EA SPORTSAnother year means another entry in the EA SPORTS FC series, and players are gearing up for another few hundred hours spent grinding Ultimate Team. But EA FC 26 is set to be more forgiving with your time and wallet.
While Career Mode and Clubs have their legions of fans, Ultimate Team has always been FIFA’s (now EA FC’s) cash cow. Since it was introduced all the way back in 2009, the loop of opening packs in pursuit of better cards to create your dream team has remained ever-addictive for many football (fine, soccer…) fanatics.
One of the most common complaints over the years, though, is just how much of a grind it can be to stay competitive. Weekly promos are constantly moving the meta forward, leaving you with two choices: play for hours upon hours a week, or spend some cash to get straight into the packs.
However, from the first announcement, EA FC 26 has looked a little different. Dexerto sat down with the developers, and they explained how this iteration of Ultimate Team caters to everyone, no matter how much time or money you have to invest.
Promos are changing in EA FC 26
Senior Lead Product Manager Jamey Cane told us about their plans to slow down the ‘power curve,’ meaning that the standard of the best-rated cards won’t move as often. He clarified that while this doesn’t mean that there will be fewer promo releases, there will be fewer items overall.
“We’re going to be reducing the supply of items that come into the system. Your Rivals rewards or Champions rewards might look slightly worse for an equivalent rank [in previous years],” he explained. “That’s not to disadvantage any particular group, or make it so that spenders or non-spenders are able to progress faster. If everyone’s rich, nobody’s rich.”
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EA SPORTS“We’re going to make sure that while the ‘value per hour of engagement’ is coming down, the value you get for spending money is also calibrated down in the same way,” he continued. “The end result is that we don’t want it to become more pay-to-win.”
What all of this means in practice is that the special card releases will no longer one-up themselves every time. Instead, tentpole events like Team of the Year or Thunderstruck will drastically move the power curve up across the board, but the promos in between will slow things down.
The result is that you can dip out of Ultimate Team for a little while without worrying about being way off the pace when you return, and there’s less pressure to spend just to keep up with a meta that’s constantly moving.
Your time is precious
Other areas of EA FC 26 Ultimate Team have been made more forgiving, too, from the removal of Champs Play-Offs and speeding up progression in Division Rivals, to the introduction of a Challengers Weekend League for lower-skill players.
This was a conscious effort from the team to reduce the overall time commitment and the number of hours spent sweating it out in the more hardcore modes.
EA Sports“When it comes to people’s time, we want to be more respectful of how and where you put that effort…like Play-Offs was an easy one [to remove],” Associate Producer Azlan Mustapha told us. “We want you to experience more variety in the game, rather than having to deep-dive into a single experience to get your weekly rewards.”
With all of these changes, the number of online matches that you’ll need to play each week in Ultimate Team will be significantly less, which the devs hope will free players up to take part in more leisurely modes like Squad Battles or the new Gauntlets.
“That white-knuckle, very competitive experience, in the right dose, is really fun. But when we overdo it can lead to burnout and some frustration,” Cane added. “We want to find a better balance between that competitive play and the more casual players who want to experiment with different squads and don’t want this win or loss to cost them a ton of time.”
EA FC 26 arrives on September 26 worldwide, so it won’t be long before we get to see these changes in action. To make sure you’re ahead of the game, head over to our wiki for plenty of important tips and guides.