EA Sports FC 27 Review: Small Tweaks Carry More Weight Than The Grounds

EA Sports FC 27 launched September 24, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Developed by EA Vancouver and EA Romania, it arrives with a headline open-world mode called The Grounds and a raft of under-the-hood changes to Ultimate Team — and it's the latter that ends up doing the heavier lifting.

On the pitch, FC 27 demands more from you defensively. CPU-assisted defense in Ultimate Team's Competitive setting has been nerfed, so manual defending is now better rewarded. New teammate run types — including curved runs that keep forwards onside — give attackers more options, while through balls now require tighter aim, raising the skill ceiling across the board. Corners also hand you more direct control. The Grounds, meanwhile, is an instanced open-world hub where your customizable avatar queues up for Rush variants, small-sided matches, and mini-games, and it now hosts Clubs play too. The problem is it lacks the depth to be a destination — it's not as all-encompassing as NBA 2K's City, it's disconnected from Player Career, and in practice it functions mainly as a grind spot for FC Season points that feed back into Ultimate Team rewards. Casual players won't find much of a home here. UT's new Gallery feature is more compelling: like a Squad Building Challenge, it rewards you for slotting players into themed sets, and sets can be re-graded as you upgrade the cards inside them — you can even include players you've already sold. A bigger starting coin and tradeable-item pool this year should help new players get their Gallery moving faster. Career Mode gets smaller, more granular updates: training plans are gone, Manager Career's Dynamic OVR system tracks player form, fitness, and morale cleanly across a long season, and a Tension meter backs up transfer negotiations. Random events — like a rival club chasing the same signing — add some welcome unpredictability.

FC 27 sits in a long line of annual football sims that have struggled to justify the full-price ask with incremental updates. The series rebranded from FIFA to EA Sports FC with the 25 entry after EA's licensing deal with FIFA ended, and each release since has tried to carve out a distinct identity beyond the name change. The Grounds is clearly that attempt this year — a swing at the live-service social hub that NBA 2K has built into a central pillar of its experience. That it falls short isn't a surprise given how long 2K has had to develop its City mode, but it does mean FC 27 leans heavily on UT refinements to justify the upgrade.

The defensive changes and the Gallery are the two reasons to care about FC 27 if you're already in the ecosystem — they add genuine texture to the UT loop. The Grounds needs significant expansion before it becomes anything more than a side room. Whether the incremental feel is a dealbreaker depends entirely on how deep you already are in the series.