The end of September is slowly becoming a traditional dividing line between gamers looking forward to yet another edition of EA Sports FC and their respective significant others preparing to lose them for a while. EA Sports FC 27 is out now, so here is what you need to know about this year’s additions.
From the ground up
The beautiful game originated in England and quite literally grew from the ground up. Today, football is a massive global industry, but for many of us, the love for the game still starts on the local streets and pitches. I remember playing football with my mates on a patchy field between some trees, and those memories still make me smile. We built each other up by playing small games, then ventured to other parks to challenge the local kids and see how good we really were. That was where we developed our skills. Some of us eventually joined a proper football club, while the lucky few who combined talent with hard work even managed to move on to bigger teams.
EA Sports FC 27’s new mode, The Grounds, tries to recreate a bit of that journey. At its core, it is a social hub where your created avatar can roam around, develop their skills, and meet new players through football. You can start small by playing casual matches and mini-games with friends or complete strangers before eventually forming a club of your own. From there, the ambition can grow towards the traditional Clubs experience, including full 11v11 matches on the bigger stages. The Grounds tries to make that progression feel more organic by putting all of these players together in the same shared spaces.
Matches taking place around the different pitches can also be watched by other players, which adds a surprisingly fitting touch to the whole idea. It almost feels like scouts hanging around the sidelines of smaller local clubs, looking for someone who might strengthen their squad. Spot a good player during a match, strike up a conversation afterwards and they could potentially become the next addition to your team.
Tweaks, fixes and re-fixes
The gameplay changes this year are subtle and feel more like quality-of-life improvements than anything resembling a major overhaul. AI-controlled defending, which divided much of the player base last year, has been toned down. Players need to take control of their defenders again, while skilful attackers who are good at gliding through outstretched legs with precise movements should have an easier time avoiding ridiculous AI-controlled interventions. Crossing and corners have been tweaked as well. Apparently, it should now be easier to create dangerous chances from them, giving you more options when your winger reaches the back line. I say “apparently” because I haven’t quite figured it out yet, although I can confirm that several of my opponents definitely have.
Corners now also give you a small window of opportunity to control your receiving players, making it possible to create intelligent or incredibly stupid runs in an attempt to confuse the defending team. There are plenty of other smaller tweaks to the gameplay as EA Sports continues trying to cater to community feedback. The problem is that anyone familiar with the series knows how quickly these things can change. A couple of patches from now, the balance could already feel completely different. So take these observations with a healthy amount of caution. At the time of writing, this is how FC 27 plays, but considering the series’ track record of tweaking and re-tweaking its gameplay throughout the year, parts of this section could be outdated before long.
Career mode and the Ultimate Team Gallery
Career Mode has mostly stayed the same, with the biggest noticeable change being an improved transfer market system. From what I can make of it so far, transfers should feel a little more realistic and dynamic than before. Combined with community-driven Manager Live challenges, Career Mode might also scratch an itch for players looking for a proper football-management experience this year. Then there is the behemoth that is Ultimate Team, still seemingly determined to sell as many packs as humanly possible. Sure, you can grind your way towards a great team, but thirteen-year-old Jimmy borrowing his dad’s credit card can probably assemble something better than the squad you spent months building in the space of a few hours.
One addition I genuinely like is the Ultimate Team Gallery. It turns collecting cards into something a little more tangible by allowing you to complete and organise sets of players you’ve collected over time. There is something strangely nostalgic about it. As someone who collected Panini stickers back in the day, I can definitely see the appeal of filling out a virtual collection instead of only looking at every card in terms of how useful it is on the pitch.
Conclusion
For once, EA Sports FC 27 contains an addition that genuinely feels different. The Grounds has the potential to give fans something to enjoy besides Ultimate Team while bringing more attention to Clubs and casual multiplayer. Whether it manages to shift even a little of the gravitational pull away from Ultimate Team remains to be seen, but it is easily the most interesting addition this year. With that being said, unfortunately, the rest of the package isn’t as good as I hoped. The gameplay remains too familiar, Career Mode receives close to no improvements, and Ultimate Team continues down the same road it has travelled for years. That familiarity would be easier to accept if the game felt polished, but FC 27 currently comes with an unusual amount of launch-day jank and strange bugs. I’ve encountered overlapping text that makes menus hard to read, menu graphics that fail to load properly, and music that continues to play over commentary during Rush matches.
If you’re simply looking for another year of EA Sports FC, FC 27 will probably give you exactly what you’re expecting. The Grounds adds new and interesting elements to the formula, but beyond that, this still feels like another safe step forward and not that fresh start the series needs. More than anything, FC 27 leaves me hoping that a serious competitor eventually enters the pitch. EA’s football game remains largely unchallenged, and a little genuine competition might be exactly what the series needs to start taking some bigger risks again.