It's as if I am transported back in time to my childhood, sitting in front of my old beige Windows 95 PC. I can vividly visualize the mysterious Turbo button on its face and the encyclopedic knowledge of autoexec.bat and config.sys files flooding back into my memory.

Memories of the struggle to free up even a few kilobytes of conventional memory come back to me. This is how I feel as I try to run FIFA 23 on my PC. Fortunately, I have the internet at my disposal to help me troubleshoot the issues preventing the game from running.

Trying to run FIFA 23 on my PC feels like a journey back in time to the late 90s, when launching games from a GUI in Windows 95 was a herculean feat, and one would never know if the game would boot up or what hoops needed to be jumped through to run it.

It's been six months since FIFA 23 launched, yet it's still in such a state that running it is unpredictable from day to day, making me feel like I'm reliving the struggles of my childhood. Thankfully, I can leverage the power of the internet to search for solutions to the frustrating issues plaguing the game's performance.

It's mind-boggling to me that in 2023, FIFA 23 still suffers from issues that plagued it at launch, making it unpredictable whether the game will even run. Personally, I lost interest in the game shortly after its release and only recently picked it up again for a co-op career mode with a friend.

I assumed that in the months since release, the issues would have been fixed, but to my dismay, Electronic Arts' Anticheat system is still causing problems for PC users. It's so effective in stopping cheaters that it prevents legitimate players from even booting the game. It's frustrating that such issues persist and mar the gameplay experience for those who just want to enjoy the game.

Also Read: FIFA 23: Why Ignoring META Will Help You Win?

Surprisingly, FIFA 23 has gotten worse recently as Electronic Arts dumped Origin and mandated the use of the EA app, creating several issues in the process. Many players have been affected by this move, and what was once a stable installation has now become an impossible task to boot into FIFA 23.

Although FIFA hasn't traditionally been a PC game, it has now become so outdated that it feels like we're back in the days of DOS. As a football game enthusiast, I've been playing games like Kick Off, Sensi, Champ/Football Manager, Pro Evo, and FIFA for decades, but I have never experienced such frustrating issues as with FIFA 23. Despite its iconic status, the game has regressed in functionality rather than progressed, bringing back some of the long-forgotten challenges of PC gaming.

Perhaps there won't be another FIFA game because Electronic Arts will be ceasing its licensing agreement with one of the most historically corrupt organizations in sport.

As a result, there may be little incentive for the publisher to fix the issues plaguing FIFA 23 and make it a memorable final version. It's better for EA if FIFA 23 leaves a sour taste in players' mouths, forging no continued attachment to the franchise.

It may or may not interest you to know that I have finally found a method to boot FIFA 23 relatively consistently, but it involves a combination of different steps, with the hope that one of them will eventually work. Unfortunately, it requires me to sit through a series of processes, such as starting the EA app, launching the game, and enduring crashes before ending tasks, uninstalling and reinstalling apps, and tweaking settings that I'm not entirely comfortable with.

Eventually, something will click, and FIFA 23 will finally boot up. The critical factors that seem to have an impact are either uninstalling and reinstalling the EA Anticheat software while updating it, or temporarily disabling real-time virus protection. However, disabling virus protection doesn't feel great, to be honest.

It's a shame that I am enjoying FIFA 23 to get cards, rewards or FUT 23 Coins, despite the issues I have faced getting it to function properly. After tweaking the game's sliders, playing FIFA feels much more like traditional football.

My League One sluggers play more like a pub team, taking away the polished superstar quality of the game. But with two young children, I have very little game time, and every minute is precious.

When it comes to deciding which game to play, I have to take into account the time it takes to load FIFA, which makes the experience feel more like a throwback to my Commodore 64 days when loading games from tapes required leaving the room and hoping that it had loaded correctly. As much as I enjoy playing, it's not worth the hassle sometimes.

It's hard to look back at the days of tilting tape decks or fighting for that last bit of conventional memory with rose-tinted glasses. Nostalgia won't make me miss those moments. Similarly, I won't continue fussing with FIFA 23 either, as the game's issues have become too frustrating to bother with.