From '94 to '20: The evolution of the FIFA series 🎮 | OneFootball

From '94 to '20: The evolution of the FIFA series 🎮 | OneFootball

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Dan Burke¡22 April 2020

From '94 to '20: The evolution of the FIFA series 🎮

Article image:From '94 to '20: The evolution of the FIFA series 🎮

1994 was a pretty eventful year.

Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president, OJ Simpson went on trial for the murder of his wife, Kurt Cobain committed suicide, Amazon was founded and Pulp Fiction was released in cinemas.


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But by far the biggest and most culturally important event of the year was the release of the first instalment of what would become the longest running football video game series.

Okay, FIFA International Soccer (also known as FIFA 94) actually came out at very the tail end 1993, but its popularity was given a big boost by the ’94 World Cup in the United States, and the series hasn’t looked back since.

It has, however, come a long way in the 26 intervening years …


FIFA International Soccer

FIFA 94 was the first 16-bit football game to offer an isometric view of the pitch rather than the top-down view which had been popular in games such as Sensible Soccer. It featured only national teams, and no real player names.


FIFA 95

The second instalment of the game wasn’t much different to the first in terms of gameplay, but for the first time it featured club teams from eight leagues around the world: Brazil, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s La Liga, England’s Premier League, France’s Ligue 1, Netherlands’ Eredivisie and the United States.

Former Norway goalkeeper Erik Thorstvedt featured on the cover.


FIFA 96

This was the first FIFA game to feature 3D graphics (on the Sega Saturn, PlayStation and PC versions anyway) along with real player names. Frank de Boer and Jason McAteer were the cover stars.


FIFA 97

FIFA 97 is mostly remembered for its awesome six-a-side indoor football mode, but it also featured commentary from John Motson and Andy Gray for the first time. David Ginola provided motion capture for the game and was also on the cover.


FIFA: Road to World Cup 98

1998 was the year that shit got real for the FIFA series. Road to World Cup is still widely regarded as one of the best games in the series and boasted such features as a refined graphics engine, team and player customisation options, 16 stadia, improved artificial intelligence, a “Road to World Cup” mode with all FIFA-registered national teams, and a licensed soundtrack featuring popular musical artists of the time.

David Beckham featured on the UK version of the game’s cover, and Blur’s Song 2 was the intro track.


FIFA 99

For some reason, the hugely popular indoor mode was removed from FIFA 99, but it was graphically the best looking game in the series to that point and contained a cool European Dream League feature in which players got to compete in a league made up of the 20 of the continent’s top clubs.

Dennis Bergkamp was on the cover and Fatboy Slim’s Rockafeller Skank provided the intro music.


FIFA 2000

The coolest thing about FIFA 2000 was that it featured 40 classic teams full of retired football legends. The weirdest thing about FIFA 2000 is that Port Vale were on it. These were the days before lower league teams were playable in the game but The Valiants made the cut due to the fact they’re the team supported by Robbie Williams, who provided the game’s intro song.

Sol Campbell was on the cover.


FIFA 2001

Remarkably, FIFA 2001 was the first game in the series which featured a power bar for shooting and even more remarkably, it was the first ever FIFA which was playable online (but only on PC). It also allowed you to intentionally foul your opponent by pressing R1 on the PlayStation version.

Paul Scholes appeared on the UK cover, and Moby provided the soundtrack with Bodyrock.


FIFA Football 2002

FIFA 2002 was the first game in the series to feature the world “Football” in the title – a trend which would continue until 2006. A power bar was introduced for passing, and dribbling was made harder in a bid to make the game more challenging.

Thierry Henry featured on the cover of the UK version, and Gorillaz 99-2000 was the theme song.

Join us next time as the series continues …