FIFA 14's next-gen Ignite engine won't be coming to PC

As part of last night's Xbox One reveal, EA introduced Ignite, the shiny new engine that'll power their next-gen sporting titles - including the upcoming FIFA 14. EA say Ignite will allow them to deliver better physics, AI and animation to the pitch. And after year upon year of minor iterations, a dramatic overhaul to the underlying EA Sports tech sounds rather exciting. Which makes it all the more annoying that the engine won't be coming to PC.

The news came from FIFA's Community Manager Rob Hodson:

Clarification for the PC related questions earlier - EA SPORTS IGNITE will power FIFA 14 on Xbox One and PS4, not PC bit.ly/192nrNz May 21, 2013

Essentially, EA Sports are scoring the same PC own goal as last ~~season~~ generation: withholding the most advanced version of their engine. It wasn't until FIFA 11 that PC gamers finally caught up with the series' current generation engine. How long are we going to have to wait for feature parity this time?

More than ever, the next generation of consoles have PC architecture running through them. On a technical level, it's not like a publishing house as large as EA couldn't port their engine. Instead, for whatever reason, they won't.

It's a real shame to see. While PCs can absolutely keep up with the upcoming console hardware in terms of power and capability, it seems we still can't prevent game makers from giving them an artificial boost.

Thanks, DSO Gaming .

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.