Ranking Every FIFA's Career Mode!

Hey, welcome to another tier list video, today we’re ranking every career mode from FIFA 08 until FIFA 23. I’ll be ranking them based on both gameplay and how good career mode was at the time. Check out the link in the description if you’d like to give it a go yourself!

Because they’re fresher in my mind, we’ll start with FIFA 14, move forward to FIFA 23 and then finish off the early years at the end of the video.

FIFA 14

The first thing you notice with FIFA 14, is how the gameplay feels decades older than FIFA 15. Headers are OP, passing is terrible and players feel really clunky.
Nostalgia makes you remember Career mode better than it actually was, teams would regularly win the league with 60 points, top scorers would hit 15 goals and you could train goalkeepers by 20 overall per season.
Career mode does function well, but the lack of depth and pretty abysmal gameplay means we’ll start off with a low score. Unlucky FIFA 14.

FIFA 15

Weirdly the total opposite of FIFA 14, on FIFA 15 players with high pace and dribbling are amazing, while slow strong players are useless.
This is the first game made for the PS4 / Xbox One era of consoles, it feels and looks a lot more modern than FIFA 14.
Despite being an upgrade, its still not actually a good game.

FIFA 16

Yet again the gameplay does a total switchup, having strong players in your midfield guarantees you’ll win 90% of duels, even if the attacker is stronger.
Dribbling is painfully slow and skill moves become the easiest way to move fast. In particular the McGeady spin is so much quicker than dribbling that its a joke.
The game is actually difficult to beat the AI on, which I think is a massive positive of the game. The AI knows how to use the overpowered parts of gameplay, something modern FIFA AI’s have to cheat to do.

FIFA 17

First game on the frostbite engine, can tell theres a leap in basically every aspect.
The menus are better, but things like training, youth development and transfers are still the exact same. I think FIFA 17 was also the last time that manager objectives actually made sense.
The career mode part of the game isn't groundbreaking, but i’m rating this game as legendary because of how much of a step forwards the gameplay actually was.

FIFA 18

I noticed this pattern while playing every FIFA game. The even numbered games, so 14, 16, 18 and 20 all had similar physicality based gameplay. The odd numbered games were all fast pace dribbling based games. I’m not sure if theres two studios inside EA working on these games, but it would make sense.
The main feature in career mode this year was transfer cutscenes. They’re nice a few times, but they do slow down career mode a lot. Personally I always preferred the transfers taking place over a few days, not being able to fully complete a transfer within a day.

FIFA 19

Off the pitch FIFA 19 is a pretty big improvement, the Champions League, a dozen new Spanish stadiums and adding Ultimate difficulty and we went back to high speed passing and dribbling based gameplay.
I dont know if because its such a recent game, but I didnt feel much nostalgia playing FIFA 19. The teams are interesting, Sancho, Reus and Haaland were really cool to use, but unlike FIFA 14, 15 and 17, i’m not looking forward to playing it again.
I know it’s common to hate FIFA 19’s gameplay, but in career mode it was actually quite enjoyable. I remember hating FUT, but we’re not really factoring that in today.

FIFA 20

I hated this game. I played it for about 30 hours in 2020, which compared to the 600-1000 hours I usually spend playing FIFA just shows how bad the game really was. From a poll i posted a few days ago, over half of the 23,000 votes said this was the worst game of the past 5 years, and i fully see why.
Career mode is basically the exact same as FIFA 19, but gameplay is horrible. There's nothing enjoyable about constant AI cheating, pathetically slow passing, pace, strength and dribbling all not mattering at all and a thousand other issues I have with this game.
Lets just throw it in bottom tier and forget this game ever existed.

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[mihailovsky]

i got tired of modern fifas and tried 13. It was my best gaming experience this summer! I had a blast

[alexsmith]

FIFA 13 would go in masterpiece alongside 17, it was the game that got a lot of us into career mode

[spark_]

Nostalgia wise, nothing beats FIFA 12 for me. Just so much fun, and the training ground look was so cool

[digitalfootballer]

17 is always my go to old FIFA game whenever get frustrated with or bored with whatever current version is out.

[xanthippus]

Fifa 07 was great.
There were great options for RTG (Hereford United, Libourne, Torquay), rebuilds (Napoli and Juventus were in Serie B), you could invest in the club, the simulated marches were great to follow and the Youth Academy wasn't absurd.

[andretgomes]

I’m actually playing a fifa 17 career mode with Monaco at the moment and I can confirm it is a masterpiece. The only other one I would put in this tier is Fifa 13. I remember doing a career mode with santos mainly because Neymar and that blue Santo’s kit. The brasilian league was in the game with players like Ronaldinho, Ganso, Vagner Love, Lucas Moura, Bernard etc. Vibes unmatchable. I’m surprised because I actually enjoyed fifa 20 career mode. My most fun saves were with Brentford getting the promotion to the premier league with that unforgettable front trio of Benrahma Mbeumo and Watkins and a club and country save using only players from portugal. Unfortunately I don’t think I’m buying EAFC 24 but certainly I will continue to follow your great great work!

[TamerMerhi]

Fifa 23 seemed amazing for me due to the fact that I never really played fifa 21 or 22 i used to play fifa 18 so I saw it as a big jump in career mode so it's my favorite!

[PikaFazooli]

I'll be honest I spent hours on 08 playing carrer mode and, this may be nostagia but I enjoyed that you managed the whole club in a sense.

Setting ticket prices, upgrading staff, sponsors, choosing little adventure game style text boxes that had consequences for your squad, upgrading your players with points they would earn after matches and being able to craft the players you want rather than scouting.

While I understand it's more "realistic" now especailly with the gameplay being literal lightyears behind, the old charm and closeness to the team and players felt better than the investor like atmosphere of the newer ones.

In short, I would like to see you give 08 career mode a video or even some of the older ones, be it for my own selfish nostalgia or any curosity sparked by this comment.

[octavdumitru]

FIFA 07 and 12 is where it's at for me. FIFA 07 made me fall in love with Barcelona and I supported them ever since, while FIFA 12 is just pure arcade fun.

[tobyhellewell]

FIFA 14 has a broken gameplay game, but was the first year of some very new career mode features. I really enjoyed it, however I was in year 9 with no responsibilities so it might nostalgia haha

[RallyRevolutionFN]

Who remembers Fifa 13 11 star scouts and all of the youth Academy players have random heights and weights. For example, one player could be 198cm and 50 kg but the next player is 160cm and 110kg in fifa 13

[mbkcsuad]

My favorite ones are fifa 17 and Fifa 19 for career mode

[zedgenius]

The worst thing about fifa 20 imo is how the better team always won in simulations. You'd get into situations where the top 3 or 4 teams of a league would win every single game and always draw each other, making it impossible to keep up because of the scripting involved, even if you controlled one of those 3 or 4 teams yourself. It was impossible to not drop any points against the bad teams for the entire season

[os]

Modern Fifa is just so boring and dead, it's sad to see our childhoods transform from fun to opening packs and doing sbc’s every second day

[tsoflakes]

I was such a fan of the improvement from 14-15 it really felt like they upgraded a lot. 17 was great and 22 and 23 have both been solid a few cheating mechanics from cpu’s

[arkow]

I appreciate your vids even though I'm a fifa boomer. Stoped playing at fifa 15. This vid helped me to decide which fifa i'd like to buy in order to enjoy myself once again. Thanks.
Btw, I wonder how would you rank FIFA 14 next gen edition.

[aaronwhite]

FIFA 23 has probably been one I've played the most, mainly because I found some good sliders and had more fun doing some challenging careers, instead of just playing as my usual favorite teams that are often dominant in their leagues.

But the slider bug that EA apparently just refused to patch at any point over the last year was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I know bugs are tough to track down sometimes, but how EA was either unable or unwilling to patch out a bug that wiped your settings nearly every time you closed and re-opened the game is beyond me. This was an issue on both PC and PS4, and to me, is just unacceptable from a company with the resources EA has.

I might come back for FIFA 24 and see if things have improved, but once my EA Play subscription runs out at the end of the month, I'll have to big FIFA farewell for a while.

[ethanirwin]

FIFA 13 was the goat in my opinion. Played every single year since FIFA 08 and 13 stands out to me, followed by 17 and then 15. 11 also good for nostalgiac reasons

[PsilentMusicUK]

FIFA 20 was alright, ruined by the fact that every big side in each league wouldn't lose a single game so you could never win a title.

FIFA 22 had really good gameplay imo, but then got absolutely ruined by the manager rating glitch and the fact the UCL glitches caused by EA removing the Russian teams.

FIFA 23 was ruined by the depleted name pool for regens/youth scouts and the fact that every game apparently needs to finish 5-5.

FIFA 21 is my current go-to as it seems to have the best balance of decent gameplay mixed with it actually working instead of being glitched.

All these games could've been great if EA weren't lazy shit stains who apparently don't understand what beta testing is for.

[brendanagnew]

13 is the goat nostalgia plays a big factor for sure but it’s a drug I’ve been chasing in all fifa games since