What Is EA FC? How the World’s Biggest Soccer Game Changed the Way Fans Follow the Sport.
EA FC is the world’s most played soccer video game experience, and for millions of fans it is also the way they first connected with the sport. Not through a match on television. Not through a ticket to a stadium. Through a controller, a player card, and a digital team built from scratch. EA FC 27 launches today, September 25, 2026. Understanding what the game is and what it has done to soccer fandom helps explain why a video game release date matters to people who care about the real sport.
EA FC is the annual soccer simulation franchise published by Electronic Arts. Known as FIFA from 1993 to 2022, the series became EA Sports FC in 2023 after EA and FIFA ended their licensing partnership. The game includes over 21,000 players, more than 800 clubs, 130 stadiums, and 35 leagues. It runs on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Its most popular mode, Ultimate Team, lets players build squads using a card-based system and compete online. For many fans around the world, EA FC is their primary way of engaging with soccer between matches, between seasons, and sometimes instead of watching at all.
For context on how soccer works in North America, the MLS vs Liga MX explainer covers the competitive landscape both leagues operate in. For how the sport’s officiating works, the VAR explainer covers everything from goals to penalties to red cards. If you want more on EA FC 27, EA’s official feature breakdown covers the new game modes and gameplay changes in detail.
— FROM FIFA TO EA FC —
How EA FC Got Its Name: The Split From FIFA and What Changed
For 29 years, the game was called FIFA. FIFA 93 was the first edition. The name reflected a licensing deal between Electronic Arts and the Federation Internationale de Football Association, the governing body of global soccer. That deal gave EA the right to use the FIFA name and brand on its annual soccer game in exchange for licensing fees. Both sides benefited: EA got credibility and instant brand recognition for its product, and FIFA got a global marketing presence inside one of the best-selling video game franchises in history.
Why the partnership ended
The licensing agreement between EA and FIFA expired in 2022. Negotiations for renewal broke down over money. Reports indicated FIFA sought around one billion dollars for the renewed rights, a figure EA declined to pay. EA argued that the FIFA name was the only thing its licensing deal provided, and that the game’s actual content, the player likenesses, the club badges, the league partnerships, all came from separate deals that EA held independently. Without the FIFA name, the game kept everything else. EA rebranded to EA Sports FC in 2023. The first edition under the new name was EA Sports FC 24.
What the name change meant
For players, the practical difference was minimal. The game looked the same. The modes were the same. Ultimate Team continued. Career Mode continued. The player database continued. For FIFA, the loss was arguably greater: the organization had relied on EA’s game to maintain global brand visibility among younger audiences for three decades, and it now had to build that visibility without the game. For EA, the risk was that the name FIFA carried more weight than the product itself. That risk did not materialize. EA FC 24 and EA FC 25 both sold at levels comparable to the final FIFA editions. EA FC 27, which launches today, continues the series with the largest feature overhaul since the rebrand. The game did not need the name. The fans followed the product.
— WHAT THE GAME IS —
EA FC Explained: Ultimate Team, Career Mode, and What EA FC 27 Adds
Ultimate Team
Ultimate Team is the mode that defines how most players experience EA FC. Introduced in 2009, lets players build squads by collecting player cards earned through gameplay or purchased on a card market. Each card represents a real player with ratings across attributes like pace, shooting, passing, dribbling, defending, and physical. The best cards represent the best players in the world, and the cards of current top performers carry significant value in the in-game economy. Ultimate Team is the reason people follow player ratings, argue about whether a card accurately reflects a player’s current form, and spend hours building lineups they will never actually watch play in a real stadium.
Career Mode
Career Mode offers a different experience from Ultimate Team. Players take control of a club or an individual player across multiple seasons, managing transfers, tactics, and player development. EA FC 27 introduces a redesigned transfer market in Career Mode with realistic valuations and active bidding from rival clubs, making transfers feel closer to how the real transfer window operates. For fans who care more about managing a club than collecting cards, Career Mode is the primary draw.
The Grounds: what EA FC 27 adds
EA FC 27 launches today with its most significant new mode: The Grounds, an open-world social space where players can move between game modes, join others in pickup matches, and interact in a hub built around the culture of street soccer. The Grounds represents EA’s attempt to build a persistent social layer around the game rather than treating each mode as a separate experience. Additional gameplay changes in EA FC 27 include less AI automation in defending, smarter attacking runs from teammates, and redesigned corner kick mechanics that give users more control before delivery.
“For many fans, EA SPORTS FC is their first touchpoint with the sport. FC Futures bridges the digital and physical, taking drills designed by UEFA coaches from in-game and translating them into real-life training sessions. That way, when a young player takes something they’ve learned in-game onto the pitch, it feels familiar and accessible.”
EA Sports / Soccer Bible | EA Sports FC: From Consoles to Community |
— WHAT IT CHANGED —
How EA FC Changed Soccer Fandom: Player Loyalty, Global Clubs, and the Women’s Game
Players over clubs
The most significant cultural shift Ultimate Team produced is a change in how fans relate to players versus clubs. Traditional soccer fandom is built around club loyalty. You support your club. You follow its players because they wear the shirt, and when they leave, your allegiance stays with the shirt, not the player. Ultimate Team works differently. The player card is the unit of value, not the club. A young fan building an Ultimate Team squad knows Kylian Mbappe’s pace rating, his dribbling score, his shooting attributes. Whether Mbappe plays for Real Madrid or Paris Saint-Germain or anyone else is secondary. The player is the product, and the fan follows the player wherever the card takes them.
Soccer reaching new audiences
EA FC has functioned as a gateway to soccer for fans in markets where the sport had limited television presence, particularly the United States. Most Americans access elite soccer through broadcasts rather than attending matches live. EA FC brought the sport’s global stars into an interactive format that required no existing knowledge of leagues, table standings, or transfer history. A teenager in Ohio who built a team around Mbappe and Bellingham in EA FC 24 knows who those players are. Some of those teenagers then find the Champions League on television because they already care about the players in it.
The women’s game
EA FC has also expanded the visibility of the women’s game in a way that broadcasting alone has not. EA FC 24 and EA FC 25 recorded over 13 billion matches played with a women’s player in the starting eleven of an Ultimate Team side. That figure reflects demand that exists independently of how much women’s soccer the same fans watch on television. When a player card for a top women’s player carries value in the game economy, the player carries visibility that extends beyond whatever broadcast deal her league holds. EA FC 27 continues this investment with coverage of the Women’s Super League, the NWSL, the Frauen-Bundesliga, and Liga F. The game has become one of the most effective distribution channels for women’s soccer that the sport has. That is not a small thing.
FIFA from 1993 to 2022. EA Sports FC from 2023. Over 21,000 players, 800 clubs, 35 leagues. Ultimate Team introduced in 2009, now the defining mode of the franchise. 13 billion matches played with women’s players in FC 24 and FC 25 combined. EA FC 27 launches today with The Grounds, a redesigned transfer market, and more control given back to the player.
For many fans, EA FC is how they first met the sport. The game does not replace soccer. It creates more people who care about it.
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