How realistic are sports games?

It’s a conversation that’s been played out inside countless teenage bedrooms and in front of innumerable games consoles. Soon after slipping a clean, crisp disk into the tray, players begin to mull over just how akin to real life their new found digital experience really are.

Are the movements of the in-game characters worthy of Vesalius? Do the graphics and models respond to wind effects, heat haze and wear and tear? Do bullets respond to the laws of ballistics? It can be a pedantic argument, sure, but realism in games is a great way to measure how advanced games have got and how much effort designers put into the game. With this in mind then, are today’s sports games suitably realistic? Do these games even need to feel like they’re real?

Let’s look at one of the most popular sports gaming franchises, FIFA. The game has been a perennial hit since 1993, and each year millions delve in to their favourite football franchise for a dose of friendly competition and sporty excitement, and much of this excitement has been provided by the series’ new engine, Ignite. The engine has been key to much of the touted realism endemic within the series. The graphics are extremely realistic; players’ kits ripple and crease with every passing step and the faces of current football greats look near-photorealistic.

These are, of course, superficial things to focus upon, but even looking past the aesthetics one can see glimmers of ‘real life’. ‘True Player Motion’ features make the movements of players near-real, and combatants’ ‘Human Intelligence’ allows for an engrossing and challenging experience. In Madden 25, gamers can even change slider settings – quarterback completion percentages, defensive player drop rate, etc – to find the perfect dose of ‘realism’ that works for them. Still though, this isn’t true realism.

Games simply can’t currently provide real-life experiences. Take sports betting, something that millions of fans and sportsmen enjoy every week. For now, at least, we have to make do with using websites such as Bookies in order to place bets and wagers and access the latest sporting news. In games, the absence of the infinitesimal character traits, effects on morale and behind-the-scenes fracas means that we will (for a few years at least) be able to turn on a game and play without being presented with hitherto unseen challenges.

Do we want complete realism, however? Part of the fun of games is being able to learn their ins and outs, the tiny glitches one can exploit to get ahead of your buddies, the little exploits that, you know, make a game just that – a game. Assembling an all-star team of players only to have the squad bite and head butt their way into a ban would simply not be fun, and having to micromanage the off-pitch exploits of players would soon become rather boring.

Realism does have a place in sports games, but let’s not get carried away so much that we lose sight of the fact that games are really just entertainment.