Hands-on with EA Sports FC 27: New corners, better crossing, and huge changes to AI defending

Last year, EA released a trailer for EA Sports FC 26 that proclaimed to fix most of the things that the EA Sports FC community has complained about for years.

The problem with releasing a trailer like that is if, later in the game cycle, those things get broken again, the community won’t be happy. The EA Sports FC community isn’t currently happy.

I’m at EA Sports in Vancouver, Canada, to play the latest game in the world’s biggest football franchise, EA Sports FC 27. As is the case every year, EA is promising big changes. I sat down with two of the game’s leads, Sam Rivera and Gilliard Lopes, to discuss this year’s entry, and whether it’s ever possible to please an entire fanbase when one patch can change everything.

“That is actually a big challenge, and we acknowledge that,” said Gilliard Lopes, principal gameplay designer on EA Sports FC 27.

“It’s good to talk about how difficult it is to interpret feedback that comes from such a wide variety of sources, a wide spectrum of players, and our responsibility for any change that we make is that it is a positive one for everybody.

“The analogy I always like to make is that the players are the patients – they’re telling us what hurts, and we have to play the role of the doctor in interpreting those symptoms. The twist is that as game designers and developers, we have to prescribe the same medicine for everybody at the same time.”

It is now practically EA Sports FC tradition that when the game comes out in September, everyone proclaims to love the gameplay, and then as soon as the first patch hits, the rest of the game cycle is spent lamenting the version of the game that originally shipped, whether or not it was actually better.

“The direction that we took last year, that continues,” said Sam Rivera, executive producer on EA Sports FC.

“Simply based on feedback, we need to do more. We need to make sure that those fresh experiences are not just at the beginning of the cycle. So we’re working on new tools, for example, that allow us to keep the keep providing fresh gameplay experiences throughout the year. The custom gameplay live events is the name of the tool. So we’ll be talking more about it later in the year.

“But we’re very excited about that. We also learned that we need to collaborate more with our different live teams and the FUT team to make sure that we evolve the meta differently.

“We feel we’re going in the right direction, but we’re committing more investment into the live game for FC 27.”

The big changes coming to EA Sports FC 27

Corner kicks have been entirely reworked in EA Sports FC 27. Instead of lobbing the ball into a random area and hoping that your desired player was in the correct position, the corner kick system has been changed to a new two-part, skill-based mechanic.

Firstly, you pick where you want the corner to go and power it up, then the perspective shifts to the box, where you’ll take control of the attacker. Here, you have to evade defenders and meet the ball on its flight to header it towards the goal.

It’s a more in-depth version of the previous system, and according to EA, has been done to make corners a more effective method of scoring. In previous games, it was incredibly easy to defend corners thanks to the heavy assistance that defending players received when attempting to clear the ball. From playing EA Sports FC 27, defenders now have to follow the incoming corner kick much more closely to time a clearance.

“The key aspect there is balance,” Lopes said.

Rivera added, “We want to see more corner kick goals because now they require skill, but we don’t want those to be the most common way to score or anything like that. We’re gonna be monitoring. After all, what we think should be the most common way to score is using different types of passes, dribbling, perhaps some skill moves, but good decision-making to get into the box and then decide what’s the best type of shot.”

When using a player with the Deadball+ Playstyle, I felt like I was able to land the ball on a sixpence for my attacker; however, players with lower stats made for far more hit-and-hope attempts. I’m not sure if it’s possible to ever accurately recreate the Royal Rumble that takes place during every modern corner, but this new version of the set-play certainly makes it more skill-based than it was before.

Speaking of Playstyles, EA also confirmed that while the Playstyle system will remain in the game, the team is lowering the impact the Playstyle has on the player itself. Now, the player’s stats will be far more important. EA acknowledged that in EA Sports FC 26, a large number of players were considered completely unusable due to their Playstyles and how effective they were.

“What you described is the anti-vision for Playstyles,” said Lopes, referring to how many players are considered unusable by the community.

“People look at certain players, and they’re just not usable because they don’t have that one playstyle that’s seen as, you know, indispensable to that role. Playstyles should be a way for you to express yourself.

“In FC 27, there’s a large number of playstyles where we investigated their effects and made sure to rebalance the power that they have, moving more of that power towards the attributes.

EA also hopes that this nerfing of the PlayStyle system will stop players equipping every player with the same set of PlayStyles towards the end of the game, though this is something they will monitor across the live game.

Crosses have also received some changes in hopes that they result in more goals in EA Sports FC 27. Now players cross into space, rather than directly towards a player. Once the cross is released, players get instant control of the player in the box and can then time a run towards the incoming cross. EA acknowledged that in EA Sports FC 26, crosses were largely low-percentage options for attacking, and that’s something they want to change in this year’s game.

Another area of the attacking phase of play that’s been updated is attacking runs. Now players will transition between animations with much more fluidity, with EA acknowledging that some runs in the past weren’t effective because the animation was superseding the mechanic, meaning players would slow down unexpectedly, leading to failed passes.

There are a few new pass-and-move options, where an attacker will release the ball to a teammate, and instantly sprint behind them for the reverse ball inside. Attackers can also now bend their run more significantly, and the attacking AI won’t be caught offside as much as in previous games.

There’s a clear acknowledgement with EA Sports FC 27 that in previous games, attacking became very routine. While no amount of changes will ever stop a meta developing eventually, EA is keen to work alongside the meta to make sure that players can attack how they would like to, rather than being forced down a narrow path.

In bad news for players who can’t defend properly, the A.I. assistance on defending has been massively reduced. I was shown footage comparing EA Sports FC 26 to EA Sports FC 27, and the distance at which the A.I. center backs would warp to the ball and steal it off you is tiny in 27 when compared to 26. EA wants players to learn how to defend.

In EA Sports FC 26, most high-level players would defend by controlling their CDM and letting the game auto-block or auto-tackle 9 times out of 10. It was incredibly tedious. In EA Sports FC 27, doing that will result in players dancing around your defenders.

Defenders also stand a few yards further away than the player they’re trying to take the ball from, allowing for more room to get a shot or a pass away. This skill gap between manual and automatic defending seems destined to be the thing that divides the community in the early days of EA Sports FC 27, but from what I played, it feels rewarding, without being punishing.

Before wrapping up our interview, I asked about the changes to real-life football that occured over the summer during the World Cup, and what elements we may see in the future. Could we see virtual hydration breaks purely for the sake of realism?

“That’s a great question,” Lopes laughs.

“Because that’s at the core of designing simulation video games. Everyone virtually knows football and knows what football looks like. So to capture that in a video game is always a challenge because we have to balance that authenticity, let’s call it that, with fun and competitiveness and all of the other motivations that we have for players to play the game.

“I’m actually a big fan of how considerate we are in every one of those decisions in terms of, ‘If it doesn’t make sense for the game, if it doesn’t add value to the player experience, we don’t feel like we’re obligated to do it.’

“That philosophy to me is what drives our decisions, and it’s the right one. And that’s why some things like VAR you just don’t see in the game, because we haven’t found a design that actually adds value.

“And you know, whether hydration breaks… I find it difficult to think of a design that would add value, honestly. But if there was one, perhaps, but really I don’t see that. Our mission to our players is not to mimic the sport when it doesn’t benefit and doesn’t add value to the player.”

Truthfully, I won’t know exactly how I feel about EA Sports FC 27 until I have 100 games under my belt, but from what I’ve played so far, I can see the vision. The corner kick changes are significant, and the added attacking options are a lot of fun to experiment with.

The defensive changes are the ones I’m most concerned and excited about. I’m excited because I think it’s a genuine skill gap that will separate casual players from the hardcore, but my trepidation comes from the inevitable crying from some sections of the community when the game doesn’t defend for them. Hopefully EA ignores them.