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Tour de France 2020 PS4 online FUT mode – First Look

Cyanide have released more details about their upcoming Tour de France game, which is still the only Tour de France you’re going to get in June and July. This time it’s how the FUT-style multiplayer mode works.

The Tour de France games have always had online racing, and it’s always been moderately good, while also demonstrating that all the fun ideas we daydreamed about back in the mid-2000s are less workable in practice. Last year, bowing to pressure from 14 year olds on their forums and presumably their publisher too, Cyanide released a patch with the addition of a FUT-style mode. It returns this year with major improvements.

Fifa Ultimate Team is a Fifa game mode designed to make children spend their parents’ credit card balances on virtual card packs. In Fifa, you unlock players with cards to build your online team, and manage and upgrade those players using more cards. With challenges to unlock better players and a random number generator that isn’t too kind, it soon becomes an interminable grind that makes you want to bust out the credit card in hope of a shortcut.

It’s also turned Fifa from “alright I’ve beaten the Champions League with Hull City, now I’ll only play this with friends when we come home drunk at 2am” to “my wife is leaving me because I’ve wasted 3,000 hours on this game and spent nearly $500 on it this week, by the way have you got an Eden Hazard to trade?”

It’s addictive, fun, and gives you a personal stake in your own Skinner Box hell. There’s definitely a place for it in a game series that otherwise offers only a fleeting, slow-paced thrill.

The online game mode is faster-paced, 10-15 minutes, and involves less management due to you only being directly responsible for two riders. It’s lap-based, so you can have weird uphill crits, and you’re racing for points instead of time (though they basically work the same).

There are cards for things like mechanics and equipment that give you boosts. And you can inevitably buy more cards in random packs with both in-game currency and real money that you should be spending on energy gels or tire levers instead.

Will it be good? Or will you constantly get skinned by a Danish teenager who has a 120% rated Chris Froome and a three-syringe version of Michele Ferrari? The latter is certain, but hopefully the first is true too.

Here’s their press release, which starts with an apology for how bad the feature was in last year’s edition. Interesting strategy. Cyanide, if you’re reading, let us write your English press releases. We do it for other French brands and don’t even include jokes about poo or willies.

Last year, on the occasion of the release of Tour de France 2019, we introduced the Multiplayer Mode for the first time in the history of the game. However, this first iteration did not finally meet our and your standards in terms of quality, we sincerely apologize for that.For Tour de France 2020, stability and matchmaking were our priorities so that your gaming experience would be improved. The mode will be very similar to what you saw last year with some improvements such as:

  • Each point earned allows you to earn additional Cycling Points.
  • Cyans allow you to buy Cycling, Equipment and Sports Director Cards.
  • Promotional offers are offered every day. In order to guarantee fairness between the players.
  • It is not possible to buy the same runner card several times to improve their level.
  • The Collection menu has been revamped.

Below, you will find an overview of the Multiplayer mode to understand the basics and how the cards system works.Regarding the availability of this mode, due to the exceptional situation that we have experienced in recent months with the COVID-19, the Multiplayer Mode will not be available during the launch on June 4, but slightly later (late June / early July). Once we have a more specific date to communicate, we will let you know!

The Basics

  • Each player creates a Mountain team, a Hill team and a Flat team. Each team consists of 2 Leaders, who you control during the races, and 6 Team-mates, who grant stat bonuses.
  • 2 to 4 players compete on a randomly chosen Mountain, Hill or Flat circuit, in 10- to 15-minute games.
  • A race consists of 3 laps. Points are earned on each lap based on your position. At the end of the race, the player with the most points is declared the winner. The closer you are to the finish line, the more points are awarded; so never quit! Each point earned allows you to earn additional Cycling Points.
  • Your rank in the world leaderboard rises or falls based on each race won or lost.

The online mode also includes a store where you can buy cards. These cards unlock cyclists and temporary bonuses that improve your team’s performance. To keep the online matchups fair and balanced, you will always be competing against teams of a similar level to you.

Build a team with your cards

You need to choose 2 Leader cyclists for each team based on the Cyclist cards you have available and your preferences.Each Cyclist card has a level: the higher the level, the higher the cyclist’s stats. Obtaining several copies of the same card will increase its level.You can improve the stats of your Leaders with different support cards:

  • 1 Sports Director card
  • 2 Equipment cards: a frame and wheels. The effect of any attribute shared between these two cards is enhanced!
  • 6 Team-mate cards, 3 for each Leader

Finally, you can use various consumables to temporarily upgrade the characteristics of your cards:

  • A Mechanic extends the life of a piece of Equipment
  • An Engineer enhances the effect of a piece of Equipment
  • A Trainer improves the stats of a Leader
  • A Contract extends the duration of a Sports Director’s contract

Just using the best racers doesn’t guarantee victory; you need to consider the team’s cohesion and rating.Team rating refers to your team’s potential. When you start an online game, you will always compete against players with a team rating similar to yours.Cohesion refers to the overall understanding between members of your team. The higher it is, the more your Leaders will receive stat bonuses. Cohesion depends on two aspects:

  • Understanding between Leaders and the Sports Director is greater if they share the same nationality, the same terrain specialisation and if they come from the same team. Understanding is separate for each Leader: your Sports Director could have 3 points in common with one of your Leaders and none with the second.
  • The attributes of your frame and wheels: each Equipment card has two attributes. If your two Equipment cards have an attribute in common, this grants a bonus to your Leaders. If your two Equipment cards have both attributes in common, the bonus is even bigger.

How do I obtain more cards?

You start the online mode with enough cards to play your first online games. There are three ways to obtain new cards.

  1. At the end of each race, you receive Cycling Points based on your performance. With Cycling Points you can buy card packs in the game store without spending real money.
  2. You also obtain cards at the end of each race.
  3. Cyans can be bought with real money from the game store, PlayStation™Store and Xbox Marketplace (not available on Steam). Cyans allow you to buy cycling, equipment and sports director cards. Promotional offers are offered every day. In order to guarantee fairness between the players, it is not possible to buy the same runner card several times to improve their level.