A new year and a new version of the world's most famous soccer game
Image credit: PlayStation / Sony Interactive Entertainment promotional art.
Source: PlayStation
Summary
- Name of the game: EA SPORTS FC 26
- Launch dateSeptember 26, 2025.
- DeveloperEA Vancouver
- Publisher: Electronic Arts (EA)
- Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox X|S Series, Xbox One, PC, Amazon Luna, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
- Genre: Soccer simulator / sports video game.
- ContextThe latest installment of EA's annual soccer series, a spiritual continuation of the previous editions of “FIFA/FC”, aimed at both the online competitive audience (Ultimate Team, Clubs) and those who prefer offline modes such as Career, with adjustments based on community feedback.
Ultimate Team
The big fish of the game, which we know again will be given top priority, since this is where the game survives. To tell the truth, and analyzing the game as time goes by, more and more this game mode bores and wears you out mentally. A few years ago, when I had less responsibilities, it was normal for me to get stressed with the game in this mode; today I enter and it's the same: practically a decade with the same system and it's getting worse and worse.
Beyond this, I analyze everything that has changed this mode from the previous installment to this one. The game mode is summarized in: Squad Battles, Division Rivals, Rush, FUT Champions, tournaments, FUT Draft, SBC, Objectives, Season Passes, Evolutions and so on. Let's take a look at each one:
Squad Battles
It's still the same old boring mode. The good thing is that it stays with the 4 minutes per match time format, so it doesn't feel like such a waste of time anymore. A mode where you play against teams of other players controlled by the CPU; better to play another offline mode.
The rewards are getting worse every year. Why? Because the mode incentivizes more competitiveness and addiction; this mode doesn't do that, so it's sloppy. It is only good for objectives.
Rush
An interesting proposal from EA FC 25, which in this game does not innovate anything. Still the same problems of players staying still, starting a match is an eternity and the same handicap of the game, but now in a 5 against 5 mode, which makes it a boring mode for Ultimate Team, where in the same way is a total selfishness in each match: each one goes for his goal without wanting to play as a team.
Again, a mode that is not going to get very far in Ultimate Team, just as Volta was a few years ago.
FUT Draft
I honestly don't know who still plays this mode and I don't know how they haven't removed it. A game mode that charges you 15 thousand coins to play it: a small elimination tournament of 4 matches where, if you lose the first one, bye-bye coins and time, with a huge randomness when cards are assigned to you and with rewards that are garbage even if you win all 4 matches.
Worse, the mode is available both offline and online. There's a reason EA keeps giving away FUT Draft tokens in objectives, because no one plays it.
Division Rivals
Despite my complaints, it's the way I play because sometimes the idea of wanting to compete creeps in, but how tiring it has become since one acquires responsibilities in life.
Rivals incorporates something called Bounties: additional rewards that, in short, are mini objectives to further incentivize addiction to the game mode, with offers of if you score 3 goals in the next match you climb faster to the next division.
Rivals still has the same problems I noticed: beyond the handicap, it's all too evident when every time I'm one win away from moving up a division I get a much tougher opponent than the rest and beating them is a challenge. And when I've been one loss away from dropping down a division, even if I play poorly, I don't lose the game.
The game is designed so that you don't go down a division, but you don't go up either; but if you want to go up, you'll be given the opportunity after a few tries. Also, the rewards are still annoying and it has me tired that all the rewards in these latest installments are just non-transferable envelopes and a ridiculous amount of coins.
Additionally, it is tiring to see players obsessing about the number of divisions they are in, when it is well known that being at the top is not always because you are better; you have just played more, and the game rewards those who play more than those who are better.
FUT Champions
Now it is more accessible with the entry, the highest competitive mode and the one with the highest handicap in the whole game. I, to tell you the truth, I have 2 years without playing this mode. I have a life of my own to spend a whole weekend playing a mode that stresses you more than an office job; it's worse than when you use Excel and the formulas don't work or in a programming code you can't find that comma.
For me this mode is a thousand times worse for mental health and really a mode that innovates little, which serves more to boost the ego than really for anything else. To tell the truth, an insignificant mode for me in this game because it does not bring fun at all. I may be bad at this mode, but at least I don't get the pressure up playing something where all the matches look like tennis scoreboards.
Live Events
In short, the substitute for the friendly matches that few people tried, but now it is sold as something more novel where the rules of entry change. For me it is the friendly mode with another name and sold as something more competitive.
Gauntlets
A new mode where each match requires a different template, a proposal that sounds interesting, although personally I have not been interested at all.
Challengers
A FUT Champions and a competitive mode for average players, not so intense.
Evolutions and SBC
I've been playing this title for months and in 4 months I've only made one SBC of players. I find these challenges completely disposable and I still prefer to make evolutions by customizing non-commercial players and shaping them to my liking, rather than getting a lot of cheated cards and the same ones every year.
Now they bring out a lot of cards in these challenges and none of them catch my attention, because I can get a better player by evolving him well, and in other games I have been able to do that.
The evolutions, for a change, evolve with the game where they don't waste even the slightest opportunity to look for ways to squeeze money out of you, all with coins or FIFA Points, some occasional free ones; then in those free ones it works out better than investing real money or coins.
With this mode, the truth is that it entertains for a while and it's useful when you want to compete for a while, but beyond that it's still a casino. And the worst thing is that now they are already obsessed with season passes which, in my opinion, are the main reason for an online game to fall apart.
DT Career Mode
A mode that has finally had more notable changes made to it. Its menu is still a horror and a lousy idea, but I felt better development of the basic forces, more realistic goals and a more dynamic market.
The events where unexpected things happen give more realism to the mode and finally something that I had been missing for a long time: the change of coaches, because I was tired of the repetitiveness of facing the same teams with the same tactics that you already knew how to beat them. The idea of changing technical directors is a success. We still have licensing problems, the end of the career mode feels cold with a generic email, the celebrations are the same and have been the same for a decade.
Something negative also is that now when starting a career mode the live and original mode appears; starting a career mode is confusing now with so many options in menus, it is poorly thought out and only confuses the player. The live events can be interesting, but at least in my case I prefer a thousand times the classic career mode with its new features. Also, they should allow more customization in stadiums and non-licensed uniforms, especially in creating a club.
Single Player Career Mode
I don't go deep into this mode because I found it to be the same as the previous version. A mode that, as much as I try to play it, ends up boring me in a single season, where investments, personality and purchases don't feel alive; they are just a “push the button” and that's it. There is not much soul in this mode.
Pro Clubs
The highlight of this mode is the player customization, a more interesting progression system. They also include live events, which you can see that they have been added everywhere in the game.
It is still a recommended mode to play with friends; beyond the above, the mode remains the same as last year.
Gameplay
Incredibly, one of the most notable changes in years. I do consider that here the game has improved a lot with respect to its previous release, offering 2 different gameplay styles: the competitive one, designed for online modes, and the authentic one for offline modes. Much like past reviews where it seems to me a better idea to separate players into 2 audiences: who wants to play more realistic or unrealistic.
I have perceived better animations, more fluid control and a considerable improvement in goalkeeping, although with updates, as always, this gets worse; ball physics with more sense. It maintains the implementation of tactics from the previous release, which I'm still not a fan of, and maintains the famous player roles that in 2 games I still don't see a real difference in the player, but hey, they are there to sell more qualities.
I consider FC 26's pace to be slower, better defensive positioning, although sometimes it feels exaggerated how they steal balls from you, where they seem to read your mind, and we still have the same problem of strikers pressing better than a defender. Less clumsy goalkeepers, although there are clips with exceptions. There will always be the famous bugs and weird stuff, but I feel they are fewer this time. The imbalance between player speed still persists, where the stats don't seem to hold true. Simple dribbling is very broken, where sometimes players look like a spinning top and defenders also without a ball.
The learning curve is relatively accessible if you are used to soccer games. It offers many difficulty options and mechanics in configurations for all types of players. Regarding replayability, FC 26 maintains a high level where you can easily put more than 200 hours into it; it is still a highly addictive game with a lot of variety in its game modes, open to customize your experience as you want.
Graphics and visual design
FC 26 maintains the same graphic engine of the saga for many years, for all versions. Something that can be rescued from the game is that it does have a good level of detail in players, obviously there are exceptions: sweat, lighting, uniforms with physics, stadium animations. Although these details are appreciated, the reality is that during a match they are not very noticeable, or at least you see them, but do not give them much importance; the player does not pay attention to whether the player is sweating or not. These details could be applied more to other game modes.
The menu is still the same, only some colors change, but the design of the main menu and other game modes still looks horrible and uncomfortable to me. Sure, you get used to it, but doing so doesn't mean it's right.
It complies quite well, although for me the atmosphere of the stadium could be improved. In real life you see games and you say: ah ok, they are playing in such and such a stadium. In this game that has not been achieved; many times you feel that you are playing in generic stadiums or the stadium pitch is not perceived well as it should be, but it is something that can be improved.
Sound and music
The game's sound effects are quite well done, although they are often overshadowed by the narrators and it is difficult to perceive some sounds. As a soccer game, the emphasis is on in-game effects: stadium ambience, crowd noise, impacts, celebrations, reactions.
The soundtracks are okay, but nothing special. They are not memorable songs or something that you stop in the middle of the menu to listen to. I think it has been kept at the level of the previous game and this is important, because good music accompanies you in the menus, where you will spend many hours.
Difficulty and accessibility
The difficulties are still the same standard ones, but now with the new one called Authentic, which honestly I don't see anything authentic about it; it seeks to be more realistic, strategic and demanding. That in theory, in practice it is not so, and in Competitive neither. It feels more like a simple change in player stats than a real change in gameplay; that is, in one the players are more clumsy and in the other they are superhuman.
In terms of accessibility, I must admit that this game was quite innovative compared to previous releases, with modes for players with disabilities, visual options and really a wider repertoire that I personally value a lot so that everyone can enjoy the games.
Additional content
The additional content would be the typical EA updates announcing that they improved something and you feel the same, or new bugs and glitches that did not exist before. The typical update where we improved 10 aspects and worsened 10 others that were fine.
In addition, they added the season pass and Ultimate Team content which, truth be told, if you only play career mode and pro clubs, is irrelevant to you.
Technical Aspects
This game every year is a lottery, it's very random: it can come broken in some things and stable in others. It's better than FC 25, yes, according to what I've seen, but for an annual game it's full of bugs like every year: weird player behaviors, strange movements where a player looks elastic, exaggerated goalkeeper clearances, bad speed physics. In short, the game seeks to be as realistic as possible and simply has not succeeded.
They even have the option to choose a more realistic game mode in settings and it's not even realistic. EA's concept of realism is to make the players' movement stiffer and make them feel like logs; but you set the unrealistic mode and the players look like they were injected with Compound V, in reference to The Boys series.
There are also those who feel that certain modes, menus or functions are not well optimized. Sometimes you enter a menu and you get the word “null”, because of how poorly optimized it is. On a technical level, EA FC continues to give people something to talk about and it is unacceptable that a game that sells and generates what they generate has a game that is so poorly optimized every year.
Trophies / Achievements
- Platinum obtained: No
- Percentage of trophies: 45 %.
- Estimated time: 50 hours
- Platinum difficulty: 7 out of 10. The reason why I consider this platinum difficult is because of the biggest ridiculousness I've seen, there is a trophy that is to get all the items of the season pass, but not enough is to be crumbs and put a trophy of the premium pass that there are only 2 ways: Paying 500 thousand coins of the game that is a ridiculousness or paying with real money, in any of the 2 is practically a platinum that would be called Pay to Platinum, really can not with these stupidities of challenges.
Value for money
Let's see, the game still has a standard price of 70 USD, which is high for the few changes that are made. Much has been said that every year it is more of an update that improves in some aspects and worsens in others.
I definitely do not recommend ever buying it at full price. A realistic price for such an upgrade might be 30 USD; more than that I wouldn't pay, and worse for a game that only lasts a year, it can feel like throwing money away.
Now, if you are a fan, you can buy it, in the end it is your money; but know that it is a game that in a few months is on sale. A month after its release it had already been announced with a discount of 20% and in some cases it was already at $40 in a short time, proving even more why buying this game on release is throwing your money away.
Conclusion
EA FC 26 is a game that improves in certain specific aspects, especially in gameplay and some changes in modes such as DT Career, but it still drags the same structural problems of every year. Ultimate Team continues to be the absolute center of the game, increasingly focused on addiction and less on real fun, while other modes receive improvements that feel insufficient or poorly executed.
Technically it's still a lottery, with errors, questionable decisions and a constant feeling that it could have been much more. It's an entertaining game, yes, and if you like soccer you can put hundreds of hours into it, but it's far from being the leap forward it should be. Rather than a real evolution, it feels like another annual update with lights and shadows.
My final rating for EA SPORTS FC 26 is:
2.6/ 5
