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The EA FC 26 Gameplay Reveal has arrived, showing off the differences between Competitive & Authentic presets. Furthermore, this Deep Dive explained everything else from fundamental changes to quality of life improvements. Without further ado, let's take a look.
EA Sports FC 26 Gameplay Reveal – Everything You Need to Know
Firstly, the biggest change coming to FC 26's Gameplay is the two different presets players can choose from: Competitive and Authentic.
- Competitive Gameplay – focuses on “added responsiveness and higher player control”. This mostly focuses on modes like Ultimate Teams & Clubs.
- Authentic Gameplay – focuses on “higher realism & true-to-life match tempo/speed”.
Regardless of which preset you use, EA FC 26 makes many adjustments to the Gameplay Fundamentals. Overall, these include:
- Dribbling & Movement – made players more agile and responsive on and off the ball
- Goalkeepers – more consistent + intelligent
- Defending – reduced quantity of balls that bounce back to opponent
- Passing & Shooting – More responsive + improved available options
- Attacking & Defensive Positioning – Make better runs and provide more support
- Physicality – Made more reliable to protect/shield the ball
- First Touches & Controlling the Ball – Improved control of trapping the ball
- Online & General Gameplay Responsiveness – Gameplay more consistently responsive for Online & Offline
Dynamic Dribbling adds more control with better responsiveness and more consistency. On New-Gen Systems, you'll see adjusted animations, dribbling foot preference logic, and a re-turned dribbling animation library. Furthermore, the interval between dribble touches has also been adjusted.
Additionally, the developers increased the speed of jog dribbling while improving logic for ball direction to create authentic movement. But at the same time, they also removed Agile Dribbling because players did not really make use of it.
Player Movement also sees a lot of love in EA FC 26's Gameplay. Increased player agility, adjusted run styles, and improved speed differences on offense and defense should lead to better quality gameplay. Speed has been a major issue in FC (as well as most EA Sports titles running on Frostbite). Therefore, it's good to see the developers want to tackle this issue.
Furthermore, FC 26 is reverting back to the 3 Acceleration types. Additionally, they made changes to each Acceleration type in an effort to create a better balance. The changes to movement also makes changes to certain PlayStyles and mechanics. Some of these include:
- Improved Jockey Movement
- Improved animations for all turns
- More relaxed animations for those not directly involved in the play
Goalkeepers have been made more consistent and reliable in FC 26's Gameplay in a number of ways. This includes better deflection control for saves, refined Goalkeeper senses (especially with the AI), and other technical improvements.
On New-Gen, Players can try out the new Reinforcement-Learning (RL) Goalkeeper Positioning. Overall, this system does a number of things, such as:
- Helps AI Goalkeepers make more realistic decisions about where to position themselves
- Improved cut down angles and reactions to types of attacks
- *Only active in specific situations to position the GK. Not active when making a save or catch
And like everything else, you'll see a whole ton of new animations for Goalkeepers across a variety of situations.
Be-A-Goalkeeper (aka, BAG) players will also see a variety of improvements. From new controls, assistance levels, PlayStyles, and more, BAG players will see many improvements across the board.
Defending Changes in FC 26 Gameplay
Defense wins championships, and in FC 26, they've improved it in a number of ways. This includes improved tackle outcome logic, and a new deflection control system for shot blocks and interceptions. Additionally tackles have a bigger impact on the play by creating more realistic reactions while reducing ball-carrier recovery.
But that's not all. The developers made a number of other improvements to tackling:
- Improved logic for spam tackling
- Reduced effectiveness of tackling from behind the dribbler
- Added an attribute requirement in order to perform certain stand tackle animations.
Passing & Shooting
Both Passing & Shooting mechanics received some upgrades in FC 26. We'll start with the former.
In terms of passing, players will see a ton of improvements. Firstly, the devs rebalanced the animations to allow for passing from more angles. There should be less restriction now in where you want to pass the ball.
And in keeping with the theme of speed, FC 26 features faster passing animations, especially in short distances. Additionally, they optimized short-distance, low-power passes for players who prefer faster plays with little wind-up.
Furthermore, FC 26 introduces Passing Lanes for semi-assisted through passes. Aiming at specific lanes ensures the best target selection for the intended receiver in the lane. Along with that, you'll see:
- Improved receiver selection
- Adjusted crosses
- Straighter trajectory on Ground Passes with less contextual curve
- More driven trajectories on lob passes
- Improved throw targets from the GK
- Adjusted clearance logic
Like everything else, players can also expect to see changes in Shooting. This year, the developers enhanced responsiveness and made a few other adjustments. For example, close-range shots near the net use more reactive animations with minimal wind-up. Additionally, the developers rebalanced animation restrictions to help you cover a wider range of angles.
The developers also made several changes to how Low-Driven shots work. And because of this, the Timed Finishing has been removed. The developers felt it did not add any depth, and the new changes allow for more skill differentiation.
One of the biggest changes for shooting connects Trivela Shots and the Gamechanger Playstyle. So unless you have that Playstyle, you actually can't perform Trivela Shots anymore. This was made to rebalance the shooting mechanics and encourage the use of other playstyles.
Attacking & Defensive Positioning
We've talked about passing, shooting, dribbling and more. But no matter where you are on the field, your positioning matters greatly. Regardless of your role, FC 26 makes the following improvements to player positioning:
- Better supporting options for ball carrier
- Improved Attacking Run logic:
- Balanced approach for each team
- Improved ability for attackers to stay onside
On New Gen versions of the game, you'll see improved Player Marking, as well as an improvement to the Defensive Line Height system.
Physicality & Ball Control
In order to help you protect the ball, EA FC 26 makes several adjustments to how physicality and ball control works in the game.
Firstly, the developers added several new shielding improvements, as well as a new mechanic called “Contested Box Outs”. These allow stronger players to keep opponents at bay when trying to get an incoming air ball. Of course, your strength, your opponent's strength, and other conditions play a role in how effective it all really is.
Besides other physical changes, the developers made a ton of improvements to how responsive ball control is. Whether you play online or offline, you'll have more tools less restrictions as you shield yourself from oncoming attackers.
Online Gameplay
Lastly, the Gameplay Deep Dive also mentioned several other big improvements. You can check out the full list of notes on the Responsiveness iniative. A lot of the improvements here sound like technical jargon, but there's a lot of general improvements to animations and more.
But those are some of the bigger changes coming to EA FC 26's gameplay this year. Overall, we're pretty underwhelmed from what we've seen. If I have to see another mention of the word “balance” or “tune”, I'll have Zinedine Zidane headbutt me.
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