EA looks to be pulling out all the stops when it comes to improving the feel of pretty much everything in EA Sports FC 26. The developer simply wants “to make gameplay better” in this year’s game, and it’s going to do so by upgrading almost every aspect of the experience.
The game will offer two gameplay presets to cater to fans of simulation, and those who put hundreds of hours in Ultimate Team every year and would rather controls felt snappier – but that’s only scratching the surface.
The developer also recently revealed a massive list of updates coming to the game’s Career Mode, overhauling both Manager, as well as Player Career. The bulk of the changes come to more popular Manger side of things, with EA planning to make it a more evolving experience that matches the ever-changing nature of football in the real world.
This all starts with Manager Live, a new hub that will be updated weekly and monthly to offer fresh scenarios for you to tackle. EA wants to offer players small chunks of career gameplay that takes hours, rather than days, to finish.
The data will be based on real-world football, such as transfer seasons and major wins/defeats, but challenges will also expand to include timed events that offer scenarios that will test your ability to lead your team.
Through the Live hub, you’ll have control over the parameters of the challenges that come your way later. You’ll get to define the objectives, rules and even the context of challenges. Some of those include the team you’ll get to manage, the starting date within the calendar, and which competitions are currently active. You can also create challenges that are only designed for your Create Your Club team.
Icons and Heroes come to Manager Career in FC 26, letting you recreate classic teams or build a squad of legends. More Icons and Heroes can be unlocked through the season pass, with each season introducing new ones to the roster. You’re not even limited to just those players, as your squad can also include contemporary stars.
Manager Market gets some major updates in FC 26, too. The big one is that managers are no longer tied to a single club, meaning they can take on new jobs, get fired and so on. When a manger leaves, the team will be assigned a caretake manager, who could – should their performance be exceptional – get the job full-time.
However, if the caretaker doesn’t get the job, the club will be on the lookout for a new manger, and the game will rely on a list of attributes to determine which managers make the shortlist of candidates. Of course, these create opportunities for your character to apply (or be approached directly) for these jobs.
EA FC 26 will also reflect real-world football in a couple of new ways. A feature EA calls Deeper Simulation will allow you to select up to five additional leagues to simulate when starting a new career, effectively creating your own world of possibilities that resembles today’s football.
The desire to create an evolving narrative also continues with Unexpected Events, which is a system that effectively throws problems at you (player injuries, surprise transfers, new ownership etc.) and gives you the opportunity to adapt. If that sounds a little too stressful (or not stressful enough), you’ll be able to adjust the frequency of Unexpected Events in the game’s settings.
On the Player Career side of things, two major features you can look forward to are Player Archetypes, and updated Origin Stories. Archetypes is a new progression system in FC 26, letting you unlock and develop 13 player Archetypes.
The attributes are inspired by football Icons, letting you shape the identity of your created character and their path of progress. Further narrowing down each Archetypes are Specialisations, which influence the gameplay perks you have access to.
As for Origin Stories, EA said you can expect fresh narrative elements that make it exciting to go through the seasons. EA of FC 25’s paths will remain, upgraded wand polished, but there’s going to be two new ones, too: goalkeeper, and a newly-promoted player from the youth academy.
It’s worth reading the full blog post for an ever deeper dive. FC 26 is out September 26 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, and Amazon Luna.