Brace yourself: EA Sports has been at the proper nouns cupboard again. This year, EA Sports FC 24 - the replacement for FIFA 24 - is bringing a range of off-pitch enhancements, which I will smash through with as much combined detail and swiftness as is appropriate below. But on the pitch, having played quite a few games of standard, one-on-one friendlies against an old friend-slash-rival, I'm not sure it feels hugely different.
The general sentiment in the room, out at EA Sports' big reveal event in Amsterdam ("the home of modern football"), is that it was maybe a bit slower, that there are some neat new animations, and that much of this pre-beta press build will probably - and naturally, given how early it is and how important balance is - be completely changed by the time the game launches this September anyway.
Still, we go again. This year, EA Sports executive producer John Shepherd says, is set to be the "biggest leap in technology and immersion that football has ever seen." There's lots of talk about EA Sports' big buzzwords for the year - "authenticity and innovation", plus a slightly worrying obsession with triangles - but in real terms, that results in a range of changes to just about every mode, including, would you believe it, Career Mode too.