With the launch of FIFA 19 comes the final chapter of EA Sports’ acclaimed career and story mode: The Journey. In this year’s chapter — called ‘Champions’ — you’ll follow Hunter’s story towards its exciting conclusion, while also joining up with Kim Hunter and Danny Williams as they work and strive towards climbing the ranks of world football.
The Journey stands as a genuine contender to FIFA‘s Ultimate Team, and while it doesn’t quite have the lasting power of that mode, it’s well on the way to becoming one of the FIFA brand’s most popular modes.
With the story coming to a conclusion this year, it’s exciting to see what’s new and how Hunter’s story will finally come to an end, while also being within the capacity to switch between players and ride their journey alongside them to stardom. In this guide we’ll take you through those changes, as well as offer some tips on how to get the most out of the mode.
About The Journey
In FIFA 19‘s The Journey: Champions mode, you’ll play as an older and wiser Alex Hunter, an experienced football still hellbent on becoming the world’s greatest and best football star. You’ll also have a more detailed and deeper offering for both Kim and Danny. You met these two in last year’s iteration, but the offering here is far more structured, standing as their own standalone stories.
There’s no need to complete every story to actually “finish” The Journey: Champions, but in order to get the full experience it is recommend that you find the time to play through all three stories.
Further, the game actually tells you when you should switch between stories, and it is highly recommended that you take up this advice to ensure you get the most out of the developer’s intended story structure.
The Basics
If you’ve played or even just seen NBA 2K19‘s My Career mode, you’ll understand how things work in The Journey: Champions.
You’ll work to improve your game, build a fanbase, establish new sponsors, play well in matches, and boost your reputation among the league and world.
The better you perform, the more interaction you’ll have with fans and people of interest. This feeds into the type of experience available to you: the more people engaging, the more flexibility you’ll have to grow and improve as a footballer.
Skill Traits
As with the first two games, all three players will slowly improve as you play through The Journey. You’ll have the option to bring over your player from last year’s mode, or create a new version of Alex from scratch.
The more you train and play, the faster Alex, Kim and Danny will grow and improve their game styles. Skill Points are then used to upgrade specific skills, so choose wisely when considering where to spend these.
For example, there’s no point focusing exclusively on Penalties if any is a striker, because that’s not going to come in handy as often as say, strength or pace.
Responses
There’s no real “end game” to The Journey: Champion, as the entire experience is built around the balancing act between manager and fans: do you appease fans by talking out against a struggling manager, but risk playing time, or do you support the coach and lose fans in the process?
If you can find that sweet spot, The Journey can last for a long time. Once all three reach a point where he/she can’t get a game, it’s game over.
Interestingly, and much like the past two years, the decisions you make during dialogue don’t really have much of an affect on how the mode and games process.
Ideally what you want to do is have a good relationship with the Manager, because he’s going to be the one dictating your playing time, and the more playing time, the easier it is for you to perform well and rank of quickly.
You have three choices when responding to someone:
- Fiery
- Balanced
- Cool
These choices will shape the fan meter and how popular and attractive you are to sponsors, but, again, it’s all about how to manager sees you. You probably want a good balance between team player rank and fan rank, without going in one way or the other so as to lose out on the benefits in that specific area.
That said, playing well and dominating matches will generate a fan following and attract sponsors, so, really, these dialogue responses don’t matter too much.
Here are the responses for each respective character that will earn each specific boost:
Fan Boost
If the character responds with the below choice, this will impact their fan rating, generating more sponsors, but losing standing with the manager:
- Alex – Fiery
- Danny – Showman
- Kim – Brash
Manager Boost
Boosting this area will ultimately lead to more time on the pitch, but will lead to fewer fans, and therefore fewer sponsorship opportunities.
- Alex – Cool
- Danny – Swagger
- Kim – Nerder
Gameplay Tips For A High Match Rating
- While you can opt to play as the entire team, you should play as either character during matches as this will ensure they get the highest rank possible. The downside of this is that you need to rely on the AI to play with, however if you control the whole team it’s unlikely that our heroes will perform as well than if you were to control him exclusively.
- Stay active and involved, but don’t force passes, call too much, or take silly, bad shots.
- In defense, play it safe, don’t try and take on the whole team. Kick back, get off a long kick, and do whatever is necessary to release the ball out of defense as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
Other Important Tips
You’ll travel the globe and play for a number of different teams, with sponsorship deals flowing in, but plenty of highs and lows along the way.
While it’s scripted just as last year’s mode was, it’s still possible to fail and lose completely, as hard as that is (the difficult meter in games is lowered significantly, so if you’re a FIFA veteran you won’t have any issues).
Here are some tips to help you along the way:
- The primary goal is to balance relationships: if you get angry and worked up and defensive during an interview, it might earn your followers, but you might get in the bad books of your team and manager. If you have less influence, then those followers are pointless, and you’ll lose fans and eventually sponsors.
- Manage your relationship with the manager at all times. The more you play, the more your player will learn, and the more flexibility you have to improve. Get on the manager’s good side, and eventually the sponsorship deals and fans will come.
- While you can play as the whole team during matches, it’s recommended you play as the hero and only our hero during matches. The AI simply isn’t good enough to dictate his positioning. It’s much easier to get a good match and managing rating when playing exclusively as one of the three as opposed to controlling the whole team.
- Regarding skills and attributes, it’s probably best to focus on each player’s passing, stamina and specific skill moves before anything else, as these are the areas that have the most influence during matches.
Got any tips for FIFA 19’s The Journey mode? Sound off in the comments below!
