EA Sports FC 26 review for Nintendo Switch 2
System: Switch 2
Release date: September 26, 2025
Developer: EA Sports
Publisher: EA Sports
As a longtime football/soccer fanatic, I’ve played a whole bunch of different video game adaptations of the sport over the years – from ill-fated attempts like Mega Man Soccer, to really fun and engaging versions of the sport like in Mario Strikers or Virtua Striker 2. These are usually exaggerated or watered down versions of the beautiful game that don’t entirely reflect the appeal or the intricacies of the sport at its core, so although they can be serious arcade-y fun, they don’t always scratch the same itch of doing a Cruyff turn and smashing the ball top bins. This is why we have had direct football simulator games, like PES and FIFA, even Football Manager to an extent, really get popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. Getting a red card from a referee in FIFA International Soccer on SEGA Genesis, and choosing to endlessly run away from the official instead of accepting your punishment and coming off the pitch is very silly and fun, but not entirely accurate to the sport itself. As the years have gone on, I’ve played almost every entry in the EA FC/FIFA series, often with my dad. Some of my earliest memories of gaming come from playing against him on the PS1 in FIFA ’99, and as the games have improved in detail and range of play modes, my fondness for the series has grown. I think the newest entry in the series, EA Sports FC 26, truly rivals the best the series has to offer in every department.
The biggest change to the gameplay actually comes in the decision from EA to split up the play into different formats. There’s Competitive, which is closer to how the series has traditionally played, which lends itself to more action-packed player modes like Ultimate Team and Clubs. I spent most my playtime here, because I’ve spent over two decades of my life playing the game in this style and it was challenging for me to adapt to anything else. Even still, I loved the experience of trying the staple style in a completely different mindset and game-feel. This comes from what has been dubbed ‘Authentic’ style, where the gameplay is a tad slower, CPU teammates and opposition move and act more accurately to tactics deployed by the player, and matches play out much closer to how a true game of football in the real world would. It turns EA Sports FC from a title about quick reactions and on-the-fly tactical flexibility, to a more chess-like experience, where even one minor error from the player could cost you a goal because the AI is now clever enough to know how to punish you. No missing five yard sitters or hoofing the ball into row Z. I loved this challenge, and when I have a bit more confidence in my tactical nous, I’m going to try this mode again because Authentic style really feels like what I envisioned as a kid playing FIFA ’99 with my dad on PS1 or FIFA 2004 on GameCube with my brother. A wholly accurate style of football that removes the arcade-style speed and just focuses on pure, unfiltered Total Football.
All the bells and whistles expected of EA FC are here and accounted for; over 35 leagues to pull clubs from, ranging from the Red Devils Manchester United to the ever-popular Les Gones Olympique Lyonnais, to the Galacticos of the sport Real Madrid. Even relatively obscure clubs like my local team Cork City FC are included, as well as the vast majority of National Team squads, and Women’s Soccer to boot. For those hoping to see AFC Richmond of Ted Lasso fame to return from FIFA 23, I’m afraid I’ll have to report they aren’t lacing up their boots this time around. Football Is Life, but unfortunately they are sitting this one out. The standard difficulty options of the series are available, ranging from Beginner to Legendary. Ultimate difficulty makes a return here too, but it is only available in FUT mode. Several new football stadiums make their first appearance here too, including Everton’s new Hill Dickinson stadium which opened this season, Napoli’s Stadio Diego Armando Maradona (named after the legendary Argentinian player and manager) and Inter Miami’s Chase Stadium. Some older stadiums like Stamford Bridge have also seen visual overhauls too, plus all the usual different weather conditions can be applied too. Find out if you can do it on a cold, wet Tuesday night in Stoke!
Career Mode, FUT, Manager Mode, Quick Match Kick-Offs and lots of online options are available, all with updated squads to match up with where the clubs are now after the transfer window closed at the end of the summer. Some of these modes hadn’t made it into some of the previous Nintendo Switch ports in the past, so it is great to see them all accounted for here.
The big question most players will ask: how does EA FC 26 hold up on Switch 2? The answer is simple: spectacularly well. I’ve played quite a few hours docked, in handheld mode, and online and I’m happy to confirm my experience was of comparable quality to the other console versions. The graphical quality is very impressive – I felt little to no input delay and the frame rate was rock solid 30 frames per second. There is no option for 60 FPS, and this may be a point of contention for some. EA has released a statement suggesting more optimization patches will release in the future, though nothing specific about adding a 60 FPS gameplay mode. As it is now, the experience is still very smooth and there are no drops or slow down while playing. I would suggest it is akin to the PS4 Pro versions of the last few EA FC entries, save for the lack of a 60 FPS option, with a slight dip on handheld but without sacrificing the gameplay, as it still runs smoothly. The battery I found does drain quite fast on Nintendo Switch 2 – 3 hours to 3 and a half hours is the best it could do. Still, playing a game of this quality during lunch breaks at work was boggling my mind quite a bit. It is a hell of a technical achievement.
The only major downside for the game isn’t really something about the gameplay specifically, more so about the not-so-lovely methods EA use to squeeze some extra cash out of the players. Microtransactions are quite abundant in this entry, and although they didn’t affect me personally, I could see how they would affect other people. They have even infiltrated Career Mode, and this was something that was completely free of them in the past. Although it wasn’t an issue detrimental to my experience with the game, it is with the overall product and it’s quite irritating that a really fun video game has to be weighed down by an element that could easily be taken out.
EA Sports FC 26 is a brilliantly fun football game that has a plethora of options, both online and offline for football crazy, football mad gamers to sink their teeth into. This new entry in the series is a solid port that runs fantastically well. Though with a lack of a 60 FPS option, and with the game sadly being let down by things that have nothing at all to do with the quality of the gameplay itself, like the microtransactions, this may not be what people were hoping for. I still highly recommend this as one of the best entries in the series to date personally, but be warned that the game has several avenues to get more money from you.
EA Sports FC 26 copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.
