New Open-World EA Sports FC Mode Coming Soon

Over the last year, EA Sports FC has signaled that it’s looking to develop a new open-world mode for the hit soccer game. The team hasn’t revealed exactly what’s coming, but many assume EA is hoping to emulate the NBA 2K series and its The City mode, which provides players with a massive world to explore and plenty of pickup basketball to dive into. While the mode wasn’t able to make it into EA Sports FC 26‘s launch, the developers aren’t necessarily waiting for FC 27 to give players a taste of what’s coming. In fact, EA recently announced that it’s kicking off playtesting for the mode very soon.

In a new press release, EA Sports FC said it is opening a new technical playtest for FC 26. They call this “a future, world-based football experience,” and are opening up the test to select players from the UK, USA, and Canada on November 3rd. It’s important to note that none of the content in this playtest will come to FC 26, but this is the largest test of this type that EA Sports has ever done.

EA Sports FC 27 Might Add an Open-World Mode

To sign up for the test, you’ll need to enter your name in EA’s Playtesting portal. That doesn’t mean you’ll get in, and you won’t be able to tell anyone if you do. EA is asking anyone who participates to sign an agreement saying they will not share content from the test. After all, the content a tester sees may never make it to public release.

This is a fact-finding mission from EA, but it’s comforting to know that they are involving the playerbase in something that could totally change how many players interact with EA FC. The open-world mode likely won’t replace Ultimate Team or Career Mode, but if it’s as popular as 2K‘s The City, players will flock to it in record numbers. It’ll also probably be heavily monetized, but that’s not exactly breaking new ground for EA Sports.

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Unfortunately, we probably won’t know more about the mode until EA reveals FC 27, at the earliest. The developers might provide fans with a progress report after collecting feedback from the playtest, but even that’s unlikely. The good news is that this isn’t impacting anything happening on the FC 26 side of things. You can still expect more updates and tweaks for the current game based on the recent FC Feedback November Update.

Remember, EA FC is a yearly franchise. This playtest is from the forward-looking side of the team, which means developers working on the live version of FC 26 aren’t directly involved. EA has to run this way to keep up with the yearly release, so this isn’t much different from usual. The only big change is how much EA is involving the community in ongoing development for the future of EA FC. Hopefully, that’s a good sign that EA is continuing to listen to its fanbase.

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