Over the last few decades, soccer (or football, if you’re not from the US like me) hasn’t changed much. Sure, there are new rules, improved tactics, and so much more money involved in the modern game – but at its heart, it’s still all about kicking a ball into a goal more than the other team. So how does a series like EA Sports FC improve each year when the sport it’s emulating isn’t introducing massive changes? For me, it’s about quality-of-life updates, and FC 26 has those in spades. It’s filled with small adjustments that make this one of the best versions of the beautiful game in the last several years, from stickier dribbling and crisper passing to smarter goalkeeper positioning. Unfortunately, the goodwill those changes garner have also been undercut by some of the most aggressive microtransactions EA has ever introduced. So while FC 26 is inching in the right direction, that progress is primarily kept to the pitch.
A phenomenal example of this is the new gameplay presets. In the past, everyone was using the same gameplay style, whether diving into competitive games in Ultimate Team or trying to win the league against CPU opponents in Manager Mode. This year, EA has split things between two different presets: Competitive and Authentic. With the Competitive preset, you can expect the fast-paced action and smarter AI teammates that you might be used to from previous FC/FIFA games. Meanwhile, Authentic will feel more realistic to what you see on the real-life pitch every weekend. Players are slower, and you need to use your tactical intelligence to get into scoring position.
The most important part of this change is that these two options do not impact each other. That means EA can tune Competitive mode however is needed without changing the balance of Authentic mode, something they couldn’t do in previous versions of FC. People come to FC 26’s various modes for different reasons: Career Mode players want a game that plays as close to real-life as possible, while Ultimate Team and Clubs players want fair and balanced online competition. Those two ideals have sometimes worked against each other in the past, so giving us two totally separate gameplay styles is a great way to serve both communities.
What’s strange about the implementation is that the Authentic preset is restricted to offline modes only. That means you can’t even use it in your Squad Battles matches despite them being the only single-player content in Ultimate Team. It’s something I hope is added in the future, as it feels odd not to include all of the single-player content by default, especially when it does exactly that with the new version of the Season Pass.
Before diving into some of the other positive changes, let’s go over that Season Pass, as it’s one of the biggest points of contention for me. Last year, EA introduced a paid Season Pass into FC 25 toward the end of the cycle, so we knew this was coming, but seeing it drop on day one does sting. You can ignore it and stick with the free version of the pass, or even earn enough in-game currency to buy it without spending real-world money, but I would argue that this might be the worst version of a Season Pass we’ve seen in a sports game yet.
The issue with FC 26’s Season Pass is that you’re not just earning rewards for Ultimate Team, where people are already (unfortunately) conditioned to spend money. You’re also earning a ton of rewards for Clubs, Player Career, and Manager Career. The latter is where things really get icky, because one of the big draws for FC 26 is that Icons and Heroes are finally available in Manager Mode. For the first time ever, you can take classic players like Luis Figo, Toni Kroos, and Julie Foudy and put them into your Manager Mode saves. It should be a revelation, but instead, EA made the strange decision to lock many of these players behind the Season Pass.
There are several reasons this is frustrating. The first is that you probably won’t be able to acquire enough XP for them by playing either Manager or Player Career Mode alone. EA might implement more ways for non-Ultimate Team players to earn XP, but with how things are currently constructed, you’ll need to dive into that lootbox opening simulator or open your wallet if you want to finish enough of the pass to claim Career Mode rewards like Gianfranco Zola, Miroslav Klose, and Park Ji-Sung. Even as someone who primarily plays Ultimate Team, this change sucks.
And keep in mind, this is only the first Season Pass. If FC 26 continues to lock Icons and Heroes behind future passes, we’ll likely see desirable players like Ronaldinho, Toni Kroos, and Johan Cruyff tucked behind a paywall as well. It’s an unfortunate situation that reeks of EA trying to get even more money out of its playerbase than usual. It’s bad enough that Ultimate Team players are being milked dry, but now you can’t even enjoy your offline Career Mode without feeling the pull to spend money. Forcing this Season Pass on everyone feels like a bridge too far, even for EA.
What makes this situation all the more painful is that most of the modes feature fun updates on their tried and true formulas this year. For example, the new Manager Live Hub lets you dive into specific challenges and earn new jerseys for your club. These feel like the next step toward a historical mode like the Negro Leagues option in MLB The Show, as you’ll be challenged to recreate moments like Jamal Musiala’s double with Bayern Munich or take a mid-level club like SK Rapid or Strasbourg to European glory. The classic version of Career Mode is still there, but Manager Live gives you a rotating list of challenges that will test your skills in fun ways on and off the pitch.
Even Ultimate Team is home to several small yet meaningful changes. Everything from the return of tournaments to the ability to choose the cosmetics on your Evolutions feels carefully crafted to deliver the improvements fans have been asking after for years. EA has been actively working on making its online play more stable as well, and so far I haven’t run into many server issues. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still run into slowdown at peak times, but it’s never felt unplayable.
Unfortunately, EA also promised a slower power curve in Ultimate Team, and while it’s still early days, all that’s meant so far is that the mode has become even more pay-to-win than usual. Rewards from every mode have been nerfed, and slowing things down like this seems well-intentioned on paper, as it would theoretically allow your cards to stay viable for longer. But you can still buy the best card packs in the store for the chance to get top-end players, so those intentions look a lot less noble when they are placed next to $30 lottery tickets that’ll help you compete at the highest level right away. In the past, if you didn’t pay with money, you could pay with time and effort. That’s still true if you want to work the Transfer Market to make Coins, but average players are going to be stuck firmly in the rearview mirror until they open their checkbook. B
Elsewhere, Clubs have probably seen the least changes, though the Archetype system is a nifty new form of progression. I’m not much of a Clubs player but, to my untrained eye, the ability to pick a famous player from soccer’s past to emulate makes it a little easier to stick to a role and provides a better way to gauge forward momentum.. While a meta will surely settle over the mode in the coming weeks, it’s a change that has piqued my interest enough to make me wish I had a group of 10 friends to play with consistently.
Thankfully, the on-pitch gameplay might be better than it’s ever been during the current console generation. Part of that is thanks to the split between Authentic and Competitive, but it’s more than that alone, as FC 26 is just generally more responsive than ever. There are dozens of ways this manifests, but the thing you’ll notice most is left-stick dribbling. The ball feels sticky to your feet, letting you make microadjustments as you dribble down the pitch. With the extra control, you’re better able to set up passes and find lines to cut through the defense.
Speaking of passing, everything is a bit crisper this year. You can’t ping up and down the field with no-look passes, but you can use positioning to tiki-taka your opponent to death while you look for an opening. Speed is still king on the wing, but in the middle of the pitch, it’s all about controlling the flow and looking for that one incisive pass to get in front of the goal for a shot. If that sounds like FC 26 could become a score-fest, especially online, with the faster pace of Competitive mode, you’d be partially correct. Defending can be difficult. Mistimed tackles will leave you even further out of position than usual due to the dribbling improvements, and your AI teammates tend to run out of position already.
However, EA has given goalkeepers an AI boost to help offset that. Your shot-stopper isn’t perfect, but they’re much more intelligent with their positioning. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still see a few weird bounces here or there – that’s soccer, after all. But goalkeepers are much less frustrating in FC 26. Not only do they set up better to close off shooting angles, but they’re better at punching and pushing the ball out of danger. Instead of blocking a shot directly into the path of an attacker, they’ll send it wide to give your defense a second to catch your breath. FC 26, especially in online play, is much more offensive than the real-life version of the sport, but goalkeepers will at least keep you honest this year.
