By Steve Boxer
Copyright metro
EA Sports FC 26 – an evolution but not a revolution (EA)
This year’s instalment of EA’s legendary football franchise is looking to win back disillusioned fans, but does it do enough to allay their concerns?
Fans of EA Sports FC (the annual games franchise previously known as FIFA) face a perennial buying problem. The question being whether there’s enough in this year’s instalment to justify buying it or whether they should wait to see if next year’s one offers a more substantial difference. FC 26 is not the milestone release that EA has been implying, in its attempts to reassure fans after the disappointment of FC 25. But it is a solid effort; if it was a footballer, it would be a tireless, dominant defensive midfielder rather than a Messi-level creative genius.
That metaphor is particularly apt in FC 26’s case, since what makes a good defensive midfielder is their ‘engine’ – their ability to cover all the ground between the two penalty boxes. And the most impressive aspect of FC 26 is the way in which EA has improved the game’s literal engine, governing how the virtual players move, with or without the ball.
In that respect, it’s the best FC/FIFA game for years: the players feel lighter and nimbler, they move better (especially in defensive areas), goalkeepers no longer commit inexplicable howlers (indeed, some might argue that in FC 26 they have been rendered too difficult) and shooting has been made more controllable. The franchise’s overreliance on your ability to execute fiddly right stick skill moves has, as a consequence, been rendered less of an issue, which can only be a good thing.
EA has made a big fuss about FC 26’s inclusion of two preset game tunings, entitled Authentic and Competitive. The former aims to breed a more sedate style of play, akin to real-life football, with more emphasis on slow-building in midfield and tactical play. While in Competitive mode, things are supposedly faster, more frenetic, and more direct.
But in practice, the difference between the modes is more incremental than EA might have you believe. This is blurred by the fact that you can fiddle with the game’s settings to achieve something which lies between the two, or is even more extreme than either. Although, when you hit the trading card style Ultimate Team (aka FUT) in Competitive – which is what EA says it created the setting for – the game switches off fatigue, rendering the whole experience more arcade-like.
Fatigue still comes into play in other modes, like Player Career or Manager Career, even with the Competitive setting switched on but, in Competitive mode, FC 26’s football feels like FIFA games used to: fast, direct, and exciting.
Meanwhile, while the Authentic setting breeds football which is more like that of FIFA’s old competitor Pro Evolution Soccer, the improved player movement still leaves it feeling much less ponderous and stately than PES ever did. So the whole exercise, which smacks of appeasing old PES fans, feels a tad overblown.
In the main offline modes, Manager Career and Player Career, little has changed in FC 26, with small tweaks that improve quality of life rather than anything particularly radical. Manager Career has been given a Live option, which introduces a few curveballs, such as random player illness. That’s definitely a good thing, since it keeps you even more on your toes than you previously needed to be, in order to negotiate its Football Manager lite depiction of the modern day juggling exercise that is managing a football team.
In FC 26, Manager Career feels even more detailed and hands-on than in previous FC games, which should please those who head to that particular mode before the others. But while it has become slightly more granular, it doesn’t feel fundamentally different.
The same applies to Player Career, which revolves around a detailed dive into its new player progression system, entitled Archetypes. Even that isn’t as radical as it might sound – you can still tweak myriad player attributes within it, although in general, Archetypes takes the old player progression and renders it more logical and understandable.
But otherwise, you can still live out your fantasies of being a professional footballer in Player Career, with a lot of good back story options, and the option to play just as yourself or to control your own team, game-by-game.
Will the fans be happy with this year’s game? (EA)
Over the years, FUT has achieved astonishing popularity, however much it might offend purist gamers, given that it’s essentially a trading card game dressed in the FC franchise’s clothing. At this point, it’s gone way beyond game-within-a-game territory.
This year’s implementation does add a certain amount of accessibility for traditionalists, who aren’t prepared to throw their entire disposable income at it, which emphasises its two-tier nature. The FUT hardcore will still spend a vast amount on assembling giant squads as quickly as possible, while those who find such rapacious mobile game style spending abhorrent can at least have some fun in it without succumbing to its constant attempts to get you to spend real money.
If you start by grinding rather than spending, and convert any of the two in-game currencies you earn into player cards, it seems to yield better players at an earlier stage than it did before – which makes sense, since that encourages you to carry on playing. There’s plenty to do, and the mode matched us sensibly against non-hardcore online players. So if you don’t have FUT world domination ambitions, you can still derive a good deal of entertainment from it without feeling left out.
For the hardcore, EA has added new penalties for those who rage quit during online matches, which makes sense, and tweaked it to ensure those who get on streaks don’t find themselves trapped in leagues beyond their abilities. Whether the ultra hardcore will appreciate the tweaks to FUT is a debate that will no doubt play out on countless esoteric forums, but the company’s newly found enthusiasm for listening to the franchise’s fans bodes well.
Overall, EA Sports FC 26 is a solid but unspectacular iteration of the franchise. On the pitch, anyone who plays it will instantly feel the positive effects of the alterations to its engine, so it should make a decent first impression. However, it is disappointing that EA hasn’t also reworked its user interface which, given the game’s vast number of different modes, is labyrinthine and in places annoyingly clunky. But perhaps that’s a job for next year.
In the meantime, while the noise raised by the Competitive and Authentic modes may be overblown, they do at least enable you to set up FC 26 so that you can play it at whatever pace you favour, which is always going to be a good thing. So, is it worth splashing out on? Yes, just about. It’s a step forward, just not a very big one. But if you were disappointed by FC 25, the most encouraging thing here is that EA seems to understand why.
EA Sports FC 26 review summary
In Short: A decently tweaked iteration of EA’s domineering football sim, but while the changes might not be seismic they are all positive.
Pros: Competitive mode feels like proper FIFA, with player and ball movement being better than ever. Archetypes system simplifies player progression and FUT is fairer than before. Manager Career is impressively detailed and the whole game has sky high production values.
Cons: The Interface is confusing and there’s a real question over whether Authentic setting will appeal to anyone other than old PES fans. FUT is still very much two-tier, for casual and hardcore players.
Score: 7/10
Formats: Xbox Series X/S (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PCPrice: £69.99Publisher: EADeveloper: EA Vancouver and EA RomaniaRelease Date: 26th September 2025Age Rating: 3
See you again this time next year (EA)
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