Where EA FC 26 Still Struggles on the Pitch, Plus More EA Buyout News

In this week’s premium newsletter, I spoke at length about EA going private, and what the fallout from that could be in the short and long term for both consumers and the company itself.

Today, I want to get back to talking about games, and I’ve enlisted the help of my good friend and OS vet KG to speak about EA FC 26. He’s a true soccer head, and so I wanted to give you folks some deeper insights from someone who knows the game inside and out.

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But before I get to that, I just want to add a little more context to what I discussed on Wednesday. Bloomberg reported more on the deal, and it sounds even worse for EA’s prospects than what I discussed on Wednesday.

What this means is EA will need to be even more aggressive in terms of increasing revenues and cutting costs. There’s no world where this wasn’t going to lead to layoffs either way, but this sort of wrinkle to the deal likely means everything will be on a more rapid timeline than previously assumed.

Again, there’s no way to know for sure where the cuts/layoffs will occur, and which projects will be impacted, but the next 12-18 months are going to be interesting at EA — and my guess is it will be interesting in ways that are a bummer for many employees.

EA is going to need to focus on their big properties that bring in lots of money to pay down that debt, which means the “live service” games like EA FC, Madden, CFB, Apex, and probably Battlefield. Those games are going to need to carry the load on the revenue front, which I think means EA will be very risk-averse elsewhere because they won’t want to gamble on new things that could be busts and only increase the debt concerns.

In other words, sort of like I said on Wednesday, most of the sports games themselves are really in no immediate danger, it’s just a question of where the priorities within those games get shifted and which employees may be impacted.

That said, no one knows the future, so let’s get back to the present, and I’m going to hand things off to KG so he can talk about the good and bad in EA FC 26’s gameplay.

Is Authentic Gameplay The Savior We Need?

Simulation football and EA Sports go together like oil and water. For years, the OS community has been playing their part in helping pure football fans find the game they’ve longed for since Konami made the conscious decision to turn the once-beloved PES franchise into a mobile game.

Year-after-year, the good folks like Matt10 have tweaked and tested sliders as patch after patch have thrown them more curveballs than Clayton Kershaw. Slowing down the pace, trying to induce more fouls by the AI, and most importantly, attempting to get the AI to behave like professional footballers have always been the goals with these community tweaks.

While the slider gurus have been met with varying degrees of success, there’s only so much they can do due to legacy issues at the heart of FIFA/EA FC’s core gameplay mechanics.

Enter…Authentic Gameplay.

Bringing Realism And Choice To EA SPORTS FC

Now, how much realism does the Authentic Gameplay preset bring? Well, in typical EA fashion you have to take the good with the bad. First and foremost, we’re positive thinkers around here so we’ll start with the good and there’s quite a bit of good thanks in large part to the introduction of this new gameplay type.

As mentioned in the official OS review, the pace of the game is the first thing that jumps out. The game on Authentic plays at a pace that resembles the beautiful game much more than Competitive mode. The players feel heavier (in a good way), the weight of passes feels better, and the flow of the game actually necessitates changing your tactics on the fly to adjust to your opposition.

The responsiveness and breakneck pace of Competitive gameplay, normally reserved for FUT or online play, is still there in Authentic mode, but it is mainly there in situational spots as opposed to it being the norm.

Now, as for the bad, there is still a lot of work to be done on EA’s part.

The AI — and we’re specifically talking about positioning — is still a huge impediment in this game. While the first post-release patch attempted to address defensive positioning it’s still at the root of most of EA FC 26’s core issues.

Fullbacks find themselves inverted on defense, a strange tactic that even Pep won’t try, leading to acres of space down the flanks. Instead of defending as a unit, fullbacks are too easy to double-up on as simple 1-2s will still find too much joy, disappointingly so as the touted “Machine Learning” doesn’t mean that fullbacks get smarter as the game goes on.

HyperMotion, which was supposed to get defenses organized and moving as a unit, just means that your backline will often hold a line even in attack:

Defending transitions (think counter-attacks) is made more difficult than it should be due to centerbacks often running parallel to attackers with no attempts to cut off angles and close down.

Sure, the game rewards manual defending — of which I have no problem doing — but you can only control one defender at a time so we’re all heavily reliant upon the AI at least being in a position to make a defensive action, even if that requires human input to make the tackle/interception.

While we’re on the topic of tackles, where are the fouls or stoppages of play? Look, I get it, not all of us want the full dose of realism we see in the Premier League where the ball is only in play about 60% of the time, but fouls and physicality are needed to introduce some elements of risk/reward. There’s just far too many times where players stay on their feet, especially at a time where even stout CBs go to ground at the slightest touch (cough cough, Gabriel).

A true realistic collision engine would go a long way towards helping with the lack of physicality.

Bottom Line

There’s a lot to like about EA FC 26. The graphics, the depth of career mode, and a host of other different modes all keep me interested, but at the heart of every sports game and what keeps players engaged is gameplay. No matter how popular FUT is, people will eventually move on if the action on the field/pitch isn’t enjoyable, dynamic, and fun.

Right now, EA has good intentions with splitting the gameplay for the two different audiences, but it feels like the handbrake is still on. Like Jack Grealish at Everton, it’s time for EA to unleash the shackles and embrace a true football simulation.

Thanks to KG for that, and I hope this helps give you folks a better idea about where EA FC 26 is at in its early days. As always, we’ll be keeping an eye on patches for every game and seeing how it’s changing things.

We also have the real NHL and NBA seasons on the horizon, so we’ll likely be getting more stuff in those video games shortly as well.

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase