Here's Everything You Need To Know About "FIFA 16's" Gameplay

Still no Sepp Blatter mode. Darn.

It's a lot less arcade-y than FIFA 15.

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The slogan for FIFA 16 is "innovation across the pitch". As Nick Channon, senior producer of the game, tells BuzzFeed, "In FIFA 16 we're going to be innovating across the entire pitch, looking at every single area and every core system of gameplay."

After playing a number of matches in FIFA 16, BuzzFeed can report that the most noteworthy change is the slower, more considered pace of matches. In FIFA 15, gamers could simply give the ball to a pacey attacker and have him cleave a defence in two, but now there's a greater emphasis in building up play in midfield, with improvements in defender AI making for matches that no longer resemble the end-to-end feel of basketball matches.

Incorporating women footballers has improved the game across the board.

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The introduction of women's teams in FIFA 16 has brought in wholesale changes across the entire game, Channon says: "It's something we've been trying to implement for a few years, and when we made an early attempt we put women's heads on the male players' bodies. Obviously this wasn't a great build, but it provided our team with a checklist of things to do before we could get women's football right."

As a result, FIFA 16 now boasts a number of changes across the game, with more player animations, a revised locomotion engine to reflect the differences in women's sprinting, and an improved player body-type system with players that more accurately reflect their real-life counterparts. Another improvement? Better animated hair. "We realised a lot of women players have ponytails," Channon says, "so we had to develop a system to reflect that." So now Zlatan's man bun moves better than ever before.

Female players are ranked to a different scale to their male counterparts, and after playing a number matches featuring Germany vs USA, BuzzFeed can report that women's football in FIFA 16 makes for its own unique experience. Thanks to the slower game speed and quicker deterioration of player stamina, there is an extra onus on building moves through midfield and manipulating space on the pitch rather than relying on players' more physical attributes.

Defenders are a lot smarter.

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Arsenal's Per Mertesacker has long been a problem for FIFA players to play with, due to him possessing the turning circle of a supertanker.

"Last year, it would put you on edge if someone with pace was running at you," says Aaron McHardy, FIFA 16's lead gameplay producer. "You would feel that if you were beaten that would be the whole story – we wanted to instil that confidence of defence in you again."

FIFA 16 introduces 25 new changes to defender agility and off-the-ball defending in 1v1 situations. New animations allow defenders to correct mistakes quicker when tracking players, and increased defender AI allows you to transition from attack to defence quicker when possession is lost.

Midfield battles are back.

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FIFA 16 plays differently in the middle of the park thanks to improvements in player interception. Gone are the days of slaloming through a back four, and instead there is a return to the slow build, tactical chess-match feel of other football games.

"One of the things we found last year was that it was far too easy to play the ball from your centre-back or full-back all the way to your striker," McHardy says. "A big problem that we narrowed in on was that the player intelligence to intercept passes wasn't strong enough, but [in FIFA 16] players will now slide and be quite aggressive to get the ball if they think it is there."

After being on the losing end of a pitched 3–2 PSG vs Borussia Dortmund match with another player, BuzzFeed can indeed report that FIFA 16 is a game that rewards patient midfield play and clever passes over outright physicality.

But that doesn't make attacking any less fun.

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McHardy introduced us to a new modified pass that allows what he terms "passing with purpose". Players can now hold the right bumper with the through-ball command to thread a pass with a little more oomph – great for unlocking a tricky defence.

Also in is "no-touch dribbling", which is the silly stuff Messi uses to do things like this. Holding the left bumper while dribbling now causes your player to ease up their sprint, similar to holding down the clutch on a car and coasting. When done properly, it can open up greater opportunities for dummying defenders and setting off devastating dribbles.

Crossing has had a dynamic overhaul – balls get whipped in with greater pace and verve as you try to outfox defenders. Add to this an improved shooting feedback and it's clear that a lot of work has gone into making scoring in FIFA 16 no less fun than before.

As McHardy puts it, "There's tiki-taka football, whipping in crosses into the box, playing the ball over the top. Whatever way you want to play FIFA, we want that to be a viable way to play, not there to be one viable tactic to try and score goals."

There's a new system to help everyone play.

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The new "FIFA Trainer" is an overlay system that will offer contextual advice to players as they progress in the game.

"If you are a new user you get the option of a simple short pass," Channon says, "and if you complete X number of passes, it will then show you how to do a through ball, or show you how to do a lofted pass. It will teach you how to shoot, it will teach you how to do a finesse shot, it will even teach you how to celebrate upon scoring a goal."

Perfect for FIFA newbies getting into the game and old vets who want to pick up some new skills too.

All in all, it's really shaping up to be rather good.

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After playing a number of matches of the new build, BuzzFeed can report that FIFA 16 is one of the few FIFA games not to bring about bouts of cursing from players due to new tweaks undoing months worth of muscle memory. By deciding to tweak the games' winning formula rather than dramatically overhaul it, FIFA 16's developers have created a fresh experience that at the same time doesn't force you to bin all of your tried and tested FIFA 15 tactics.