EA SPORTS FC 27: the best football in years, inside a game that shuts down mid-match

Start with two numbers, because they tell the story on their own.

On Steam, EA SPORTS FC 27 sits at 1,618 positive reviews out of 2,847, a shade under 57 per cent. That is a mixed rating, the label Valve reserves for games its community cannot agree on.

And as I write this, nearly 47,000 people are playing it at the same time.

There is the game. Almost fifty thousand people on the pitch, and one in two of them not recommending it.

The good news: the football

I will be blunt, because it does not happen often with this series: the football in FC 27 is the best it has been in a long time.

EA has pushed a new version of its Authentic setting, and the Competitive preset has changed too, less deeply. What counts is what that does with a pad in your hands.

Two things have genuinely moved.

Crossing finally matters. For years, putting a ball in was an admission of defeat, the thing you tried when you had run out of ideas, and it ended up on a defender's head. Now it is a way to build a chance again. That changes game plans, it revalues wingers, and it produces goals you had stopped being allowed to enjoy.

Defending responds. This is the point players who like the game keep raising, and I agree with them: defending is no longer sitting back and letting the computer work for you. You have to be there, you have to choose, and you lose duels you would have won through inertia last year.

For a football game, that is enormous. It is the whole point, in fact.

The bad news: everything else

Now the player reports, which are depressingly consistent.

Black screens. Matches lost without being played because the game closed itself. Rollbacks mid-move. One player describes four matches in a row with a black screen, forced to relaunch, counted as defeats. Another, playing goalkeeper in Clubs, explains he cannot join a drop-in match as a keeper, that this has been the case since the Ultimate Edition launched, that it was not fixed by the official release date, and that it was still not fixed after the first bug patch.

That last one bothers me most, because it is not a random crash. It is an entire position that does not work in a flagship mode, reported during paid early access, and still present after the launch patch.

There is a moral difference between a game that has bugs and a game whose bug was known about when the money was taken.

The Grounds, the real new thing

Let us talk about what this edition will be remembered for, one way or the other.

The Grounds is a shared online world, available from the start, which becomes the central meeting point for Clubs. In practice: three districts, pitches you throw yourself onto, and lobbies holding around a hundred players.

The three districts are inspired by three football cultures and that is not just dressing, each hosts different activities.

Montclair looks to French urban football. You will find Rush, Bucket Ball, 2v2 and attacking scenarios there, in street cages.

Zeiza is inspired by Argentina, in architecture fusing European and Latin American. This is the district of 3v3, Rush, Keep Away and Balloon Ball.

Parkside looks to the UK and football's working-class origins. You play 1v1, Bocce Ball, Goal Control and the Big Race there, and it is where you access the 11v11 stadium.

The arcade activities are genuinely fun. Balloon Ball, where you shoot at other players' balloons until only one is left, is the kind of silliness this series had stopped daring to attempt. So is the Big Race, a four-player dribbling slalom.

Is it the open world we were dreaming of? No. It is a hub with pitches placed on it, and exploring has little left to reveal once you have done a lap. But as a social antechamber for Clubs, it is a clear improvement on a menu.

Progression, and the subject nobody wants to raise

Your Virtual Pro develops across modes through Archetypes, unlocked by default and freely resettable, whose mastery levels grant permanent attribute upgrades that stay with you even if you switch archetype.

That system is good. Genuinely. It rewards time spent without locking you into a role, which is exactly what Clubs has needed for years.

Alongside it sit the Amps: limited-time items that boost attributes or add PlayStyles and perks, with two Standard and one Signature equippable per match. Plus experience consumables with multipliers, capped by your level to help newcomers catch up.

Note the level cap as a good intention. But stacking limited-time items that grant attributes in a competitive game is a design decision that came from a different department than the gameplay one, and you know which.

The editions speak for themselves. Standard at 69.99 euros, Ultimate at 99.99, with 6,000 FC Points spread over three months, an extra Evolution slot, ICONs, five-star scouts in Career mode, and outfits for The Grounds. There are even date conditions for collecting the points.

Selling five-star Career mode scouts for thirty euros more is a sentence I would rather not have had to write.

Career mode

While we are here: this is the mode players speak best of this year, and that pleases me because it is mine.

Career devotees report a set of improvements rather than a revolution, but a lot of small things that add up. The interface makes people grumble, as it does every year, and as every year we will get used to it before missing it next autumn.

What I make of it

I am in an uncomfortable position and I would rather say so.

On the pitch, FC 27 does what we have been asking for five years. Crossing exists, defending demands work, and matches no longer resemble each other. If you ask me whether the football is better than last year, the answer is yes, without hesitation.

But you do not buy a game engine, you buy a 69.99 euro product. And this product shuts down mid-match, records defeats you never played, and leaves a whole position unreachable in its most-followed multiplayer mode, after a patch.

Almost fifty thousand people play anyway, because it is the only place to play licensed football, and EA knows it. That is precisely why a game in this state can ship.

The best football this series has produced in years deserves better packaging than it was given. Wait for two patches, or wait for a sale. The football will still be there.

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