FIFA 13 Details Surface: What We Know So Far

According to the latest reports, work on FIFA 13 will commence sometime in October or November. Gamers and fans are expecting a host of changes and improvements with the game's engine as well as graphical output. So what kinds of improvements should we expect from the upcoming FIFA title?

Let's have a look on what we know so far.

Kinect support - FIFA 13 is expected to support Kinect in some sort of way. Although the inclusion of features such as the Player Impact system has come as a major breakthrough for the developers with the arrival of FIFA 12 since moving on to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the franchise now wants to go a step further to revolutionize the game.

According to producer David Rutter, the company is not going to reinvent a brand new Player Impact engine for next year because it is already future-proofing the game, and is, probably, not going to be quite as dramatic as far as technology is concerned.

Facial Capture - FIFA 13's pack of players are expected to be considerably easier on the eye compared to that of FIFA 12's footballers. This has been made possible by the new face capturing methods at Glasgow-based Dimensional Imaging.

We recognized a few years ago that raising the quality of facial appearance was an increasing priority for our game teams, Mike Harrison, director of EA Capture at Electronic Arts, said in a release. Working closely with Dimensional Imaging has allowed us to develop a highly accurate 3D facial capture pipeline that is now so efficient that we can apply it to more characters than we ever thought possible.

According to DI CEO Colin Urquhart in a report from the Official Xbox Magazine, the relentless increase in the quality of computer graphics makes it ever more necessary to capture real life human likenesses in order to create believable virtual characters, but this process has traditionally been very time consuming for video game development.

EA was one of the first developers to recognize the need for improved capture workflows, and working with them since EA Sports FIFA 10 has been instrumental in helping Dimensional Imaging to develop a product suite that is now suitable for even the most demanding development pipelines in the business, Urquhart added.

Other Features - Fans and techies believe that FIFA 13 will have 5 major improvements in the form of First Touch Control, Player Impact, Complete Dribble, Tactical Free-Kicks and Attacking AI.

The Player Impact Engine is expected to attain new highs with FIFA 13 and according to Rutter, the game will be free of unrealistic animations in the players challenges with less Physics bugs, that made innumerable videos on YouTube. The engine has been improved and new a set of impact values has been added at the hip and the upper body area, according to a DSO Gaming report.

There will also be a more realistic ball control and it will be difficult to control a receiving ball with your player. Everything will depend on the speed, the strength, the ball height and the technical skills of your player that will determine your control over the ball on the field.

In FIFA 13 you won't be able to dribble just by changing direction. What's more, the free-kick implementation has got a new system and up to three players can now gather around the ball. Players, now, can also maneuver a direct shot and adjust it to a player who comes off the wall. Also, the defense set pieces have been improved.

The CPU-controlled players will now get better running routes and better guessing options of where you pass the ball. The strikers are smarter now and will move with the offside line of your defenders.