EA has explained the major changes coming to EA Sports FC 27 Ultimate Team, including a new Squad Building Challenges system and a new item tier.
Speaking to VGC at EA‘s Vancouver office, lead producer Azlan Mustapha and senior lead product manager Jamey Cane explained the biggest changes coming to the popular mode.
Highlights include the new simplified Squad Building Challenges (SBCs). Unlike the previous system, which would require up to 11 different players to be submitted while achieving a specific rating or chemistry level, in FUT 27 player items now have a number associated with them that contributes to the overall goal.
For example, if the SBC has a goal of 2000, players could submit 10 players each worth 200, or two players worth 1000. While the original SBC system will still exist for some items, this new system is designed to remove some of the busywork of the mode.
Our extended interview with Mustapha and Cane can be found in our video below:
Other new FUT features for EA Sports FC 27 include Holographic items, a new rarity tier coming to the mode. Holographic items will be a rarer variant of some items, which will feature the same stats, but will come with a special card design. These items will be available in packs and via SBCs.
Players can show off these items in the FUT Gallery, which will serve as a digital collection book for all items that players acquire during their Ultimate Team career. Unlike in previous years, this mode will retain a record of every single player that’s been a part of the player’s club, even if they’ve been discarded or used in an SBC.
Players can then group these players into FUT Gallery sets, which can be submitted for rewards. For example, players could submit 11 Premier League players for an exclusive kit. However, the quality of the players that are submitted will result in a letter grade. This letter grade can later be improved as players replace items in their FUT Gallery with higher-tier ones.
EA Sports has also announced that players will receive more coins and Season Progress for every match that is played. While players previously received a small number of coins after playing a match, FC 27 Ultimate Team matches will reward more than ever, and contribute to the Season Track, the game’s battle pass equivalent.
Finally, EA revealed that single-player Live Events are also coming to Ultimate Team. While these will be similar to their multiplayer equivalent, the reward set and challenges themselves will be different.
VGC recently got the chance to play EA Sports FC 27, and tried out the brand-new open-world mode, The Grounds. In our first impressions of EA FC 27’s gameplay, we wrote: “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 Grounds mode sees players competing in mini-games and small-sided football matches with their friends or other random players. After 30 minutes with the mode, we said that while future monetisation options are obvious, they don’t seem egregious in this initial iteration.
