Here we go again… Review of the football simulator FC 26 from EA Sports

Every fall, all fans of the football simulator that we used to call FIFA face a dilemma: to buy or not to buy. This year, of course, was no exception, the Canadian and Romanian divisions of Electronic Arts released an update to the company's most successful Cash Machine – EA Sports FC 26. In 2021, FIFA brought EA 29% of total revenue. I could not find more recent data. In addition, in recent years, this share seems to be decreasing, although in general, the income from Live Services of sports series, and this is about in-game purchases, including in EA Sports FC, remains the largest source of profit for the publisher. So it's time to look at the new EA Sports FC 26. Note that we played on PlayStation 5.

New year means new FIFA, sorry, EA Sports FC, which means you have to update or not. Although, of course, if you really get into online Ultimate Team mode, then this question is not for you, and you, most likely, have already bought early access to the game. Fortunately, I jumped off this needle and only play Seasons or with friends offline, so I allowed myself to skip the previous version and still ride in FC 24.

One last remark for those who are not in the know and suddenly somehow came across a review of this game for the first time: every year, players upgrade their team rosters, either by spending an incredible amount of time on it, or by buying in-game currency and packs/loot boxes for real money, from which you might get cool players, and then a new version comes out and you have to start all over again.

All of this has certain signs of gambling and unfair advertising, but so far EA has managed to avoid fines or sanctions from legislators in both the US and Europe, although there have been attempts to introduce at least age restrictions from various regulatory bodies more than once, to the point that in the Netherlands EA managed to fight back only in the Court of Appeal.

As always, in the new version, Electronic Arts generously promises many different improvements in graphics, physics and gameplay. The most important, perhaps, are two separate modes Competitive / Authentic. The first is for those who have long been accustomed to the fact that this is a game with its own rules, so to speak, based on football, with high speed, a large number of goals and scoring opportunities. The second is for those who want to see a game closer to reality.

Authentic mode will be available in FC 26 only for career mode and offline play, all online battles are left to Competetive. It would be interesting to see the statistics in a year whether many players will choose Authentic, from the feels, it seems that not. On the other hand, if the developers added this mode, then there was a considerable demand for it.

As for glitches, I've only caught one very consistent one so far, namely two system messages that appear every time you start or change game modes. And from time to time, the match graph shows some strange player statistics, like four shots on goal, six goals, and the score is 2:1.

According to EA, FC 26 has improved a lot in small mechanics, such as first touch control, acceleration, improved passing, etc., but at the same time added realism in that players no longer have to give extra-accurate passes with a 180-degree turn and also receive them in incredibly unrealistic conditions.

In FC 26, they improved the work of goalkeepers, who will more often bounce the ball out of bounds, and not in front of them. And it really works, but there are nuances – many rebounds from the goalkeeper occur at a rather unrealistic distance, almost to the other half of the field or beyond the sideline in quite typical situations, and this does not at all resemble realistic physics. They also promised that when the ball is picked off, there will now be a much greater probability of it bouncing to the player who was picking it off, and not to the opponent, personally, this really pissed me off in previous versions.

Some Play Styles have also been changed or replaced with others. So, in order to fight with the body and cover the ball well, the player must now have the appropriate Play Style. And no more Time Finishing, if you suddenly pumped up the ability to use it, double-clicking is now again a low kick, including a Finess low kick with R1 held down.

Now to the impressions of EA Sports FC 26. Much of what was described above is really felt in practice. What I noticed right away was the speed of the ball in Competitive mode. A strong blow simply slams the ball into the net, it seems that the goalkeeper is just a decoration in most cases. Well, purely visually it flies faster than in previous versions.

The second super noticeable change is that it has become extra difficult to defend. I generally follow the style of play "you just have to score more than the opponent, and defense is so-so" and it more or less works, my win/loss statistics in EA FC 24 are quite positive, but in FC 26 it is still incredibly difficult for me to defend and take the ball away, so situations like "I scored eight, but still lost" happen regularly.

Plus, it feels like the game is still geared towards those who know how to control the ball and dribble, and it's always the hardest for me to play against such opponents. Yes, combinations and passing haven't gone anywhere, on the contrary, FC 26 sometimes has very interesting passes in the cut, which I've never managed to do before, but it's against ball control that it's become even more difficult to play, tackles are harder, and any move by a defender towards a player with the ball will most likely end in a pass into the free zone and a goal.

I wonder if the game will change after the first major update, because in the case of EA this is a fairly common practice, we have already seen more than once how the balance in the new version changed, for example, towards player speed and rapid counterattacks, and then after the patch it returned to normal.

As for other non-game moments – the new FC 26 main font looks a bit strange to me, I want to check the TV settings, because the picture seems to be a little flattened, but the animations have become smoother and have less lag. And as always, new animations have been added at the beginning and end of matches, some players have become more similar to themselves, some – the opposite. But the appearance of the lawn has changed, not for the better, as far as I'm concerned.

To sum up, let's be honest – as always, EA has presented almost the same game that we all love and hate at the same time, but continue to play year after year, well, at least I do. If you don't play online, especially in Ultimate Team, then there is no particular point in updating. If you do, then, as I said at the beginning, this question is basically not for you.

As for me personally, I'll stick with playing FC 24 for now, and then I'll watch FC 26 after the update, and if nothing changes, cry, stab, but learn to play defense in the new version. Or maybe this is my chance to jump off this online needle and finally complete all the story games that have been bought and waiting for their time for a long time.