FC 26 VS FC 25 - All Brand New Features and Gamemodes Explained

With the highly-anticipated release of EA FC 26 for all platforms, players will have the chance to start a brand new season of football gameplay to their hearts content. In this guide, we will go over every brand new thing players can experience in FC 26 in comparison to FC25 and explain to players what all of the brand new features entails for players to have the smoothest gameplay experience.

FC 26 VS FC 25 - All Brand New Features Explained

Together with the release of FC 26, players will have the chance to experience brand new features never before seen in FC 25, including improvements to both on field players and goalkeeper’s abilities, improved game features and physics, new playstyles and players roles, improvement in matches’ rules, set pieces and more!

Some of the major improvements from FC 25 that players can experience are:

Update To Both Players & Goalkeepers AI and Gameplay

Compared to FC 25, numerous changes are coming to both how players can control the football players and goalkeepers on the field to help enhance your gameplay and allow you to experience a more authentic match than ever before.

The first major change is an improvement to the game’s dribbling and movement abilities of all players on the field, with the game now allow players to dribble the ball closer to the player, improvement in terms of players’ height and ball adjustment, as well as improvements in terms of animations for dribbling, improving the game’s overall authenticity and allow players to experience the game more smoothly.

The second major change involves the changes in movement speed for different types of players on the field, especially involving attackers and defenders, with attackers and defenders’ speed being adjusted to be more balanced overall and allow for easier gameplay. Additionally, the agility and explosive burst of all players have been improved, with additional changes to the running style of each different player on the field, reflecting their real-life running styles.

The 3rd major change to on-field players and goalkeepers involves changes to the fundamentals for goalkeepers, improving their overall usefulness and accuracy on the field. Crucially, unlike FC 25, FC 26 involves a brand new AI learning algorithm to allow the goalkeepers to facilitate different types of positions to adapt when the goals are being scored, improving the goalkeepers’ overall performances in various different situations and help to protect the goal easier.

Finally, various game movements and defensive manuvers have experienced a complete overhaul, allowing players to adjust their playstyles accordingly with brand new controls and help to personalize players’ playstyle even more.

Adjustment To In-game Movements & Controls

In addition to the adjustment of automatic AI for players on the field and for goalkeepers, various improvements have also been made for gamemodes that allows players to take control of the individual players and goalkeepers in order to experience the on field match first hand. These adjustments massively enhance the experience of the players and aim to improve the overall authenticity of the gameplay.

Firstly, the Be-A-Goalkeeper experience has experienced a complete overhaul, with completely brand new pre-set controls that aim to help the players be able to more effectively defend against the opponent’s team’s attempts at scoring goals while also allowing players more freedom even when they take on the role of a goalkeeper.

Secondly, for when players want to take control of the on field players to experience the match first hand, the various player controls have also been improved to allow players a more authentic experience, especially concerning precise movements like Passing and Shooting.

Passing has received an upgrade in terms of the available angles and the speed in which players can adjust before passing to another player, allowing you to fine-tune your movements and help to boost the overall accuracy of each shot. Additionally, the passing animations and the different types of passing like Quick Passes and Passes Behind have also received major updates. In terms of Shooting, it too has received an update in terms of Shooting angles changes and the ability to allow players to do quick shoots, helping to diversify the action the players can take on the field. To accommodate these changes, brand new button schemes and quick access menus have also been added to help players take full advantage of these brand new features.

Finally, the last major change in terms of in person actions players can take involves the defending process, with an heavy emphasis on improving the overall defending experience and reward players for well-timed passes and challenges. To be specific, Defensive maneuvers like Tacklebacks, Bouncebacks, and Reboundbacks have all received updates in terms of controls, animations, accuracies and heavily rewards players for accurate movements. The overall logic for defensive actions like tackles and blocks have also been improved, with a heavy emphasis on authenticity that prevents players from accidentally committing illegal moves on the field and helps diversify the defensive moves of each player based on their stats.

 

Improvements To The Game’s Physicality

In addition to improvements to actions that players can do when they take control of the players or the goalkeepers on field and the enhancement to the movement options and effects of the different activities players can do on field, the game’s overall physicality and realness will also be improved to help boost the game’s authenticity even further.

In terms of Physicality, several improvements have been made to the shielding mechanics that different players can do to protect the ball, with the implementation of a completely overhauled shielding system compared to FC 25. The new system allows players to do 2 brand new actions: Shield Trapping and Shield Dribbing.

While Shield Trapping, players will be able to trap the ball and defend against opponents without moving. This ability will experience several important improvements such as improved positioning when receiving the ball passed by other players, increase the different players’ strength during Shield Trapping based on their stats, improved Shield Trapping logic to prioritize getting in the way of incoming opponents rather than getting the perfect touch on the ball and crucially, several improvements to Shield Trapping timing depending on the different scenarios on the field.

For Shield Dribbling, the players will also experience several new changes when defending the ball while moving, with the overall experience being enhanced to take into account more of the players’ inputs. These changes mainly involve an overall adjustment to the dribbling position while shielding the ball and added extra abilities that make changing between Shield Dribbling and Sprinting more smoothly and seamless.

Additionally, 2 brand new features have also been introduced to balance the overall effect of shielding on the game. The first is the introduction of shield entries, which serves as special quick and easy to use Shielding actions that players can use to better defend the ball, especially for specific players on field that have special Shielding playstyles. The other change introduced is the Contested Box Out feature, which takes into account the difference in strength between different players on field and allows the higher strength player to shield in front of the opponent and protect the ball or set up for a header. This effect takes into account the difference in strengths between the two players and their positioning, with better positioning resulting in better chances of triggering this effect and allowing for an easier time overall for the player that planned ahead.

Overall Gameplay Online & Offline Controls Improvements

The last major feature update for FC 26 in comparison to FC 25 is the massive improvements in terms of both Offline and Online controls for both teams when facing one another.

A major change in terms of online gameplay changes is the introduction of the brand new fatigue system which affects all AI-controlled players on the field. This system introduce a brand new variable to the overall gameplay between the different teams when matching online, with the Fatigue effects reducing Ai-controlled Players’ Agility and Acceleration when the match have gone on for a long time, preventing the matches to be dragged out for too long and help to boost the game's overall authenticity. However, it is important to note that Fatigue only affect AI-controlled players and do not affect the player-controlled players on the field, turning this feature into a somewhat strategic game where players will need to pick their best players against each other to shine and achieve victories while other players on the field are affected by Fatigue.

Aside from that, the game’s online matching system as well as all of the system revolving around PvP matches have experienced an overhaul, with various important improvements like improved matching time, improved real-time input accuracy and boost in the game’s overall animations and UI layout, helping to enhance players’ overall game enjoyment.

FC 26 VS FC 25 - Brand New Gamemodes Explained

Aside from changes and updates to old features in F26 in comparison to FC25, FC26 additionally introduces several brand new game modes and gameplay features that promises to shake up the overall gameplay experience for players and the franchise itself moving forward.

Competitive & Authentic Gameplay Introductions

Unlike FC 25. FC 6 aims to provide players with even more gameplay features, introducing 2 brand new gamemodes for players to enjoy depending on their preferred playstyles: Competitive Gamemode and Authentic Gamemode.

Competitive Gamemode is mainly made for Made for FUT and Clubs and is the mandatory game mode for players who want to experience the FUT, Clubs, Online Seasons, and Online Friendlies. This gamemode is an extremely skill-driven feature that requires the players themselves to be able to train their players effectively and be able to take control of their players on the field effectively to advance further in the game by winning matches against other players. This gamemode aims to reduce the overall randomness of the games.

The Competitive gamemode massively reduces the impact of AI on all of the players on field and requires players to pay more attention to what is happening with the match to quickly take control of the correct players on the field to score goals and achieve victories. This gamemode will also come with various improvements to the players’ overall gameplay inputs and help the players to experience a more skill-driven gameplay environment.

Alternatively, The Authentic Gamemode is a game mode that aims towards realism and authenticity, allowing players who like to experience the authentic experience of creating and managing a real-life football club in Manager and Player Career Mode. This mode focuses on a more realism, strategy and immersive gameplay experience.

The Authentic Gamemode features brand new effects to the match that will require players to take note of and create strategies around in order to best achieve victory in the match. Depending on how prepared the players are, the players will be able to face different situations prepared and have a better chance for victory. The Authentic Gamemode will include special Authentic sliders and effects that involve realistic weather conditions, more realistic football moves and human-like physique and abilities for the different players on field.

Brand New Players’ Playstyles & Attributes

In addition to the normal Players’ Attributes that all the previous FC games have that denotes the different stats for different players, allowing players to form a balance teams based on the different football players’ stats, a brand new feature have been introduced to spice the team making process up a bit more in the form of Players’ Playstyles.

Playstyles is a brand new feature that aims to gap the bridge between players with low stats and players with higher stats, with different players having different types of playstyles that influence their behaviour on the field, making for a more variable gameplay feature overall and help to diversify the team making process even more.

Some of the most important players’ playstyles introduced in FC 26 includes:

- Aerial Fortress: A defensive player who dominates aerial battles only in defensive scenarios. This reconfigures the former Aerial PlayStyle to give it a more defensive focus.

- Precision Header: An offensive player who specializes in controlled, accurate headers, rather than just raw power towards the goal. Refined from the former Power Header PlayStyle, with more focus on aerial battles and heading accuracy.

- Inventive: A player specializing in creative passing, combining and refining the former Flair and Trivela PlayStyles.

- Game Changer: A player who is known for extraordinary and unconventional finishes, combining and refining from the former Flair and Trivela PlayStyles.

- Enforcer: A physical attacker who takes control through shielding and when initiating contact while dribbling.

Forming a team with brand new players with different attributes and playstyles will surely affect the outcome of the different matches, so players should pay close attention to the introduction of brand new players’ playstyles in the future for more team building diversity,

Conclusion

And with that, we have gone over everything players need to know about the overhaul features and brand new game modes that FC 26 have to offer in comparison to FC 25. We hope that with this guide, players will be able to take advantage of all of these new features to their best of abilities and be able to experience an amazing game experience while playing FC 26.