It's difficult to recognise granular changes in seemingly constant things. You don't really notice a tree growing every year, but when you put those years together, the difference becomes apparent to the naked eye. The erstwhile FIFA series of football sims is somewhat like that. With a new edition released every year, the changes to the long-running and ridiculously popular sports franchise can be imperceptible over a year, or even more. These games only start feeling new after three or four subsequent editions when Electronic Arts is compelled to re-energise the series after a run of games becomes undeniably stale. To me, FIFA has always existed in eras. A spate of games follows the same language with minor improvements and tunings, before EA decides to freshen things up.