Following EA Play, FIFA 20 was revealed to the world with an in-depth look at the new VOLTA mode reminiscent of the old FIFA Street games. However, that left FIFA fans hungry for information on the game's returning game modes, especially Career Mode.
While Ultimate Team receives a lot of love each year, Career Mode hasn't changed much in recent times. In fact, the only new feature in FIFA 19 was reskinned menus for Champions League and Europa League games which didn't go down overly well with seasoned players of the game type.
EA has revealed it will talk about FIFA 20's Career Mode changes at the end of July but, seeing as that's still a month away, here are five updates Goal are hoping for.
Improve fixture scheduling
This has been an issue for a while. Stamina is an integral part of Career Mode which becomes much harder to manage when you have to play two games in consecutive days - that should never happen.
Of course, the fixture list in England is a brutal one, many managers have come over from abroad and expressed their frustration with that, but the season is long enough to accommodate this.
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Hopefully, this will only take a simple bug fix from EA and then our players will finally have at least some time to rest before the next match, though of course having a second rotational line-up will still be needed.
Control the club's development
This was something that you could do back in FIFA 07 and could be greatly built upon in this generation.
Making decisions such as deciding ticket prices, applying for an extension to the seating in your stadium or improving your training facilities would rejuvenate the mode - especially if those decisions had a direct impact on the game.
After turning your club into a top team, you should be able to attract more fans and consequentially you might have a bigger transfer budget. Hire a new staff member such as an attacking coach so that your strikers reach their potential faster. You see where we're going.
One positive change that was recently made to Career Mode was the introduction of more specific targets for each club. This could tie in perfectly to controlling club development as reaching each objective should directly reward you i.e. if branding is your main objective and you sign a star striker, you could extend the stadium at the end of the season.
More realistic AI transfers
Another common complaint for the last few FIFAs is you would see the same signing happen in all of your saves. A bit more variety would be massively appreciated for keeping each season fresh. And, at the same time, AI transfers should evolve.
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Manchester United don't need to sign three strikers during the first transfer window and end up with Icardi, Griezmann and Werner warming their bench. Instead, their targets should change depending on the needs of the squad. Again, this is a technical issue but should be possible considering how much more powerful consoles have become and how other games handle AI transfers.
Better storylines
One of the stalest parts of Career Mode at the moment are the few storylines that happen each season. Other than the odd player wanting to leave because of a lack of playing time or perhaps the British weather, there really isn't much interaction between you and your players.
Your players should act like people, some should have poor discipline off the pitch, maybe they'll publicly flirt with another club or have their head turned by newspaper rumours. Extra challenges like this would be a breath of fresh air - especially if you can choose how you respond to players' actions i.e. handing them a fine or keeping your faith in them to perform.
Press conferences could become a much more interesting tool too. Handling press rumours about your player's future could actually have an impact on your club's branding.
EA could take a page out of The Journey's book with calm or heated replies which would even increase your club's brand or the board's and players' happiness with you. Small things like this would make Career Mode much more dynamic and exciting.
Overhaul player development
A highlight of Career Mode is developing young players into superstars and, while training is supposed to speed that process up, it can be pretty tedious. Playing skill games every week is very time consuming, especially if you're repeating the same ones each in-game week.
There's little variety and you probably end up simming the training instead. Plus, it's also limited to progressing five players at a time which significantly slows things down.
All of your players should be able to develop at once and again this links back into club development.
Improving training facilities and hiring new staff would be a more efficient way of growing your players without having to play 63-rated players in the first team just in the hope of them reaching their potential.
And, on top of that, youth player development could do with an overhaul too. You should have an entire youth team whose progress can be tracked as they play in youth league games each week and those that perform well can then be signed professionally to train with the first team and grow even quicker.
Potential plays a huge part in Career Mode so streamlining the way to develop players would be a welcome change.