A FIFA release wouldn’t be the same without a few issues. This year many EA SPORTS Season Ticket holders (including myself) have been complaining of a FIFA 14 Early Release freezing issue that causes your console to lock up at frequent intervals whilst trying to play the game.

[Edit: A temporary fix that’s worked for me is to stop sharing my info to EAS FC. To do this go to CUSTOMISE then ONLINE SETTINGS. Then go to PRIVACY SETTINGS and uncheck “Connect to your club in real life by sharing your account information and EAS FC progress subject to the club’s privacy policy.” Big thanks to adriani10 in the comments!]

FIFA 14 Early Release FreezingLike many of you I sat down at my Xbox yesterday at quarter to six and watched the EA SPORTS timer count down to reveal the FIFA 14 Early Release download. When it appeared I pressed A and waited patiently as the 7.4Gb file downloaded with the urgency of Harry Redknapp filling in a tax return. Then I waited some more.

Then I got a sandwich. Then I waited some more.

Then there it was. FIFA 14 had arrived!

I cranked it up and the menus looked slick. Much more intuitive than the previous versions. I had a look around the menus for a few minutes trying to get my bearings and then the screen froze.

No worries, it happens every now and again. I rebooted the console and started again. 5 more minutes in and it happens again… and again… and again.

Eventually, in a bid to stop the menu freezing, I started racing into games. I was impressed with the gameplay. The game seems much more controlled and strategic and there was a much better balance between strength and pace. 85 minutes into my first game the screen freezes again. By now I’m rather frustrated.

At the time of writing this I’m yet to finish a game on the FIFA 14 Early Release. Every single one has frozen. Early access for me is unplayable.

I’m sure the retail edition of the game will work fine but for those of us that fork out £16 specifically for FIFA  (on two accounts in my case) it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth.

Although there’s been no official line out of EA SPORTS yet about why it happens or if there’s a fix on the way there is a thread on their forums to report bugs and if it’s happening to you I’d advise you to let them know so they can get an idea of the scale.

I’m still staying positive about the improvements I’ve seen already in FIFA 14 but if the freezing continues for the whole of Early Release I for one will begrudge the money I’ve spent out to play the game (or not play the game in this case) early.

Is your FIFA 14 Early Release freezing? Have you managed to do anything to fix it?

13 Comments
  1. Medi September 22, 2013 at 6:01 pm

    Happen to me after every game after hitting advance. I still get the match coins which is a comfort but I loose the progress. Tried clearing the cache and now I have 48GB free space in the hard drive but same problem, the only temp fix I found is to quit just after the game instead of hitting the advance after each game, this way at least the PS3 console isn’t frozen and don’t need to switch it off manually. So frustrating though!

  2. Craig Cole September 22, 2013 at 8:33 pm

    @Medi I know what you mean. A lot of people on Twitter are complaining about racking up losses due to disconnections too. (or at least that’s their excuse ;))

  3. BennyAle September 23, 2013 at 10:59 am

    @Medi i can play normal games without a problem. but when i play in the ultimate team modus my console is freezing AFTER every game at the loading screen back to the menu.. i still get the coins but the i loose the progress as well.. so lol

  4. adriani10 September 23, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    I found the solution. The EASFC servers are the problem, I took the console off the servers and I was able to play for 4 hours straight without any freezes (I froze 10 times in less than 20 minutes before attempting this). I have friends with the full version of the game, and they say the game still freezes. Also, I noticed that when you play at odd hours, the game doesn’t freeze, then I realized, it doesn’t freeze because most of my friends are offline and i’m not getting their EASFC statuses on my FIFA. So, another solution is to delete people from your friends’ list (how many? I don’t know, I fear the numbers).

  5. Craig Cole September 23, 2013 at 7:04 pm

    adriani10 Thanks for the advice adriani – I’ll give it a shot!

  6. Craig Cole September 23, 2013 at 7:55 pm

    adriani10 That worked a treat! Thanks very much for letting me know! Much appreciated matey.

  7. Craig Cole September 23, 2013 at 7:55 pm

    Let us know if the temporary fix above works for you.

  8. ClarkHD September 25, 2013 at 3:42 pm

    Can’t believe I’ve actually managed to hold out and not crumble into getting the early release, next step not caving in and buying the 360 version and holding out for the Xbox One edition in November……..arggghh!

  9. wefg September 26, 2013 at 6:43 pm

    i have the disc version of FIFA14 and still have this freezing issue

  10. Craig Cole September 27, 2013 at 7:27 pm

    wefg I’ve just put the disc version in and it froze too. It’s unbelievable that a company as big as EA can release a game every year with something so major wrong with it.

  11. Craig Cole September 27, 2013 at 7:28 pm

    ClarkHD I wouldn’t worry Clarky, it might be fixed by the time you get it lol

  12. YusufJamaAhmed September 30, 2013 at 11:58 am

    doesnt work for me

  13. YusufJamaAhmed September 30, 2013 at 11:58 am

    i did everything and doesnt work and does creating player somethin to do with it

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