My final thoughts on FC 26! Its going to be a long post...
How do you spend decades making football games and still release a product that feels like it understands football less every single year? Every match I play ends the same way. At some point, I find myself saying the exact same sentence: "This is so bad." Not because I'm losing. Not because my opponent is better. Because I'm watching a football game that constantly fights against the player instead of working with them. The most frustrating part isn't just the bugs. It's that so many of the core gameplay systems create negative experiences that take away from what a football game should be. Negative Game Mechanics Everywhere It feels like every part of FC 26 has a mechanic that removes enjoyment instead of adding to it. Player switching fights your intentions. Passing feels inconsistent. First touches vary wildly. Defenders ignore obvious danger. Attackers make baffling runs. Goalkeepers produce moments that make no football sense. The game is filled with systems that interrupt the flow instead of supporting it. You're not just playing your opponent. You're constantly fighting the gameplay itself. The Meta Is Stronger Than Creativity One of the most disappointing aspects of FC 26 is how often it feels like the game rewards a narrow set of attacking patterns and tactical approaches far more consistently than others. Certain attacking runs seem much more effective than others. Certain situations, like a pass from the wing into an unmarked attacker, can feel far more reliable than patiently building through midfield. Some formations naturally fit the way player movement, positioning and defensive behaviour work, while others feel like you're constantly fighting the game. This is why every year quickly becomes a race to discover the "meta." If multiple football philosophies were equally effective, players would have more freedom to experiment. Possession football. Counter-attacking football. High pressing. Patient build-up. Direct play. All of these should have a place. Instead, players often end up adapting to what the gameplay rewards rather than expressing their own football ideas. The result is predictable. Teams start to look the same. They attack the same. They defend the same. They score the same types of goals. Creativity disappears because efficiency becomes more important than imagination. The Skill Gap Feels Smaller Than It Should The best competitive games reward better decision-making, execution and adaptation. FC 26 too often feels like it reduces those differences by pushing players toward the same effective patterns. Instead of asking: "Who is the better football player?" The question increasingly becomes: "Who understands what this version of the game rewards the most?" There is a huge difference. Players should win because they make better football decisions. Not simply because they have mastered the strongest patterns and mechanics. A competitive football game should reward football intelligence. Not just knowledge of the current meta. AI That Doesn't Think Like Footballers Every year we're told the AI is smarter. Then kickoff happens. Attackers wander offside. Teammates hide behind defenders instead of creating passing options. Players run straight past loose balls they could easily collect. Defenders abandon good positions to run past attackers instead of stepping into a simple duel. A player can be closer to the ball, have the better position, and somehow move away from the situation instead of reacting naturally. These moments are among the most frustrating parts of FC 26 because they don't feel like realistic mistakes. Real footballers make mistakes. But those mistakes usually have logic behind them. In FC 26, players can sometimes appear to ignore the obvious football decision completely. They don't react to the moment in front of them. They follow movement patterns that make no sense. That's not realistic difficulty. That's unintelligent gameplay. The Game Should Not Be the One Making the Mistakes Football is not perfect. Players misplace passes. They miscontrol the ball. They make poor decisions. But those mistakes should come from the person holding the controller. The player should be responsible for choosing the wrong pass. The player should be responsible for bad positioning. The player should be responsible for poor timing. That is where improvement comes from. A competitive football game should make you think: "I made the wrong decision there. I need to do better next time." Instead, too often FC 26 creates situations where players feel like they are fighting the game rather than their opponent. A defender ignores an obvious situation. A player runs away from a ball they should collect. A simple action fails in a way that doesn't feel connected to the player's input. Those moments don't create a learning experience. They create frustration. Realism isn't making the game randomly imperfect. Realism is giving players control and allowing their decisions to succeed or fail based on their execution. The player should make the mistakes. Not the game. The Game Doesn't Reward Good Football Consistently Football is supposed to reward: Finding space. Timing runs. Reading passing lanes. Creating chances. Making better decisions. Instead, too many moments are decided by inconsistent reactions, awkward animations, or gameplay mechanics that simply don't feel reliable. When good football isn't rewarded consistently, frustration replaces satisfaction. The problem isn't losing. The problem is feeling like the gameplay itself prevented football decisions from mattering. Player Switching Remains One of Gaming's Biggest Frustrations You see the danger. You know exactly which defender you need. You switch. Wrong player. You switch again. Wrong player. By the time the correct player is selected, the attack has already developed. This doesn't create a skill challenge. It creates unnecessary frustration. When the controls become an obstacle between the player and their decision, the gameplay suffers. Passing That Never Feels Trustworthy Passing is the foundation of football. But in FC 26, it often feels impossible to fully trust. Simple passes become difficult. Difficult passes sometimes become effortless. Players with excellent passing attributes suddenly misplace routine balls. But the biggest frustration is not just that passes fail. It's how they fail. A bad pass doesn't simply go slightly behind your teammate. It doesn't roll a little too far. It doesn't create a realistic mistake. Too often it seems to travel directly into the path of an opponent. The outcome feels unnatural because there is little variation. Football is full of imperfect passes. Some are overhit. Some are underhit. Some force a teammate to stretch. Some go into empty space. Those imperfections create real football moments. When failed passes repeatedly end up perfectly for the opponent, it damages trust in the gameplay. A player should understand why something happened. Animations Over Reactions Too often it feels like players are waiting for an animation instead of reacting naturally. Loose balls get ignored. Defenders hesitate. Attackers freeze. Goalkeepers recover too slowly. Players become trapped in animations while the situation around them changes. Football should feel alive. Instead, too many moments feel controlled by animations rather than intelligent reactions. The Referee System Feels Detached From Football Another area where immersion suffers is refereeing. Football is built around physical battles. Positioning. Shielding the ball. Challenges. Contact. Obstruction. Yet the referee system often feels disconnected from the sport it is supposed to represent. Players can block runs, prevent movement, or make contact that would commonly be considered obstruction, and play continues. At the same time, other situations can feel inconsistent. The issue isn't that every contact should be a foul. Football is physical. The issue is that players need consistency. The rules should feel logical. A referee system should add realism. Instead, it often becomes another moment where players ask: "Does this game actually understand the rules of football?" Every Year, New Marketing. The Same Old Problems Every new release promises revolution. Every trailer talks about realism. Every presentation introduces another feature designed to change everything. But when the whistle blows, many of the same frustrations remain. New features don't matter if the foundations are unstable. Better graphics don't matter if the football itself doesn't feel better. A football game needs to get the basics right first. Football Shouldn't Feel Like Hard Work The best football games disappear in your hands. Your decisions become the experience. FC 26 constantly reminds you that you're playing a system. You think about player switching. You think about inconsistent reactions. You think about AI movement. You think about which tactics the game rewards. You think about which mechanics you need to exploit. You think about everything except football. That's the biggest criticism anyone can make of a football game. Why So Many Players Are Losing Faith The disappointment isn't because expectations are unrealistic. It's because players know how good football games can feel. When every match ends with: "Why did that happen?" instead of: "What could I have done better?" something has gone wrong. A football game should create moments where players learn, improve and express themselves. It shouldn't constantly make players question the gameplay itself. Why Many Players Are Hesitant About FC 27 Players don't need another marketing campaign. They don't need another buzzword. They don't need another feature designed to look impressive in a trailer. They need gameplay they can trust. Less frustration. Fewer negative game mechanics. Smarter movement. More responsive controls. Better player switching. Reliable passing. Real tactical variety. A game where different football philosophies can succeed. A game where creativity is rewarded. A game where winning comes from making better football decisions. Those aren't luxury features. Those are the foundation of a football game. Until those foundations are consistently solid, every new feature risks feeling like another layer of paint over cracks players have been pointing out for years. EA FC 26 isn't disappointing because it lacks ambition. It's disappointing because, beneath the presentation and marketing, the moment-to-moment gameplay too often leaves players asking the same question after every match: "How did anyone think this was ready to release?"
Sudden death - GK issues
I'd really like to see my goalkeeper dive in the direction I'm actually aiming with the right stick. At the moment, I'll aim top right, but my keeper dives bottom right instead. Maybe one in every five penalties, the game actually sends my goalkeeper where I intended. I've tried every possible angle and timing, but nothing works. My goalkeeper simply doesn't seem capable of diving top left or top right consistently. Most of the time, he goes bottom left or bottom right, regardless of where I aim. So why is it that when I clearly aim top right, my goalkeeper dives bottom right? My controller works perfectly fine. The real question is: does your game? I have a 99 rated GK!!!Why i wont buy FC 27.
Why? Because every year it's the same cycle: flashy marketing, buzzwords, "revolutionary" features, and then the game launches with the same fundamental problems. This year's big selling point is apparently that AI players "won't run offside as much." Seriously? That's supposed to sell a full-price game? You're advertising the AI finally doing something it should have been doing years ago. The gameplay isn't getting more skill-based. It's getting more automated. - Players with 60 pace somehow outrun players with 99 pace. - Defenders pull off magic tackles from behind. - You win the ball, only for it to bounce straight back to the attacker two or three times. - Simple passes randomly go to the wrong player. - Players constantly abandon their positions. - Around the 80th minute, if you're leading, your entire team suddenly feels glued to their markers and can't play out from the back. - Tiny players outmuscle stronger players for no logical reason. - Wingers with 99 pace can't outrun defenders. - Defenders refuse to protect the wings. - Strikers ignore their instructions and constantly drift offside or out of position. They actively try to be in a covered or simply bad position. If u pass to them they dont meet the pass, actually sometimes they will run sideways to be more out of position for it. - Defenders refuse to step up, creating huge gaps for the opposition. -AI teammates will literally run past a loose ball that's right beside them. The AI is just so bad its hard to understand how they actually managed to make it this terrible. -And also the patching. I mean the never ending patching that changes the gameplay evry other week. Usually not for the better. Sick of it The worst part? Defending barely feels like something you do anymore. People don't even defend themselves because the AI does it better. AI tackling is ridiculously overpowered, so the optimal strategy is often to let the game defend for you. That's not rewarding skill—that's rewarding doing less. Several times during every game i get the same thought coming too me "How can it be this bad" Instead of improving responsiveness and player control, EA keeps automating more of the game. The result is that it feels like you're fighting your own AI as much as you're playing against another person. With the right tactics its impossible almost to lose, with the wrong its impossible to win. This just is another example how badly made the game actually is and how hard coded the experience is towards tactics and no actual AI with any sense of thought. And its why u must use meta tactics. Its like they just added more graphics and animation too N64 gameplay. Like i dont see the game beeing any smarter then 30 years ago. Atleast back then it was fun. And every year they promise they've listened to the community. Every year they say gameplay has been rebuilt. Every year they market another "revolution." Then we buy it, and six months later we're dealing with the same broken mechanics all over again. If you're tired of paying full price for recycled promises, stop rewarding it. The only message publishers understand is declining sales. Until players stop buying every new release based on marketing trailers and promises, nothing will change. FC doesn't need another marketing campaign. It needs gameplay that rewards skill, consistency, and player control instead of AI assistance, frustrating mechanics, and yearly promises that never live up to the hype. How on earth have they spent 30 years developing the AI for it to just run past the ball... Ill spend my money on other games... Im done with EAFC 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.Is anyone happy with this game
Fir me this has to be the worst sports game of all time for one reason and that is bashing buttons to defend. In what world did the makers of this game think this would be a good idea. I think they have lost a lot of players for the next installment. Pvp is player v player not player v ai. It is beyond stupid. 8 weeks after fc 27 comes out so does gta6 they have lost me played everyone since 20 and they have progressively got worse to the point in this years edition the worst thing about the game is not the skill of your opponent but whos ai is going to be the most effective. Absolutely tragicExplain to me how your game works.
How is it possible that a player with less speed and less physicality can take the ball from me without any difficulty? can you explain it to me? Can you also explain how in an immersive "realistic" football game you can only play with 3 specific tactics? Also, in a "realistic" football game, does performing feints make a player completely invulnerable to any attempt to take the ball? Aside from other problems like SBC , where the same players always end up in the same spots in every pick? Now my question is: Are you going to leave me and the entire community seen in this post without answers, as always? Or are you going to get some shame and answer, even if it's just to look good?Is anyone happy with this game
Fir me this has to be the worst sports game of all time for one reason and that is bashing buttons to defend. In what world did the makers of this game think this would be a good idea. I think they have lost a lot of players for the next installment. Pvp is player v player not player v ai. It is beyond stupid. 8 weeks after fc 27 comes out so does gta6 they have lost me played everyone since 20 and they have progressively got worse to the point in this years edition the worst thing about the game is not the skill of your opponent but whos ai is going to be the most effective. Absolutely tragicNeed an Explanation: Auto Switching Off but Player Still Changes
Hello, I would like to report an issue that occurred during my match. As shown in the attached video, my controlled player suddenly switched to another player even though I did not press the player switch button. This directly affected the play and put me at a disadvantage. I have already checked my controller settings: Auto Switching is Off. Auto Switching on Air Balls and Loose Balls is On (which should only apply in those situations). The incident shown in the video does not appear to match those conditions, so I would like an explanation as to why the game switched my player automatically. If this is a bug, I would appreciate it if it could be investigated These types of thing makes me uninstall eafc and never even touch a game from eaRate this game 1-10
It seems ea dont listen to everyones complaints so lets see if they listen with how people rate the game. Im giving it a 1 on the basis of this being a player vs player game but the hardest thing about is the opponents ai. Do they not understand how bad bashing buttons to defend is.