Honestly, I really want to know what happened to EA FC’s color grading. Why does the game look so exaggerated and cartoonish? Was this visual direction intentional? Did the developers deliberately push the game toward a Fortnite-like look, or is it simply the result of poor artistic taste? It’s unbelievable that we now have to get frustrated even about the game’s color grading. When I watch EA FC, it feels as if cartoon characters are moving around on the pitch.
And don’t even get me started on the player modeling. The scale of the problem is hard to describe. So many years have passed, and the developers still haven’t reached even the minimum standards for realistic body modeling in a football simulation. What is actually happening inside the EA FC development team? Why is there so much stagnation and so little visible progress?
View attachment 435318 View attachment 435319
Game engines and development tools have advanced enormously, yet the developers still seem stuck on the most basic foundations of building a convincing football simulation, repeating the same shortcomings year after year. Just look at the body modeling in the PES series. Look at Coutinho’s model, for example. That series had at least reached a respectable standard in this area. And I have to say it: the Lighting and color grading and HDR presentation in PES 2019 were excellent.
Konami used Enlighten technology in PES 2019 the same technology designed for
Global Illumination and natural indirect light bounce. As a result, sunlight, stadium floodlights, shadows, and even the colors of the grass and the stands looked far more natural and believable. PES 2019 also added support for 4K and HDR, which significantly improved the overall visual presentation, color depth, and lighting quality.That is one of the reasons why many players still consider PES 2019 to have one of the best lighting and color-grading systems ever seen in a football game.
View attachment 435316 View attachment 435320
I honestly feel like we’ve lost everything. The problems are not one or two isolated issues. Wherever you look, there is an ocean of design problems across the EA FC series, and there is barely any sign of hope.The developers don’t seem to pay special attention to either player modeling or the game’s color grading. And the lighting system is another huge discussion on its own. A large part of it still feels outdated and heavily static, especially during overcast daytime matches, where the lighting on many surfaces appears to be rendered in a static, pre-baked way rather than reacting dynamically to the environment.
They actually have no idea how to do it, do they?