Ultimate Team

FIFA Ultimate Team, or FUT among friends, is one of the most popular modes in EA Sports' football simulator, and FIFA 14 was no exception. There has even been rumors about FUT becoming an independent platform with a free-to-play structure, although this is still nothing more than speculation.

The devotion to the mode is partly why we've created a dedicated FIFA Ultimate Team Facebook page, much like our Call of Duty: Friday Nights page, and in the coming weeks you can expect articles, news and features focusing on the mode appearing on both it and across the Gamereactor network. If you're as much a fan as some of us on the team are, you'll want to join up and join in the discussion.

To kick things off we decided to talk a little about the origins and the concept of FUT.

FIFA Ultimate Team acts almost as an independent platform inside FIFA. It has it's own menus within the game, unique mechanics and is compatible with specific Apps for mobile. The concept is simple - using real money or coins won while playing, gamers can purchase packs of cards that include players, coaches and accessories, like balls, stadiums, jerseys and contracts. Alternatively they can sell and buy loose cards in online auction houses. With these cards gamers must try to create a competitive team, with which they will compete in various tournaments and championships .

It is hard to think of FUT and not recall classic sticker books. The concept is similar, although the collecting part of FUT has been lost a bit over the years. When the mode was first introduced, interestingly in the UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 game (one of the few FIFA spin-offs based on Europe's premier tournament), it included a virtual album where players could store their cards, but this aspect of FUT dissipated over the years as gamers started to become more interested in creating competitive teams and less on collecting cards.

In part this is due to the the consistent introduction of tournaments and championships. The FIFA 14 FUT mode offers a good number of options, both solo against the AI, and online. There are several types of tournaments, with distinct limitations. In some you can only play with bronze players, in others you need/can only have three different nationalities in the team and so on. There's also a Championship, spread across different divisions, where gamers can try to get promoted.

There are many secrets to creating a winning team - formation, style of play, quality of players, efficient use of special cards and getting a high chemistry in the team. All this and more will be discussed in detail over the coming weeks and months.

You can have a peek at GR's official FUT Faceboook page. We're looking foward to hearing your feedback, and finding out about your teams and experiences. So join us and let us know what you would like to see and help us build the Ultimate GR FUT community.