FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 - On this day

Nowadays, players like to say that every next game in the FIFA series is the same as the last one. And if they don't say that, then they say it's worse than the previous one. But exactly 24 years ago, EA Sports surprised and delighted fans of virtual football by launching the title FIFA 98, or full name - FIFA: Road to World Cup 98.

Those who have been with the FIFA series since its beginnings about Fifa 98 had only the most beautiful words. it was a game that brought a huge leap in terms of content and gameplay and laid a solid foundation for Fife’s commercial dominance over other football video games over the next two decades.

FIFA 98 was not a football simulation and everyone knew it. However, EA Sport has made strides in gameplay so we could call the game an authentic football arcade. For example, it was the first game in the FIFA series to have a backhand rule implemented.

In terms of content, FIFA 98 was an almost unattainable game. She had as many as 172 national teams participating in the World Cup qualifiers in France. We haven’t seen so many national teams in one game in the next 13 years. There were also 11 leagues, 189 football clubs, and 16 stadiums in the game.

In addition to being able to play World Cup qualifiers and a bunch of other competitions in Fifa 98, we could replace the green turf with indoor football of 5 on 5 formats. This way of playing Fife - in the main game package - did not repeat itself until 2019.

FIFA 98 was also revolutionary in its presentation. It was one of the first football games in which footballers on the field had different faces. Also, the game triggered a trend of using licensed music (with the introductory theme of the band Blur), and the commentators were especially interesting, the most talkative we could listen to in a football game until then.

FIFA 98 had different covers for different markets, and on them were the then famous footballers David Beckham, David Ginola, Paolo Maldini, Andreas Mollner, and Raul. The main platforms for the game were the PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo 64, although there were also versions for Super Nintendo, Sega Mega Drive, Genesis, and Saturn.