It’s that time of the year again for another round of football, with EA Sports FC 27. Fresh off another FIFA World Cup, we’re absolutely rearing to get stuck in once again, and the team at EA Sports have given us a peek behind the curtain at their next big iteration.
We’re going to be touching on a few new features and modes here, but we’ve been told that all are in service of promoting various types of football culture, proving deeper gameplay, innovation, and updates, and simply highlighting the bigger moments in football across the world.
So let’s dive in as we unpack the newest mode titled The Grounds, along with various Career Mode and Ultimate Team updates.
The Grounds
The Grounds is a new mode that will look to expand EA FC 27 beyond the confines of the traditional pitch. It’s a football playground made for you to connect with friends and experience the sport at your own pace and in your own way.
The Grounds will be presented to players as an open-world experience spread across three distinct districts that cover football culture and locations from the UK (Parkside), France (Montclair) and Argentina (Zeiza). In this mode, you’ll also be able to create your own star from the ground up, in a bid to make them one of the most complete and elite players around.
The Grounds will feature the option of more casual play with friends in the parks, and more competitive club-based play in the stadiums. It has also expanded beyond Clubs, which has now been integrated into this world via The Clubhouse. You and teammates will spawn into The Terrace, which will lead to The Clubhouse, where you’ll be able to partake in all the familiar Clubs-based experiences.
Drop-in experiences allow for 11v11 play, and new 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 scenarios will be available with friends. You can queue with party members and teleport directly to you via an invite.
Fun With Friends
The new Kickabouts feature allows you to play more casual experiences with four new minigames. Goal Control sees you trying to score as many goals as possible against your opponent, while Big Race sees you dribbling around obstacles to finish first, Bucketball mixes 2v2 football with basketball, and Balloon Ball has four players duke it out in a dodgeball-centric match.
Finally, Drop Kick Targets will present players with targets throughout The Grounds, in which you’ll be able to instantly aim and kick a ball through, and will continue to evolve post-launch.
Amps have also been introduced in EA FC 27 as a new type of consumable that gives you more control over how your character controls on the pitch. These are essentially temporary boosts to attributes and styles, and four tiers bring with them enhanced effectiveness. You can earn them through objectives, live events, and season progression.
Masteries, however, focus more on your overall growth as you progress and unlock permanent attributes depending on your preferred Archetypes. You can even reset your build anytime and go again.
Personalisation is a major part of The Grounds as you’ll be able to kit yourself out with plenty of clothing options and accessories. These include district collections inspired by each of the districts, in addition to plenty of authentic matchday apparel and brands like Nike, Adidas, Puma and New Balance. Emotes will also be available when customising your player.
Finally, you’ll even have specific characters to introduce you to each of these games with small cutscenes. The Grounds will also be updated throughout the year with new seasons and features, including new objectives, gameplay updates, Club and League Playoffs, and even visual enhancements and seasonal updates.
While it’s a mode we’ve seen before in something like the NBA 2K games, there’s no doubt it will provide a more natural, intuitive way to connect with friends, promoting all types of casual and competitive online play.
Career Mode
Senior Game Design Director Pete O’Donnell and Producer Andreas Wilsdorf jumped in here to talk to us about all the exciting new career updates.
Firstly, a new transfer market will have live updates on a player’s Overall Rating (OVR). This new transfer system will also have a greater effect in the Manager Career, including smart CPU decision-making, as well as new cinematic conversations and more nuanced decisions in general.
The Career Mode will also introduce new user-generated challenges to add a new layer of depth and difficulty, and you’ll even be able to share them with the world.
EA FC 27 has also partnered with TransferRoom, a real-life platform that platforms use to buy, sell, and loan players. This helps align transfers with their platform, taking in to accont things like age and previous clubs to determine value. It will also change how scouts work, as they can now look for players that closely align with your attributes, styles and value.
Negotiations now happen concurrently between club and player, which makes it easier to determine the correct value, as well as the best deal for that player and your club. You can even structure payment schedules, loan terms and player bonuses, all displayed here. Upon finalising transfers, you’ll even get access to social media reactions based on your moves.
Dynamic OVR will now look to more accurately scale a player’s performance over the course of a season, which leads to more experimental chemistry and an emphasis on form and hot streaks, which guide you on who to pick, who to rest and who to transfer. Focusing on Form long-term can also raise a player’s ceiling, depending on their age.
Match Fitness will help you gauge how well they’re training or recovering from injury, which can also play into their OVR and Form. In addition to all of this, deciding where to put players on the pitch can not only affect their OVR, but also the OVR of other players around them. Players can now perform in up to 6 positions, giving you more freedom than ever.
The Creator Challenge Dashboard will present players with a central screen to create and download these challenges to use in your career. When creating them, you can put in win clauses, select certain goals and achievements from various leagues and even put teams at a disadvantage prior to or during a season.
Overall, it feels like the more nuanced management systems will prevail at creating more lifelike situations where player performance is managed beyond the pitch.
Ultimate Team
Ultimate Team might feel like the bread and butter for EA FC in general, but it’s about to get even deeper. Past and present players will be on display via the new FUT gallery, which helps you display your crowning achievements and FUT cards with style.
Various new single-player live events will be added down the track, along with more streamlined Squad Building Challenges and new general live service elements.
Much like the Career Mode, the new transfer system can have greater effects on your team, affecting a player’s OVR each match, encouraging you to not only maintain their general health and injuries, but also positioning on the pitch. To top it all off, we’ll also be getting a bunch of new creator challenges as well.
Beyond all of this, there will be an emphasis on weekly milestones, objectives and requirements, including more consistent squad upgrades and rewards after each match, lessening the feeling of the grind. New evolution pathways and previews will help you build squads and plan player upgrades before committing to them, which is a nice touch.
These can also include different branching paths to help items improve in unique ways. The Playstyle Lab will also return as a recurring experience, with some playstyles applied, allowing you to customise parts of the item instead of simply recreating everything from the ground up.
Thoughts So Far
The sense of connectivity, football culture, and cooperative and competitive play will certainly be strengthened by The Grounds, and we can’t wait to explore every corner.
While The Grounds might feel like the newest and most exciting addition to EA FC 27, we are certainly excited for the new live-services updates and more nuanced player management systems that will deepen both Career and Ultimate Team offerings.
EA Sports FC 27 will launch on the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2 on the 25th of September, 2026.
Stay tuned for our full review closer to release.
Featured header image provided by Electronic Arts.
