EA Sports FC 27 review: Evolution over revolution
EA Sports FC 27 makes meaningful changes to Career Mode and gameplay, but The Grounds and some of its new systems still need to spend some time on the training pitch.
EA Sports FC 27 is here, bringing another season of football, Ultimate Team squad building, Career Mode management and frantic matches to the pitch. After spending 20 hours playing across its different modes so far, we’ve had the chance to put its gameplay, new features and familiar favourites through their paces.
The beauty of EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) has always been the freedom it gives players to enjoy football however they wish. Whether you want to fall down the rabbit hole of building your dream team in Ultimate Team and keeping up with the weekly live content, or you’d rather enjoy the single-player experience leading your team to glory in a Manager or Player career mode. There’s something for everyone. With EA Sports FC 27, the developer is offering a more social experience to complement these modes in the form of The Grounds.
01
The Grounds lays the foundations for something bigger
Time spent in The Grounds’ game modes earns you Attribute XP
© EA Sports
The Grounds is an open-world experience where players can roam streets, completing mini-games and challenges on their own, or join up with other players to compete in 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 matches akin to the ‘Rush’ game mode introduced a few years ago. Explore the little town, and you’ll find pitches of varying sizes that essentially act as menu options for each game mode. You can play with friends or with random players. Compete, earn coins and unlock new cosmetic options for your custom player.
Some of these are quite fun to pass the time playing. Balloon ball is a particular standout. Each player has three balloons. Grab one of the two footballs and shoot at the other players. Hit a player and they lose a balloon, last player standing wins. If you find yourself regularly waiting for friends to come online to play, this is a nice way to pass that idle time and level up your player in the process.
All of your time spent in The Grounds’ game modes earns you Attribute XP (AXP) used to level up your player and, in turn, earn Attribute Points (AP) to improve their stats. This is particularly important for fans of the ‘Clubs’ game mode, which has now been siloed into The Grounds as its large 11v11 game mode. Rather than just earning AP through playing Clubs matches, you can now complete these mini-games, essentially ‘training’ with your player to hone their skills.
Bucketball flips the game on its head
© EA Sports
The Grounds has lots of characters wandering around or watching the various games play out, but players can see most of what it has to offer in about 15 minutes. There are murals and statues that share some random football facts, and targets to shoot footballs at that provide a nice distraction. However, the lack of incentive and repetitive nature leaves little reason to see and do them all.
It’s a nice idea, but it all feels a bit bare bones. The Grounds is EA’s first attempt, and so next year’s entry will hopefully be a bit more fleshed out. For the time being, though, it’s somewhere to pass a few minutes while waiting for friends or between longer sessions in the bigger game modes.
02
Ultimate Team continues to refine a winning formula
Ultimate Team has seen only minor additions this year
© EA Sports
Arguably the series’ most popular mode, Ultimate Team has seen only minor additions in this year’s entry. Squad Building Challenges (SBCs) have seen a new addition in the form of Streamlined SBCs. Rather than building a team that meets set requirements such as a minimum OVR rating, Chemistry score, or features a set amount of players from a club, nationality or league, you simply need to submit enough players to meet a ‘score’ requirement.
Higher-rated players have a higher score associated with their card, so you can feasibly complete them by submitting just a few high-rated cards, or by submitting hundreds of lower-rated cards. It’s a fine system likely to appeal more to players who have never really enjoyed SBCs and so missed out on the often lucrative rewards for completing them. They’re not likely to appeal to SBC aficionados due to their current simplicity, but they’ll likely help to keep the mode’s economy in check and hopefully keep things more balanced over the next 12 months.
That being said, these new SBCs are difficult to give a final verdict on at such an early stage in the game’s lifecycle. If these begin to require even more points and offer enticing packs or special player cards, they may give players a dilemma between passing up these unique cards and sacrificing some of their best players.
The other addition to Ultimate Team comes in the form of the Gallery. Players can submit cards that they own or have previously owned in Ultimate Team to complete various sets, earning them Gallery Tokens which can then be spent on unlocking cosmetics for their club or base Hall of FUT items. This isn’t a feature you’re going to spend a lot of time in, and EA are seemingly aware of this too, with an ‘Auto-Complete’ option available as soon as you select a set to begin completing. Think of it as a digital sticker book for your Ultimate Team. It’s a nice addition, but not something that’s going to revolutionise the game mode.
03
Career Mode offers welcome new layers of management
The changes in Career Mode are all pretty positive
© EA Sports
For those who prefer to take the reins of a team and lead them to glory, the host of changes in FC 27’s Career mode are all pretty positive. The headline changes come in the form of dynamic player rating changes and development, improvements to the transfer negotiations and how the AI teams handle their own transfer business, and the inclusion of unexpected events.
Dynamic player ratings are arguably the biggest change. A player’s overall rating will now be based on their form, morale and match fitness. If they’re consistently playing well, are happy and are in good shape, they’ll be more likely to see an improvement in their overall rating. If they’re injured for a prolonged period of time or are unhappy, you can expect their rating to slide.
This same philosophy has now been incorporated into a player’s development and ability to reach their potential. There are now different development profiles that players will adopt, each one drastically changing how quickly they’ll realise their potential. It’s also no longer guaranteed that a promising youth player will, in fact, become your next star player. As with the dynamic player ratings, a string of poor performances, low-skilled coaching staff, or an unhappy player can lead to them falling by the wayside.
This feels like a noticeable improvement, albeit a little inconsistent or confusing. At times, a player can fail to develop despite playing consistently well, having the best coaches and being content at the club. There is no indication as to what has hindered their progress, while other players would suddenly flourish. This may be the development profiles at play behind the scenes, but further clarity on what is impacting a player’s development would be a welcome addition in a future patch or next year’s entry.
Morgan Rogers completes his transfer to Chelsea in FC 27
© EA Sports
That ambiguity unfortunately also plagues the otherwise more realistic new transfer process. Rather than all of the details being hashed out in one in-person meeting cutscene, this time negotiations for both the fee and contract are drawn out in phone calls and emails over multiple in-game days and even weeks. Offers need to be competitive to win over other teams who may be interested in a player’s signature.
This feels far more like real-life transfer sagas, and akin to the transfer system in the likes of Football Manager, but there were a few times when a transfer fell through, and there was no clear indication why. Only a few days later, you may find the player has joined a rival team. This may be because the team offered the player a better contract than they had asked for, but it’s not clear in the current UI that this has happened. It can be frustrating to miss out on an ideal signing, but it does lend some weight to every decision you make in these negotiations. Sometimes the player is worth pushing the boat out for, even if it seems outlandish.
Players will also be provided with regular ‘Squad Update’ notifications. These should inform wannabe managers of a player’s happiness level, overall rating or ability to play a certain role or position has improved due to training. However, opening the Squad view within the notification, leads to the standard formation/squad screen. There’s nothing to inform you of what has changed, which player has been impacted, or what’s required to remedy the situation.
The confusion these can cause does suggest that the signposting needs some adjustments to ensure all fans are getting the most out of the game mode. A certain other football management sim makes these notifications detailed enough for you to know exactly what’s happened and gives you convenient options to help respond. A similar system in future EA FC Career modes will make a huge difference.
04
EA FC 27 gameplay delivers moments of brilliance and frustration
Gameplay improvements have focused on improving crossing and defending
© EA Sports
EA FC 27’s gameplay improvements have seemingly focused on improving crossing (and corners), and making defending feel more fun and impactful. The good news is they’ve largely succeeded. The bad news is, for the most part, pace is still king.
The changes to corner taking add a bit of depth giving you options to add players, bring them to the front or back posts, or take players out of the box. Crossing is most certainly back after last year’s entry made it almost entirely unviable. Crossing the ball now reaches the desired player, and heading actually hits the target more often than not. This provides more viable options to score compared to last year, where you were shoehorned into quick passing or precise dribbling with your best and fastest players.
However, fast attackers are still overpowered and can run through defences far too easily. Through balls have been made more effective, and this just makes fast wingers and strikers even more punishing if you time the run right. This makes it imperative to have fast defenders to try and cancel this out, or to learn to play a great offside trap.
That being said, defenders do tend to anticipate attacking plays and win the ball in one-v-ones more consistently when you do make a tackle. This has the knock-on effect of the middle of the pitch seeing possession gained and lost in quick succession as it gets increasingly congested.
Deciding how corners and free kicks play out is down to you
© EA Sports
There is still the odd moment where the ball seems to bobble around and glitch through a challenge, leaving an opposing striker 1v1 with your keeper, but defending as a whole feels more robust, and potentially a little too overpowered at the time of writing.
The gameplay has therefore become more about finding the space, exploiting slower defenders with through balls and ensuring your defenders are marking or positioned correctly to stop your opponent from having an easy opportunity to get into the box.
As we’ve seen consistently over the last few years, EA Sports will no doubt release a patch that tweaks the on-the-pitch gameplay, so it’s likely we’ll see something more similar to previous years a month or two after release.
05
Verdict: A stronger FC, with more room to grow
EA FC 27 feels like an iterative improvement
© EA Sports
EA Sports have clearly spent time trying to improve various parts of FC 27 and some of those changes genuinely pay off. The improved AI transfer dealings and dynamic player development in Career mode add more depth to the long-term experience, while the gameplay tweaks make matches feel more varied than they did in FC 26. Crossing is finally a viable way to create chances again and defending feels more responsive, even if the balance between attacking pace and defensive strength could still use some work.
But there are some clear misses. The Grounds feels every bit the first version of the mode that it is. Players who enjoy the social and cosmetic side of the experience will get the most out of it, but for everyone else, there’s still work to be done to realise its full potential.
EA FC 27 feels like an iterative improvement rather than a dramatic reinvention of the series. There are enough meaningful changes here to make it worthwhile for returning players, particularly those who spend most of their time in Career Mode. However, some of the new systems still need refinement, and The Grounds in particular feels like a feature that needs more substance before it becomes an essential part of the EA FC experience.
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