Interview: David Rutter, Executive Producer on FIFA 13

At a recent preview event for FIFA 13, we got the chance to sit down with the series executive producer, David Rutter. With the game still five months from release the focus was squarely on gameplay, so sadly no questions regarding new modes, Kinect functionality or the Wii U.

In our brief eight minutes together (as you can imagine he’s a busy man) we got the chance to talk new features, parking the bus, and the effect FIFA 13’s having on David’s co-worker, Nick.

With last year’s emphasis on tactical defending, and this year’s push to improve the attacking side of the game, would you say FIFA 13 has a better overall balance between offensive and defensive play? 

I think last year’s tactical defending was exactly what we wanted, it totally changed the way you defended in the game, it opened up a lot of time and space. One American journalist said he felt nauseous every time he saw a defender coming towards him in FIFA 11. So getting rid of the “nausea” of having a homing missile defender launched up the pitch at you was important. I’m pleased that over 95% of our fans are still using tactical defending today. The counter point to that was when you were an attacker, the defenders were in a position to contain you and watch what you were up to. So you had a lot more time on the ball but you didn’t get the feeling of “OK here come my supporting attackers.” So now this year we’re introducing our attacking intelligence, having really decisive runs, having players curve to stay onside, having players curve in behind defenders to receive the ball, having passing channels created, and all those cool little things to get a dynamic attack going. As well as that the A.I. now being able to say “Hey, that guy over there is about to get the ball I should start my run now”, thinking two plays ahead. The ability for you as an attacker with the new complete dribbling system, to take the ball and experience that real enjoyment and fun of being able to express yourself in attack, is something we’re really excited about. All those things combined make a really compelling attacking package this year.

However if we just put all that in it would break the game, so we have to look and go OK that was wicked everyone but now let’s look over here because we just bust all this, and look at what tools can we give the defenders to compete with all these off the ball features and complete dribbling. So we said lets use the player impact engine to have push and pull, we can use the physicality of a defender to have him push a player and make him lose control of the ball, but we can also use the first touch control system to then win it back. Having all that frees up the ball and decides whether the player is actually able to keep control, and it adds a whole depth and nuance that wasn’t present in previous games.

So all of those things are tough to balance, but thankfully I have the most amazing group of people working with me on all of this stuff and I’m very, very lucky.

OK so you’ve added tonnes to the AI in terms of off the ball movements, but as you touched on there you’ve also added new features for when you’re on the ball. How much of a struggle is it to map these things to a controller? You almost get a Street Fighter feel to some of the inputs you need to memorise and pull off in recent FIFA games.

Complete dribbling is special because of two things, I think first the level of control you have over the player and the ball is unprecedented. It’s really enjoyable to the extent that Nick who I work with on a daily basis keeps coming into my office whenever he’s scored a goal or done anything and makes me go and watch the replay on his TV, going on about how he feels like a rockstar or a superstar, and this makes me feel like a football player, he gets a bit obsessed bless him *hello Nick!* Then the other side of it is we don’t that to be difficult for people, we want to have fun and enjoyment in our game too. So it will trigger automatically when it senses that in a real game you would want to have it there and then, and also you can trigger it manually by pulling the two triggers which is a pretty intuitive system for that. It almost makes skill moves for most people redundant, you don’t really need them to be a star on the ball now.

One of the key aspects of football is the mentality both teams have when going into a game, an example of this would be Chelsea’s compact defensive performances against Barcelona. Is this something we can expect to see in FIFA 13?

Not massively at the moment, the big impetus for this year has been to look at last year and see what really needs an overhaul or be updated, refining and responding to feedback. That level of tactical understanding like “Hey we’re Chelsea we need to qualify for the Champions League next year, lets park the bus” is not something our game currently understands but is definitely something I’d like to see in the future.

Shooting from outside the box in recent FIFA games has felt like a bit of a lost cause, with the emphasis this year on bringing the excitement and unpredictability of football into FIFA, has this been something you have addressed?   

It depends what player you’ve got, we’ve got the long shot statistic to track players that are good at it. Just last week I scored an amazing goal from outside the area, I received the ball and with the new first touch control it literally bobbed up into the air and I volleyed it straight in. So the idea is that those moments can happen, and do, we’re still tuning it and it’s something we did a lot of work on last year and we’re continuing it into 13. The volleys this year are significantly better, and the heading as well, the heading is a lot more powerful this time around, I think a lot of people found there wasn’t much point in the past because they were a little bit weak.

Then just like that, it was over. One of the key men responsible for FIFA’s massive success was gone, off to make sure that FIFA 13 was yet another recording break entry for the series. When speaking to Rutter I really got the impression he loves what he does, it’s a far cry from simply updating the kits each year and slapping a new footballer on the cover. FIFA 13 looks to be on course to trump last year’s entry and Konami will need to do something special if PES is to catch up. To find out more about the game check out our full hands-on preview.