FC 26 has become the most automated hand-holding football game EA has ever made
What an absolutely pathetic direction this franchise has taken. FC 26 has stripped away so much of the skill gap that it barely feels like you're playing anymore. It's becoming less about who makes the better decisions and more about who gets the AI to bail them out. Every year EA talks about "realism," but realism shouldn't come at the expense of player control. A football game should reward manual defending, manual passing, manual dribbling, and smart decision-making. Instead, everything feels increasingly automated. You don't outplay your opponent—you spend half the match fighting the AI. And the attacking AI is the perfect example. Unless you play exactly the way EA wants you to, your teammates become completely brainless. Make an early through ball? Your striker suddenly stops his run. Try to create space? Your attackers stand behind defenders like statues. Look for a quick one-two? The return run never comes. Instead of intelligent movement, you're forced into a handful of attacking patterns the game actually recognizes. The moment you try something creative, your own AI starts working against you. It doesn't reward football IQ—it rewards learning what the AI wants. You're not just playing against your opponent; you're constantly negotiating with the game's mechanics. The defensive AI tracks runs for you. Passing is heavily assisted. Interceptions happen automatically. Goalkeepers pull off miracle saves regardless of user input. Defenders recover from mistakes they should never recover from. Why even hold the controller at this point? The whole point of a competitive game is that the better player wins because they're better—not because the game constantly corrects mistakes and narrows the skill gap. Every mechanic that once separated good players from average players has been toned down in favour of accessibility. Instead of rewarding mastery, the game rewards letting the AI do the work. It's the epitome of modern game design: simplify everything, automate everything, remove the skill ceiling, and call it "balanced." If I wanted to sit back and watch AI-controlled football, I'd watch a real match. I bought a football game because I wanted to play football—not negotiate with an algorithm over who gets to control my own players. Bring back manual defending. Bring back manual passing. Bring back intelligent attacking AI that supports creativity instead of punishing it. Bring back player expression. Bring back the feeling that my decisions actually matter. FC 26 feels less like a football game and more like an interactive cutscene where the AI is the main character and I'm just along for the ride.
Pitch lines and distance markers appearing in FC 26 need help removing them
Hello, I want to remove the lines and distance markers that appear on the pitch in FC 26. I tried turning off Trainer, Gameplay Aids, and all related settings, but the lines are still there. I need help removing them completely.Title Update 1.6.4: No Patch for Club Transfer Player Duplication Glitch
EA Sports announced the release of the last Title Update (1.6.4) of the game season, and numerous career mode bugs/glitches will remain intact for at least another two months, until the release of FC 27, according to the Pitch Notes. Player duplication glitch caused by hard coded links to either Classic XI or national team squads has plagued the game for over eight months, since December 2nd when Classic XI was introduced. Apparently, the issue is not pervasive enough for the development team to patch in a timely manner, while their primary concerns are rooted in the microtransaction generating revenues from Ultimate Team. In addition, users (customers) have endured two years of broken Create-a-Club goalkeeper jersey logos, glitched sock lengths when editing scouted youth players, dozens of missing third and fourth kit options, and underperforming user AI controlled players regardless of their attribute ratings. These listed grievances are merely the proverbial 'drop in the bucket'; entire community is aware of hundreds of more issues that have been ignored for a minimum of a decade in many cases. Personally, have no hope that FC 27 will be more than a copy and paste rendition of FC 24, 25, and 26 with the addition of unwanted and nonsensical window dressing features, for example The Grounds, in which probably less than five percent of the community will use beyond November, and will be an afterthought that is removed from FC 28, when deemed an utter failure.Referee Career Mode – A New Way to Experience Football in EA SPORTS FC
Hi EA Team and Community, I would love to suggest a brand-new game mode that I think would bring something completely different to EA SPORTS FC: Referee Career Mode. We’ve had Player Career and Manager Career for years, but being able to experience football from the referee’s perspective would be a fresh and exciting addition to the game. Career Progression Start your career officiating youth and lower-division matches. As your performances improve, earn promotions to bigger leagues, domestic cup competitions, continental tournaments like the UEFA Champions League, and eventually major international competitions such as the FIFA World Cup. Match Performance System After every match, receive a performance rating based on your decisions and overall control of the game. Your score could be affected by: Correctly awarding fouls, penalties, and cards. Applying advantage at the right moments. Managing player behavior and preventing matches from getting out of control. Staying close to play through good positioning. Avoiding incorrect decisions or missed incidents. Consistently high ratings would lead to bigger matches and more prestigious competitions. Advanced VAR System One of the biggest features would be a fully interactive VAR experience. As either the on-field referee or the VAR official, players could: Review incidents from multiple camera angles. Draw offside lines manually. Zoom in and inspect close decisions. Decide whether to overturn or confirm the original decision. This would make every important decision feel realistic and rewarding. Fitness and Positioning Referees should have their own fitness attributes. Staying close to play would improve your view of incidents, while poor positioning could make difficult decisions even more challenging. Managing stamina throughout the match would become an important part of gameplay. Match Control Being a referee is about more than blowing the whistle. Players should be able to: Speak with team captains. Give verbal warnings before showing cards. Calm heated situations. Decide when to play advantage. Control the tempo of the match while maintaining authority. Difficulty and Progression As you reach higher levels, players become faster, matches become more intense, and decisions become increasingly difficult. Pressure from crowds, managers, and players could influence the atmosphere, making every match feel unique. Why It Would Be Great This mode would introduce an entirely new way to enjoy football. It would appeal to players who enjoy realism, decision-making, and understanding the Laws of the Game from a different perspective. It would also add significant replay value by offering a career path unlike anything currently available in EA SPORTS FC. I truly believe Referee Career Mode could become one of the most unique and memorable additions to the series. Thank you for taking the time to read this suggestion, and I hope the development team considers it for a future EA SPORTS FC title.Terrible game
Gameplay is incredibly unintelligent it holds ur hand autotackle everything. U have to play the meta way or not bother playing. Try to start a Coop game where u control both teams and see how much the game autotackle. No need for skills anymore its just pass, pass, play meta down wing incisive pass. When the age limit becomes 16 then you will see a major downfall in players, cause anyone with a semi developed brain will lose theyre marbles playing this. And why is it that if a pass goes wrong it doesnt go slightly of, but magneticly goes directly to opponent. And your players dont try to find space. If anything they make sure to run into a position were they are covered and make it difficult to pass to them. The AI isnt even smart enough to move out of the way if u cut in with ur winger dribbling the striker will not move out of the way. He will become a Defender and stand in the way of your winger and cover him. Or how about the free kick i just had... I hold up to pass... UP.... But the game decides i wanted right. Or the defenders dropping way deep creating space. Or attacker pushing up with no understanding of movement. Oh my Adeyemi received the ball 3 meters in front of the female right Back who turns around and catches up to him like nothing within 5 meters, almost looks like he has 99speed in walking compared to her. 99running. And the bad touch but were the player uses 5 min to run up to the ball 1 meter in front of him. Thats been there all year. So a player 5 meters away can jog up and take it. You are the worst game developers in history... Players are horrible at heading, passing, bad movements, terrible first touches, feel of game is inconsistent at best. Shockingly incompetent, its just so bad. Seriously what are you thinking. Im going to predict that your data says 50+ percent like it so ur doing good, but thing is most of those are terrible players and only play on and off and couldnt tell you anything about real gameplay. And thats the audience you cater. I would truly be embarased advertising this. If this was a indie game made by 3 guys for 20 dollar i could understand, well show understanding. But this is not a AAA title worthy. This really is the worst game i have ever spent this much time on. The AI isnt even on par with games 30 years ago. Only improvement in 30 years are the graphics but i wish u had worked on gameplay instead...Truly disappointing. This is not a game of skill anymore. Its a game that holds the weaker players hand so that they can win as well and has been completely striped down of gameplay and lost any integrity in the chase of money. Its just so bad and a pain to play. Its a product that you truly should be ashamed of. Lesson learnt... Will not be back next year, im done...Title: [Suggestion] New Game Mode Idea for FC 27: Referee Career
Hi EA Team and Community,I would like to pitch a brand new game mode idea for EA SPORTS FC 27 that I believe would bring fresh energy to the franchise: a Referee Career Mode.We have player and manager careers, but stepping into the shoes of a referee would offer a completely unique perspective on the pitch. Here is how I imagine this mode could work:The Journey: Start as a low-tier referee in lower divisions and work your way up to domestic cup finals, top-flight leagues, and international tournaments like the Champions League or World Cup.Performance Rating: Just like a player career, referees should be rated after every match. Points would be awarded for correct card decisions, keeping up with the play, and managing player aggression. Points would be deducted for wrong offside calls or missed penalties.VAR Mechanics: Introduce a specialized VAR review system where the game slows down, allowing the player to look at multiple camera angles before making a final game-changing decision.Fitness and Positioning: Referees need to maintain a high level of stamina to stay close to the ball. Bad positioning should limit your view and make decisions harder.Match Management: A mechanic to talk to team captains, give verbal warnings, and manage the match temperature before handing out cards. This mode would add massive replay value and give football fans a completely new way to experience the game they love. I really hope the dev team considers this for FC 27!Career mode on later games
Dear EA, I would like to suggest that for the next EA FC games, you could use a code or a qr code to log in to a career mode you played in the last game. In FC 26, I have a career mode that I like very much and that I have put a lot of effort to. It would be a shame to “lose” that career mode once I download FC 27 in september/november. Therefore, it would be excellent if you could continue your career mode literally with just new kits since the ratings and players in a team would be the same. Please add this to the game because it would be one of the updates that users would appreciate the most. Thank youTacklebacks tacklebacks tacklebacks
You made a commercial claiming you were going to correct this. Even players with intercept plus and anticipate plus are commiting a outrageous amount of tacklebacks. The ball is bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Tacklebacks and tackles bouncing the ball in the air for a pass back to the player who was tackled is more than beyond stupid. It is ugly unrealistic and needs to be adjusted. Come on EA these things are not hard to fix. Get it done already.FC27 Suggestions
So we all know by now FC26 is better than FC25 but not by a lot. Here are some things I would like to see in FC27. _______________________________________________________________ Better Social Media/Remove Social Media More Leagues (eg. LOI Men's First Division) Fix the trophy bug. If you win the FA Emirates Cup, sometimes it shows the Premier League Trophy, PL trophy sometimes disappears altogether and a generic trophy icon is shown on your screen and will not go away unless you restart the game. Commentary Speed Improvement, as one moment a commentator says someone is going for goal and a 5 seconds later it says they scored. This could just be a device feature as consoles have less memory/ storage than a PC and for lower frame rates. a fix to the notorious "Negotiations Bug" where you will be stuck in the cutscene and the button to skip disappears. You are forced to leave the game without saving and any signing will have to be done all over again. VERY annoying.