EA SPORTS FC 26

[Chris Davies]

Truth be told - The small touches in efootball, and the physics in general, are inarguably still better.

This is the killer for me.

Passes still move like a mouse cursor on a desktop, not a football - and transitions as a result, even with the midfield tracking back, are nothing close to realistic.

The way teams instantly flow from box-to-box, like waves on a beach, gliding across the surface, every player moving in unnatural sync at the same high-speed - it's infuriating, but what makes it worse is that when it's "your turn" to attack and the defence is instantly back in position, there's somehow still acres of space... Because they're just locking into position, not "thinking" and not working together.

It's better, but it's just not a football game yet. (Oh and I disagree with you about the pace of the game - the passing speed alone makes it way too fast even at League Two level IMO.)

I remember someone saying back in the PES v FIFA heyday - "defending is easy, scoring is hard, yet FIFA does it backwards". That's why we all loved PES.

But it's still the case today with FC, IMO - trying to latch onto an opponent is like drinking ten pints and trying to catch an eel in an oil slick, and as a result getting shots away is like shooting barrels in a barrel factory.

There's no care for the art of defending - or physics - and as a result, it's still a much simpler (and repetitive) experience than something like FIFA 16, or even FIFA 19 (the last game before they started deleting swathes of AI and physics interactions from the game).

In the 5 years after that, FIFA went from "football game" to "totally streamlined competitive experience" (i.e. no AI and no physics); it may take another 5 years or more just to get back there, and that's only if they "stay the course" with this "Authentic Mode" split.

 

[DerleiPT]

Authentic gameplay：​

There's no doubt that FC 26's Authentic Mode is the best FIFA game since FIFA 19.

There is some good AI build up but what makes me sick is AI passing, just take a look how unnatural it looks. They can pass perfect ball even if his teamamte is behind his back.

 

[dontellmama]

AI passing, just take a look how unnatural it looks. They can pass perfect ball even if his teamamte is behind his back.

In this regard, FIFA 16 remains the PRIME EXAMPLE.

 

[pootball_furist]

Look at this segment of authentic gameplay:


Valverde beats a CB and the other CB, unnaturally, doesnt even try to reach him/block him. I will be honest, this Authentic gameplay looked the best so far but the AI defending is still horrible. It still has the entire 1v1 element in it. So poor! (FYI, AI is not defending as a unit and its still 1v1 BS!)

KONAMI will delay ML even further if they are watching these clips. Cause, they still, by far, have Superior game in terms of fundamental of Football (inspite of having so many negatives themselves). They have no reason to rush because people who prefer fundamental simulation style football, still have only one option. (Thats efootball unfortunately!) Also, Looking at these clips, EA is far away from delivering a fundamental footballing experience!

 

[dontellmama]

KONAMI will delay ML even further if they are watching these clips. Cause, they still, by far, have Superior game in terms of fundamental of Football (inspite of having so many negatives themselves). They have no reason to rush because people who prefer fundamental simulation style football, still have only one option. (Thats efootball unfortunately!) Also, Looking at these clips, EA is far away from delivering a fundamental footballing experience!

Nah, PES stood no chance against FIFA 14 (PS4/XO ver.) or FIFA 16.

 

[Topaz]

Authentic gameplay：​

There's no doubt that FC 26's Authentic Mode is the best FIFA game since FIFA 19.

Well, the movements are still static as ever and the rigid formation is back.

 

[wiiuchamp]

thats why the ability to have custom sliders with authentic features on might be our best bet to make the game better.

as the beta gameplay goes its too fast the passing and player instantly controls most of the passes.

 

[raul_ole]

Passes are too fast

 

[nicetoknowyou]

Look at this segment of authentic gameplay:


Valverde beats a CB and the other CB unnaturally just doesnt try to block him. I will be honest, this Authentic gameplay looked the best so far but the AI defending is still horrible. It still has the entire 1v1 element in it. So poor! (FYI, AI is not defending as a unit and its still 1v1 BS!)

KONAMI will delay ML even further if they are watching these clips. Cause, they still, by far, have Superior game in terms of fundamental of Football (inspite of having so many negatives themselves). They have no reason to rush because people who prefer fundamental simulation style football, still have only one option. (Thats efootball unfortunately!) Also, Looking at these clips, EA is far away from delivering a fundamental footballing experience!

Konami is dead, my friend, at least when it comes to taking over a team, starting a campaign, managing players, contracts, training, and academies for promising players. It's been a while. Even the great representatives of the community who were always loyal have distanced themselves. You can see it with every patch they released for the crappy slot machine game. They decided to take a different direction, that's it.

 

[saturator]

thats why the ability to have custom sliders with authentic features on might be our best bet to make the game better.

as the beta gameplay goes its too fast the passing and player instantly controls most of the passes.

Pass speed was an issue in simulation sliders on FC25 too. EA didn't understand how made a pass realitic.
But you can adjust with custom sliders.

So, this year, you have more sliders to adjust the ball speed, bad control, deflection.
I think you can have a better game than FC 25.

If I can have a match like this on FC 25


I could have a better game on FC 26. The big problem on FC 25 is the little speed boost sometime with some ugly iceskating animations.
FC 26 seems slower so it's better.

 

[Isslander]

Getting pretty desperate for a new football game so EAFC will have to be spectacularly shitty for me not to buy it.
Still not very optimistic I will buy it

 

[Madmac79]

Look at this segment of authentic gameplay:


Valverde beats a CB and the other CB unnaturally just doesnt try to block him. I will be honest, this Authentic gameplay looked the best so far but the AI defending is still horrible. It still has the entire 1v1 element in it. So poor! (FYI, AI is not defending as a unit and its still 1v1 BS!)

I that's really authentic gameplay (in the sense that it's what it will be in the final cut), count me out.

I understand to death that it's EA Sports, we have lo lower expectations and so on and so forth, but mine were so low that I would have even tried to swallow the ridiculous ball control phisics and passing if at the very least they fixed non possession AI behaviour and proposed something that looked smart and most of all, alive..

but looking at this, and other gameplays before, I can't even understand what they supposedly worked on to pompously announce "Greater AI defending enabled, with tighter defensive lines and defenders reacting realistically when a ball is nearby" (as an aside, they even made a great fuss about the new ball shielding as a game changing mechanic or something.. can't say it's appreciable from this videos either, or maybe I wasn't lucky enough).

 

[Ezequiel Vanzin]

Let's wait because normally the beta version is very raw, the good stuff will be tested for 10 hours and try to move the sliders, then we'll come to a final conclusion whether it's worth buying it or not, because now with the feedback it will certainly fix a lot of things in the authentic mode!

 

[saturator]

I find a video, i don't know if it's authentic gameplay but I think so

 

[OleCiro]

My Xbox wouldn’t let me record from the beta.

I don’t know if it’s a different camera angle but these videos being shared look much faster than what I’ve played

 

[saturator]

My Xbox wouldn’t let me record from the beta.

I don’t know if it’s a different camera angle but these videos being shared look much faster than what I’ve played

You can't record directly with your console the beta. You have to use an external recording source.

 

[DerleiPT]

Here is authentic mode + sliders

sprint speed 35
acceleration 46
shot error 60
shot speed 48
header shot error 20
pass error 55
pass speed 35
pass error 55
header pass error 55

I wonder how it works with pass speed 20 and pass error 70?

 

[Chris Davies]

I wonder how it works with pass speed 20 and pass error 70?

Slowing pass speed doesn't introduce momentum to the ball (it still doesn't accelerate / decelerate, it's just instant movement and instant stopping) so it still looks and feels too fast, in my experience.

Pass error doesn't seem to make any difference in terms of the angles of the pass (they're all still directly on target) - in my experience it just leads to some randomly underhit passes. The contact on the ball doesn't have any impact on its direction. It just flies straight to the target.

However, manual passing makes a difference (it's not actually manual - more like "old semi" - with semi and fully assisted feeling identical to me). There are more instances of players having to backtrack to receive your passes then. But I wish it was more attribute-based...

 

[simogto90]

Here is authentic mode + sliders

sprint speed 35
acceleration 46
shot error 60
shot speed 48
header shot error 20
pass error 55
pass speed 35
pass error 55
header pass error 55

I wonder how it works with pass speed 20 and pass error 70?

I wonder how can physics be so bad on a Ps5 2025 game? I mean,if i fire up we9le i am impressed how good the physics was and It was a game from 20 years ago on a PS2 hardware...

 

[Chris Davies]

I wonder how can physics be so bad on a Ps5 2025 game? I mean,if i fire up we9le i am impressed how good the physics was and It was a game from 20 years ago on a PS2 hardware...

It's because it's on purpose. The physics have been stripped out for the "Competitive" user base. Year by year, more and more - and the same goes for pass error (which is why, on a 16-direction game, you see more passes going astray at all possible angles - but not in FC).

The "Competitive" physics focus affects absolutely everything. I hit an absolute screamer of a shot before which the keeper got a hand to ... and it instantly sucked all power out of the ball, and it fell from the sky like a dead bird, for him to gather up.

It stems from "fixing" tackling for these players, where the ball has to instantly stop and almost get sucked into the player's boot to ensure they are "rewarded" for their input, not left frustrated by a loose ball or worse.

I just hope the next iteration of "Authentic Mode" focuses on this (and AI, which is still too 1v1-ish) first and foremost. It should be the highest priority IMO.

 

[checkmate10]

Time for my once every 5 years comment… EA have built a huge pile of shit codebase. There is no fixing it. It is “authentically” garbage. Somehow, we have won a small victory by getting a dedicated authentic mode. But it ends at the marketing. What do EA listen to? Sales. Everyone who buys the game and wants an authentic experience is shooting themselves in the foot. Boycott the damn game if you want even the slightest chance (and I mean the smallest sliver of a snowdrop in hell) of getting a realistic game from EA in your lifetime.

 

[millossobek]

Authentic gameplay：​

There's no doubt that FC 26's Authentic Mode is the best FIFA game since FIFA 19.

The lack of user tackling here is concerning to me. Several times I saw the CPU team go near the player, and the CPU defenders attempting automatic, contextual tackles, but I rarely saw the User team do the same. I believe that a problem with the FC's (starting with 24), is that Player Defenders are so acutely unaware of tackling when close to a player, that you are entirely left with the manual tackling mechanics which are unrealistically harsh. If you attempt a tackle and miss, your defender is put so much out of position and is so severely penalized/immobilized that it's almost not even worth to attempt it. So what's left? Well at least in FIFA 23, when you were jockeying and got close to a player, the defender would try an automatic "contextual" tackle (or at least TRY to block the ball somehow). I'm not seeing anything like this here, and it is discouraging. I'm not saying everyone should play Legacy Defending (which has been broken in the FC's anyway), but Tactical and Advanced have to be logical, and not so frustratingly passive, or punish the player so much for even attempting a (gasp!) manual standing tackle..

 

[FC Bayern]

Time for my once every 5 years comment… EA have built a huge pile of shit codebase. There is no fixing it. It is “authentically” garbage. Somehow, we have won a small victory by getting a dedicated authentic mode. But it ends at the marketing. What do EA listen to? Sales. Everyone who buys the game and wants an authentic experience is shooting themselves in the foot. Boycott the damn game if you want even the slightest chance (and I mean the smallest sliver of a snowdrop in hell) of getting a realistic game from EA in your lifetime.

Boycotting the game will remove maybe 400,000 of their millions of sales. It ain't going to do anything

 

[Topaz]

The lack of user tackling here is concerning to me. Several times I saw the CPU team go near the player, and the CPU defenders attempting automatic, contextual tackles, but I rarely saw the User team do the same. I believe that a problem with the FC's (starting with 24), is that Player Defenders are so acutely unaware of tackling when close to a player, that you are entirely left with the manual tackling mechanics which are unrealistically harsh. If you attempt a tackle and miss, your defender is put so much out of position and is so severely penalized/immobilized that it's almost not even worth to attempt it. So what's left? Well at least in FIFA 23, when you were jockeying and got close to a player, the defender would try an automatic "contextual" tackle (or at least TRY to block the ball somehow). I'm not seeing anything like this here, and it is discouraging. I'm not saying everyone should play Legacy Defending (which has been broken in the FC's anyway), but Tactical and Advanced have to be logical, and not so frustratingly passive, or punish the player so much for even attempting a (gasp!) manual standing tackle..

They always overfix it. I remember in FC 24, it was very easy to do autotackles. Same with FC 25. Now instead of reducing the distance, looks like they completely disabled it.

 

[saturator]

Here is authentic mode + sliders

sprint speed 35
acceleration 46
shot error 60
shot speed 48
header shot error 20
pass error 55
pass speed 35
pass error 55
header pass error 55

I wonder how it works with pass speed 20 and pass error 70?

I understand why the passes are so quick and why the ball sticks to the player's foot. Bad control is at 50?

 

[Sami 1999]

Boycotting the game will remove maybe 400,000 of their millions of sales. It ain't going to do anything

If majority boycotted, then it would definitely matter. But if people keep buying garbage, then things will never change.

However, just because few people boycotting doesn't amount to anything, shouldn't mean the alternative is to buy the game. The alternative is to not buy the and just forget about it and play something else.

 

[FC Bayern]

If majority boycotted, then it would definitely matter. But if people keep buying garbage, then things will never change.

However, just because few people boycotting doesn't amount to anything, shouldn't mean the alternative is to buy the game. The alternative is to not buy the and just forget about it and play something else.

My point is that the number who would boycott would be a small, insignificant number. There's so many who enjoy and are addicted to the game. They play FUT religiously for content and for fun. The amount of people who want a 'sim football game' is so small, it wouldn't matter to EA. They buy the game, and that's it. They spend nothing on coins or packs. We should be lucky that EAS even want to entertain the idea of a sim/authentic mode.

FC 25 sold 20M copies. FC 25 sold LESS than FC 24. In 2024, game sales related to about $2.02B. While "Live Services and Others" made $5.55B. If we take PES 2021 (as the latest game by Konami you had to pay for), I believe it sold around 3.9M copies. If we take that as consumers who want 'sim football' who boycott the game, then that takes FC sales down to around 16M

 

[DerleiPT]

I understand why the passes are so quick and why the ball sticks to the player's foot. Bad control is at

Major issue is ball control and how fast players can change running direction, you can not change it with FT ball controll sliders. That's why we need sliders like dribbling, ball control and agility.

 

[cristobal64]

Here is authentic mode + sliders

sprint speed 35
acceleration 46
shot error 60
shot speed 48
header shot error 20
pass error 55
pass speed 35
pass error 55
header pass error 55

I wonder how it works with pass speed 20 and pass error 70?

For information, this is gameplay on Xbox One according to the author of the video.

 

[SmichiW]

Here is authentic mode + sliders

sprint speed 35
acceleration 46
shot error 60
shot speed 48
header shot error 20
pass error 55
pass speed 35
pass error 55
header pass error 55

I wonder how it works with pass speed 20 and pass error 70?

"this is him sprinting 🤣🤣 that looks like a heavy joke ea