Picture this: You boot up your console or PC to start your Ultimate Team journey. You work through the start menu and start crafting your first squad, only to notice that the FIFA 23 chemistry system is completely different from past versions of the game.
This scenario has left many like-minded players wondering the same thing: how does the chemistry system work in FIFA 23? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered in this FIFA 23 chemistry guide.
This article will discuss the changes in chemistry compared to FIFA 22 and how to create a team with maximum chemistry in FIFA 23. Understanding all of this will be essential if you wish to start completing the advanced Squad Building Challenges.
How Does Chemistry Work in FIFA 23?
Now that squad chemistry has been removed, more focus has been placed on improving individual player chemistry in your starting eleven.
Every player can obtain as many as three chemistry points, so each individual player’s chemistry score will be between zero and three.
In total, three major factors determine your Ultimate Team’s chemistry score for all the players in your first team:
Preferred Position
A player from your starting XI can only gather chemistry and build their score if they are playing in their preferred starting position.
If a player has alternate positions apart from their preferred starting position, you will have to apply a position modifier to start them in that position and earn chemistry points.
Chemistry Thresholds
If a player in your first team plays in their preferred position, they will add one increment to your Country, League, and Club chemistry thresholds.
The more players you add that match the same country, league, or club as other players in your first team, the more chemistry points you will manage to accrue.
Depending on how many players you have in your first team that shares the same country, club, or league, you can accrue as many as three chemistry points.
Manager Bonus
Finally, your chosen manager can add one chemistry point to each player in your starting eleven that shares the same region, country, or league as that manager.
How to Increase Chemistry
As we have already discussed, in FIFA 23, chemistry will work on a zero to three scale. To ensure you gain full chemistry, each player must have three points.
There are three options you can utilize to gain chemistry:
Club
- Two players from an identical club are worth one point.
- Five players from an identical club are worth two points.
- Nine players from an identical club are worth three points.
League
- Three players from the same league are worth one point.
- Six players from the same league are worth two points.
- Ten players from the same league are worth three points.
Nation
- Three players from the same nation are worth one point.
- Six players from the same nation are worth two points.
- Ten players from the same nation are worth three points.
Real Life Example
For example, if you played John Stones and Kyle Walker on the same team, you would gain the following chemistry points:
- 2/3 for league criteria – worth 0 points.
- 2/3 for national criteria – worth 0 points.
- 2/2 for club criteria – worth 1 point.
Therefore, in this example, you would game one chemistry point, assuming the rest of your team doesn’t impact these scores.
To achieve full chemistry, you have several options available:
- Add one more English player to gain one more point.
- Add one more Premier League player to gain one more point.
- Add four more English players to gain two more points.
- Add four more Premier League players to gain two more points.
- Add three more Manchester City players to gain two more points.
So, if you added Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, and Kevin De Bruyne to your team, you’re onto a chemistry winner!
How Has Chemistry Changed in FIFA 23?
Chemistry has slowly evolved across FIFA games for many years and has become an increasingly essential aspect of any winning Ultimate Team squad.
In its infancy, chemistry in Ultimate Team was extremely simple, using basic logic such as players who played in the same league or from the same country to gain full chemistry.
This initial implementation was a huge hit with players and led to FIFA coming up with more advanced chemistry versions inside Ultimate Team.
In more recent iterations of the franchise, new ways of gaining chemistry have been added, including icons, position modifiers, and perfect links to gain a fully connected squad of players.
FIFA 23 Ultimate Team has completely overhauled the chemistry system.
The aim of switching up the chemistry system in Ultimate Team was to achieve certain goals:
- Allow players to access a wider range of player selections, increasing squad variety and allowing for more diverse teams by removing positional links.
- Make squad building easier by implementing more intuitive mechanics in essential areas to make the experience more authentic and rewarding.
- Remove common issues, including lower player attributes due to low chemistry.
On top of that, EA has also gotten rid of the negative impact that low chemistry used to have on attributes. Now, players always play with their item’s attributes as a minimum, and chemistry gets treated as a boost.
Squad chemistry has been completely removed, so players’ focus must be entirely on individual player chemistry.
Positional links have also been scrapped, and players can link and impact chemistry scores no matter where they are on the pitch.
Chemistry in FIFA 22: The Old System
Here is a quick breakdown of what chemistry in FIFA 22 looked like:
- Overall chemistry – this figure was hidden and based on your player’s team chemistry and individual player chemistry. If you achieve high overall chemistry, your player attributes will increase, and vice versa for low overall chemistry.
- Team chemistry – scored out of 100 and based on your entire team.
- Individual player chemistry – scored out of 10 for every individual player.
How You Could Increase Chemistry in FIFA 22 Ultimate Team
Team chemistry and individual player chemistry increased based on similar aspects in FIFA 22, based on several factors.
For the best possible results in FIFA 22, players would strive to get 100 team chemistry and 10 individual player chemistry, but individual chemistry had a more significant impact on calculating the overall chemistry, so focusing on that as priority number one was essential.
Whilst 100 was the highest team chemistry shown on screen, your squad would actually have more chemistry – and higher attributes overall – if each individual player had 10 chemistry (totaling 110 chemistry).
How to Increase Chemistry in FIFA 22
- Player position: A player’s position, highlighted under their card, will show as green, yellow, or red. If red, the player is completely out of position, negatively impacting the player and team chemistry. Yellow is if the player is slightly out of position, slightly impacting team and individual chemistry, and green is for perfect positioning, which will positively impact player and team chemistry.
- Player links: This term reflects the colored lines between players, which will be red, yellow, or green. The line’s color is based on how linked the two players are. For example, if the two players are from the same team, in the same league, and from the same country, then the chemistry line will be green. If the players meet none of those criteria, the color will be red, and if the players only meet some requirements, the line will be yellow.
- Manager: Similar to how player links work, a manager’s impact on player and team chemistry is based on the league they manage in and their nationality.
- Loyalty: Any player that has played more than ten matches for your team will gain a loyalty bonus, which increases the player’s chemistry by one.
Key Takeaways
The FIFA 23 chemistry system has changed how players build their Ultimate Teams going forwards. The system potentially opens up more choices when making hybrid squads compared to previous seasons.
Are you pleased with the changes to the chemistry system in FIFA 23?
Up next: check out our guide to the best full-chemistry silver team in FIFA 23. That team will come in pretty handy for Silver Lounge and Silver Cup objectives!