Mark your calendars, digital football fans and connoisseurs of annualized sports franchises: FIFA 20 will be out 27th September. Here’s what we know so far based on the EA presentation and the live interviews at EA Play.

• Close manual control and skill moves will take centre stage. EA will be toning down AI defenders, offering less help and encouraging you to engage more in manual defence. To offset this learning curve, tackling will be more effective as long as you use the right move in the right context.
• EA will be creating tenser one-on-one situations. Players will have access to more skill moves and opportunities to chain multiple skill moves for a “more realistic outcome”. No, we have no idea what this means apart from “possibly fumbling and falling flat on your face” but player characteristics involving speed and strength will have more of an impact this time around.
• EA will be overhauling the penalty and free kicks system. Players will now know the trajectory they’re going for, and figure out what skills to use when using the right analog stick. This is to eliminate the “sweet spot” goal moments players can exploit in past FIFA and even other football games.
• FIFA 20 will introduce a new mode called Volta. Basically, it’s their newest take on FIFA Street, where you can have 3v3 setups or even have no keepers involved in a street futsal match.

Check out the kick-tastic trailer below, which I’m sure will be representative of every new FIFA game release because they’ve done this so many times.