Why EA needs more Career Mode players in playtesting

I’ve bought every FIFA since FIFA International 1993, and every EA SPORTS FC title since the name change. I’ve been playing this series for over 30 years and, most weekends, my husband and I still enjoy playing together.

EAFC 26 is the first game in the series that I’ve stopped playing because I simply wasn’t enjoying it.

We don’t play Ultimate Team. We play Career Mode, local co-op and offline matches in both the men’s and women’s game. We were genuinely pleased to see women’s football included, although there are still some commentary issues, such as incorrect pronouns, that would benefit from further polish.

What drove us away wasn’t losing—it was feeling that the game wasn’t fair or consistent. The jump from Professional to World Class feels artificial rather than the AI simply becoming smarter. My AI teammates often seem to perform noticeably worse than the CPU’s, and Career Mode still throws up immersion-breaking bugs.

I’d love to see more long-term offline players included in playtesting. Every group of players stresses different parts of the game, and Career Mode players often uncover issues that FUT players will never encounter. As one example, we consistently found in the FA Cup in a men’s Career Mode Tottenham Women appeared as our opponents. Bugs like that make me wonder whether Career Mode receives enough long-term testing from the perspective of dedicated offline players.

I’m genuinely hopeful FC 27 will address some of these concerns, because after more than 30 years of buying this series, I’d love to enjoy it again.