Skill Games (accessible via the Pro Clubs Hub menu), and earn bragging rights over your friends.

Clubs XP from VOLTA FOOTBALL Matches

All VOLTA FOOTBALL matches, including Arcades, will now give you Pro Clubs Player Growth XP for your time spent in VOLTA. You can level up your Pro by hitting your friends with dodgeballs, beating them in Foot Tennis or scoring the most points in one of our new Arcade games, Battle Buckets

Match Rating and Leveling Changes

To further reward a player's contribution to Pro Clubs matches, a more diverse range of gameplay actions will award Player Growth XP and the amount of XP awarded for each action has been adjusted. This is to ensure a more fair distribution of XP for supporting players who contribute to success without putting the ball in the back of the net themselves.

Learning from the feedback we received regarding the Player Growth leveling system introduced in FIFA 22, Pro Clubs has taken three key pieces of feedback around this system.

1. Maxing out your level required too much effort.
2. The upgrade frequency felt slow; there was too much time between meaningful, actionable player improvements.
3. Perks were unlocked too slowly to allow for experimentation.

To address this feedback, we’ve made the following improvements to the leveling system for FIFA 23:

• The amount of XP required to move from level to level has decreased considerably.
• The amount of XP required to reach the maximum level has been decreased.
• The maximum level has been increased from 25 levels to 100.
• Players can earn a maximum of 185 Skill Points.
• All Perks will be unlocked through the course of the first 25 levels. Beyond level 25, players will continue to unlock more perk slots, and earn more Skill Points.

We feel that with these changes in leveling, followed by the different options for earning XP in Pro Clubs, there’s going to be more variety in how you can spend your time throughout the year.

Shared Seasons Progress

Seasonal Event Progression 

We know that being able to customize your Avatar to bring your own style onto the pitch with your friends is really important. As a group we’re really proud of all of the content and options we’ve given our players in VOLTA FOOTBALL. This year it’s time that Pro Clubs joins the party.

Now, whether you play VOLTA FOOTBALL (Arcades, Squads, and Battles) or Pro Clubs (Drop-Ins, League, Cup and Friendly Matches), you’ll earn Seasonal Points (SP) that contribute towards unlocking new gear for your Virtual Pro. Seasonal Points earned will contribute to the same Seasonal Event Progression system shared between the two modes. Seasonal Events will continue to function in the same way and at the same (mostly) six-week cadence that they did in VOLTA FOOTBALL for FIFA 22. This means every Season, there will be new content dropping for you to earn and unlock for both your Pro Clubs, and VOLTA Avatars.

Pro Clubs players will earn both SP and VOLTA Coin rewards based on their performance (Match Rating, with a bonus for being the ‘Player of the Match’), and the outcome of the match (Win, Loss, Draw). A summary of your rewards can now be found in the Pro Clubs post-match sequence.

Seasonal Event Progression can be tracked via the Seasonal Event Panel inside both the Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL Hubs, which will also alert you to when you have a reward waiting to be claimed. All rewards must be claimed manually and from within VOLTA FOOTBALL. For Pro Clubs players, this means they will need to navigate to VOLTA FOOTBALL, which can conveniently be done via a direct link from inside the Pro Clubs Hub.

You’ll also be earning VOLTA Coins to spend in the VOLTA Shop. Go to the VOLTA Shop to unlock these shareable items. Shareable items are indicated by the VOLTA FOOTBALL and Pro Clubs logo on the item image. 

Note: Not all items in the VOLTA Shop are equippable in Pro Clubs.  

Customisation 

Now that we’ve talked about how you’re going to be unlocking content all year, let's talk about what type of content you’ll be able to unlock for your Avatar.

In Pro Clubs you’ll be able to unlock Tattoos, Facial Accessories, Boots, Hair Styles, and Facial Hair customization options. We want our players to feel like there is something for everyone, though we have been mindful of not overtly impacting the authentic tone of Pro Clubs for FIFA 23.

In VOLTA FOOTBALL, we’re amping up the fun and continuing to push the boundaries with full costumes, neon clothing and face paint, while also working with very exciting designers to deliver content every season.

Each season will bring new gear for both Pro Clubs and VOLTA players that you can unlock through Seasonal Progression and the VOLTA Shop.

Gameplay Changes

HyperMotion 2 + Matchday Experience*

Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL get all the benefits from the Gameplay and Matchday Experience teams' hard work. If you want to get into the depths of everything that entails check out the deep dive [link], but a few of my favorite improvements coming to Clubs are the new AR Replay System, which turns a great goal with your friends into an unforgettable moment. Secondly, the pitch: it just looks amazing and I’m still blown away by the quality the team was able to achieve. If you’re going to spend time on the pitch with your friends, this is by far the best looking and feeling one i’ve ever seen.

*HyperMotion2, AR Replays, and Hyper-Realistic Pitch only available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Stadia. 

Perks

Four new Player-based Perks have been added to FIFA 23 allowing you to further refine your play style.

Here are the four new Perks and what they do:

Attacking Perks

• Poacher - Increases your all-round finishing (including boosts to Volleys, Finishing, and Heading Accuracy) when inside the box.

Chance Creation Perks

• Light Passes - Increases your teammates’ ability to trap and control your passes.

Defensive Perks

• Interceptor - Improves your ability to intercept & disrupt your opposition's passes & shots when defending and in close proximity to the ball.
• Chase Down - Increases your pace when defending immediately following a loss of possession. The perk will deactivate after 40 in-game seconds if you have not regained possession.

Drop-Ins

In a bid to make Drop-Ins a faster paced and more engaging experience, Pro Clubs Drop-In has undergone some changes for FIFA 23.

Most noticeably, Half Length has been reduced to four minutes and matches will proceed to Golden Goal extra time in the event of a draw at the conclusion of 90 mins. Matches will not proceed to penalties at the end of two periods of Golden Goal and instead, the match will end as a draw. 

To freshen up the match experience, Drop-In games will now be played in a variety of stadiums, and the teams will wear kits from a selection of new Drop-In designs. These kits and stadiums will rotate to make sure the environment you play in never gets old.

Post-Match Accolades

New post-match Accolades recognise the top five performers, assigning them for topping statistical categories such as most tackles, furthest distance run, and more to celebrate players for their all-round performance.

VOLTA FOOTBALL MODE Updates:

Keep in mind that along with improvements to Arcades, Squads, Stadiums, and Signature Abilities, you’ll be able to level up your Pro Clubs Pro as well as your VOLTA Pro by playing matches solo or with friends.

Arcade Game Updates

New and upgraded games give you more ways to battle it out against friends. My personal favorite is the inclusion of Obstacle Courses where you race against your friends from one end of the stadium to the other trying to control the ball and dribble around the obstacles.

Improved crowd audio, new props, dynamically coloured balls, new sound effects and more bring more excitement each time you step into Arcades.

We’ve also gone back and improved all of the 16 games we released last year.

There will be six new Arcade Games at launch:

Dribble King:

Stay inside the moving circle, collecting trophies and avoiding obstacles. If you exit the circle, you’re eliminated. 

Obstacle Course:

Race to the end of a pitch filled with obstacles and score a goal before any of your opponents.

Foot Golf:

It’s like golf, but with goals…and kicking. Score a goal in the given net in the fewest shots possible. 

Four-Squares:

When the ball comes towards you, kick it into any of your opponents’ squares. If it bounces in your square two times or if you kick it out of bounds, you’re eliminated.

Battle Buckets:

Battle opponents one on one to gain possession of the ball, and then lob it into a bucket in the center of the pitch to claim it for your team. Claim the most buckets to win. 

Capture the Ball:

Just like capture the flag. Steal the ball from your opponent’s “base” area and bring it back to your own. 

New ‘XL’  Stadiums

Continuing to evolve our Squads gameplay experience is extremely important to us, so we’ve introduced a new ‘extra large’ small sided stadium. 

This comes with a few key changes, 

More space - The stadium is about 10% bigger than our previous Large stadiums. This might not sound like a lot, but we think it’s the sweet spot between being small sided and having enough time and space to think and react. The additional 10% means there's more room to take a touch and spot the run of your friend. There's also more room after you dribble by someone to get your head up and make a pass or take a shot.

Bigger nets - We’ve made our nets much larger to better reward skill when aiming during scoring opportunities. In the past, the relative size of Goalkeepers to the smaller nets made it much more difficult to find an opening, but now with bigger nets, you’ll see more variety in goalscoring, with more diversity in shots and more varied ball physics.

Higher, Bouncier Walls - We’ve increased the height and bounciness of the walls to give you more playmaking creativity. In previous years, the height of the walls, and the material of chain link fences meant that the environment could be difficult to utilize to make amazing plays. With changes to the material, and heights of the walls, we’re sure you’ll be scoring more great goals with your friends.

Signature Ability Update

We’ve added the Take Flight Signature Ability that enables you to rise above your opponent to win aerial balls or score spectacular bicycle kicks.

We’ve also polished Signature Abilities to make them feel more powerful. You’ll now see opposition players rag doll on super-tackle, and when hit by a booming shot.

Outro

Alright friends, that's all from us for now. I hope you’re looking forward to all the new ways you’ll be able to spend time with your friends and grow and customize your Avatars across Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL this year. 

On behalf of the entire Development Team, thank you for taking the time to read the Pitch Notes, and we will provide an update regarding cross-play as soon as we can, we hear you.

Richard Walz and the Pro Clubs / VOLTA Development team.

FIFA 23 is available to pre-order for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia.

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