FIFA 23: How does acceleRATE work?

FIFA 23 launches on September 27, but the team at EA Sports will slowly peel back the curtain over the summer to give fans a taste of what’s coming. July 27 brought the first gameplay deep dive, which introduced several new concepts, including acceleRATE. This new wrinkle into player motion could be game-changing in certain situations, so let’s take a look at how it works.

What are the acceleRATE archetypes?

As mentioned, acceleRATE is a new system that helps define player motion. This system gives players a “layer of personality” to the way they accelerate to top speed. Essentially, this means that certain players will move differently, allowing them to get to full speed faster or maintain it longer.

Related: FIFA 23: All confirmed FUT Heroes

Each player will fall into one of three archetypes: explosive, controlled, or lengthy. Think of the controlled archetype as the basic style. This is the archetype the devs say most players will fall under and it will provide a continuous acceleration up to max speed. Lengthy is reserved for defenders or tall, powerful attackers like Romelu Lukaku. Those players may not be able to fly out of the gates at top speed, but their long strides let them “get the edge over long distances.”

Finally, we have explosive players. These are going to be agile players in the midfield who might not have the best top-end speed but possess a great first step that lets them get space and distribute. In the deep end, they highlighted Liverpool’s Thiago as someone who can dart around an attacker to find the angle for a key pass even if he isn’t usually associated with long runs down the field.

All of this is coupled with several new running styles. We’ve seen players like Raheem Sterling and Erlind Haaland get their own running style in FIFA 22 and EA Sports is adding to that list with their next iteration. In combination, this should give players ever more control over how their star players perform on the field when FIFA 23 launches on September 27.