Electronic Arts continues to assert total dominance on the digital football pitch with its Ultimate Team update, changing the way the game is played entirely and creating yet more daylight between itself and Konami’s PES series. Tasked with building your very own club from literally nothing (and inevitably naming it after yourself, you narcissist) Ultimate Team starts players with a squad of journeymen footballing types. From here it’s up to the individual to construct their club in any way they see fit: entering and winning tournaments and matches (both online and off) bestows the club with coins, which can then be spent buying football sticker style ‘packs’ containing players, managers and other tools to improve the club, kit, training drills and everything in between.

Is this the ultimate team?

Can’t find the player you want? The auction house enables users to trade or buy players between others online. It’s fantastically deep (if a little daunting for new players), and as your club grows in size and stature it’s impossible not to feel a little proud, the same feeling that used to pervade PES’s life-devouring Master League.