EA SPORTS FC™ 26 | The World’s Game Update

We’re celebrating the summer of international football with The World’s Game Update for EA SPORTS FC™ 26, launching 28 May.

Alongside PlayStyles changes and more gameplay updates based on your feedback, you'll be able to lead your nation to glory in a new 48-team international tournament mode starting 4 June, with 53 fully licensed and playable national teams, including 41 competing over the summer.

The World’s Game Update also brings international action to Football Ultimate Team™ with a dedicated Event Hub, Festival of Football themed campaigns and more. Plus, log in and play FC 26 between 5 June and 24 July to earn a 93 OVR Festival of Football ICON Pelé and three ‘Choose Your Journey’ Evolutions. 

The World’s Game Update delivers a brand-new tournament mode launching 4 June, bringing the summer’s international action to EA SPORTS FC™ 26. With 53 fully licensed and playable national teams - including 41 that will be in action over the summer - you can choose from global powerhouses like Brazil, England, and France or emerging international stories like Cabo Verde, Uzbekistan, and more. Lead your nation to glory, rewrite history to create new international storylines, and experience new true-to-life stadiums including Gillette Stadium and BMO Field, alongside Central Maw - a new stadium built to capture the atmosphere of top-tier international football.

See the list of fully licensed nations below:

**Will feature generic kits as of June 4, updated to include authentic kits in a future update.

The standalone 48-team tournament takes you through three group stage matches, with the top two teams progressing alongside the eight best third-placed teams across all groups. From there, knockout rounds begin with the round of 32 before culminating in the tournament final.

Find a breakdown of group stage advancement criteria and third-place qualifying conditions below:

Group Stage Advancement Criteria:

• Points

• Head-to-head points

• Head-to-head goal difference

• Head-to-head goals scored

• Overall goals scored

• Overall goal difference

3rd Place Qualifying Teams Conditions:

• Points

  • Win = 3

  • Draw = 1

  • Lose = 0

• Points calculated

  • Goal Difference (goals scored minus goals conceded)

  • Goals Scored

  • Fair Play Points

    • First yellow card = -1 point

    • Indirect red (second yellow) = -3 points

    • Direct red = -4 points

    • Yellow + Direct red = -5 points

In addition to The World’s Game international tournament mode, more National Teams will also be playable in Kick Off mode and new international tournament Objectives have been added to EA SPORTS FC™ 26.

The World’s Game Update also brings international action to Football Ultimate Team™. The FUT festivities start on 4 June with Evolutions changes, new Festival of Football Tokens, a dedicated Event Hub, weekly Festival of Football themed campaigns, Player Items, and changes inspired by community feedback to give you more choice in how you build your Ultimate Team this summer. Additionally, be sure to check your Objectives tab throughout the event, as some players may find a surprise celebration tied to their nation.

Log in during the event to snag a 93 OVR Festival of Football ICON Pelé and three ‘Choose Your Journey’ Evolutions. Begin by choosing between ST with Low Driven+, CAM/CM with Incisive Pass+, and LW/RW with Finesse Shot+. Celebrate his international achievements in 1970 with Evolutions inspired by key matches and tournament stages. 

As part of a server release following the World’s Game Update on 4 June, you’ll be able to roll back and fully reset Evolutions in your Club. If you reset an originally Tradable Player, they’ll return to their Tradable status. 

We want your Evo choices to be meaningful to you. Previous Evo updates reduced the pressure of selecting the right player for each Evo, and we believe the Evo Undo change reduces the need to select the right evo for each of your players. 

We’ve heard your feedback that choosing your own PlayStyles matters. As we reflect on FUT™ Birthday Bakery Evolutions, this was a missing ingredient to allow you to experiment with new players and then sell them on the Transfer Market if you didn’t see them staying in your Club long term.

In Festival of Football we’re introducing a new PlayStyles Lab, allowing you to choose your preferred PlayStyles and PlayStyles+ for the following:

• Festival of Football: Star Performer

• Festival of Football: National Pride

• Festival of Football: National Pride Champions

• Glory Hunters

FUT Birthday items will also be eligible for the PlayStyles Lab, replacing the Birthday Bakery Evolutions. 

In addition, we’ll be introducing a new item type - Evo Repeatables, which will allow you to earn additional Evolution entries. You’ll see these rewards in upcoming Festival of Football content.

Tokens are a brand new reward type that have been designed to give you greater choice over how you play and what you earn in FUT. Starting on 4 June you’ll be able to earn Festival of Football tokens across a range of game modes including;

• Rivals 

• Squad Battles 

• Rush 

• Live Events 

• Select Objectives 

• Select SBCs

We’re excited about the impact Tokens will have on FUT & your rewards. Starting in Festival of Football, Tokens will become the primary way to earn rewards in FUT each week. 

No matter how or where you play FUT, from Season 8 onwards the aim is that you will feel better rewarded for the time you spend playing in game. By unifying mode rewards into Tokens you’ll be able to progress towards the same rewards no matter your mode, giving you greater choice in where you play. 

Like you see currently in FUT, higher rank finishes will reward you with both Tokens & Additional Rewards for competing at the highest level.  

As we balance FUT for the entire community, we’re introducing a cap on how many Tokens you can earn each week, placing greater emphasis on the rewards you choose to pursue. 

Throughout Festival of Football, you’ll be able to earn up to 1,000 Tokens each week (5,000 Tokens in total). Tokens offer a more flexible and reliable way to earn rewards across modes. 

We expect that skilled players may be able to earn 1,000 Tokens through playing Squad Battles, Rivals or Live Events and completing special Objectives and SBCs each week. We’ll review this and listen to feedback to understand if this is an area we want to make changes to in the future. 

Here’s an example of Rivals & Squad Battles Tokens rewards, check in-game for a full breakdown. 

Festival of Football Tokens are earned only through playing FUT and will not be made available inside Store Pack offers.

Tokens will have a dedicated Store with Players, Packs, Evolutions, and Club Customisation content. To ensure that your choices are more meaningful to you, you will not be able to unlock everything in the store.

Here’s how the Store works: 

• To cater for a variety of players across the Season, the Store will have a range of prices

• Rewards up to 300 tokens can be redeemed instantly or weekly

• Rewards up to 1,000 tokens will require multiple play sessions to unlock

• Rewards up to 2,500 tokens will need to be worked toward over the course of the Season

• An important call out is that the highest reward available in the store will be roughly half of the total limit

• Weekly Refreshes

  • Each week we’ll swap out Weekly Refreshes for lower cost rewards to add variety and better connect to new campaigns that release each week 

• Season long planning

  • Bigger rewards will be persistent throughout Festival of Football to allow you to plan towards any rewards you want to earn over a longer time period

In Season 8, we’ll also be introducing FUT Champions Tokens and a FUT Champions Store featuring a range of rewards, including a rotating selection of special Red FUT Champions Player Items each week. Champions Tokens give you greater choice over your Champions rewards no matter your skill level.

For those who pick up a handful of wins each weekend, you can get weekly rewards or save Tokens over multiple weekends in a Season for bigger rewards.

For those who pick up multiple wins each weekend, we think this change will give you greater choice over the rewards you get. Higher win finishes will still provide additional Coins on top of Champions Tokens, to reward you for pushing for your best finish each weekend. 

We believe Tokens will give you greater control over the weekends you choose to play in.

As mentioned, this is the first time we’ll be introducing Tokens, and we’ll be taking your feedback on board. As with all of our newest features we are excited to see how this one evolves in the future. 

Journey of Nations introduces an Event Hub for the Festival of Football Season in Football Ultimate Team™. Each week you’ll need to assemble international themed squads, travelling across five continents and completing over 250 challenges to earn epic rewards for your Club. Each region's Objectives & rewards will be themed around iconic players, historic nations, and emerging stars.

See the Festival of Football schedule below:

• North America - Thursday, 4 June 2026

• Asia + Oceania - Friday, 12 June 2026

• Africa - Friday, 19 June 2026

• South America - Friday, 26 June 2026

• Europe - Friday, 3 July 2026

Throughout Festival of Football we want you to build your international Ultimate Team. To help fans across the world build their dream squad we’ll be adding over 100 new international players to the FUT pool of items this summer. 

We're also excited to introduce 2 brand new ICONS; Rivellino & Mario Kempes. 

They’ll debut with special Greats of the Game Versions on 19 June, before their Base versions are available in the FUT pool of items for Packs from 26 June.  

The following five campaigns will also be released into the Football Ultimate Team™ pool of items between 5 June and 24 July.

Path To Glory: 5 June – 19 June

Path to Glory opens the Festival of Football celebrations, following the journey of each nation with live Player Items that upgrade alongside the international action.

Greats of the Game: 19 June – 26 June

Greats of the Game is all about the legends, introducing two new ICONS, Mario Kempes and Rivellino, to honour big name players who defined eras of The World’s Game.

Glory Hunters: 26 June – 10 July

Glory Hunters brings PlayStyle customisation to selected Player Items for more control over squad building.

Phenoms: 10 July – 17 July

Phenoms shines a light on football’s next generation. Spotlighting young players and debutants looking to stand out as the world watches on.

Summer Stars: 17 July – 24 July

The Festival of Football finale culminates in a celebration of the biggest moments and greatest performers.

We’ll also release a range of recurring Programs including Showdowns, Star Performers and National Pride.

As we continue to monitor and respond to community feedback, we’re making the following PlayStyles changes to improve gameplay balance.

Bruiser

Following feedback surrounding shoulder challenge outcomes feeling too impactful, especially when using the Bruiser PlayStyle, we have updated both Bruiser and Bruiser+ to better balance between PlayStyles and Attributes.

See the changes below:

Attributes and PlayStyles Balance

• Slightly reduced the boost to shoulder challenges from Bruiser and Bruiser+

• Added a slight boost to the receiver of the shoulder challenge if they have Enforcer or Enforcer+

  • This boost matches the one made to Bruiser/Bruiser+ 

Improved Shoulder Challenge Outcomes

• Improved shoulder challenge outcomes so stumble direction and force now better reflect the difference in Strength and PlayStyles between players.

  • Note that players with a clear Strength and PlayStyle advantage while defending are able to push the dribbler off the ball like before

  • If the advantage lies more with the dribbler they are not pushed away as easily and have a chance to recover the ball

  • This effect scales with the difference in Strength and PS boost between the players resulting in more authentic outcomes overall

Improved Detection of Challenges from Behind

• Added logic to predict when a shoulder challenge may hit the back of the opponent, and cancel the challenge if so

Other Changes

• Addressed a visual bug where the Bruiser+ icon displays when the PlayStyle wasn’t in effect

Intercept

We’ve also made the following change to the Intercept PlayStyle to make Attributes more impactful while preserving the PlayStyle benefit:

•  Added the ability for players without the Intercept PlayStyle but with a 90+ Interceptions attribute rating to have access to the same animations as those with the PlayStyle.

We had a lot of feedback from the community regarding the Team Press tactic being overused. We’ve made the following changes to AI-controlled defenders to encourage more tactical options:

• Reduced pressure on the ball carrier when Team Press is activated in the defensive half

  • If the user controls a defender in position to mark the ball carrier, AI defenders will not double up on the ball carrier

  • If the user controls a defender further away from the ball defender, an AI controlled defender will try to contain the ball carrier but not aggressively pressure them

• Reduced marking tightness of all AI opponents when Team Press is activated in the defensive half

  • Marking becomes looser as the opponent advances closer to goal

• When Team Press is activated in the attacking half, these changes do not apply. AI defenders will behave as before, aggressively pressuring the ball carrier and contextually doubling up

The International Men’s Tournament will also be available in Career, following the same structure and rules as The World’s Game mode. Alongside this, additional national teams have been fully licensed and added, and you can add a national team to manage at the beginning of any new save.

The following new content is also coming to Career:

• Added End of Season Live Starting Points, allowing you to jump into a save just before The International Men’s Tournament begins

• Following a server release after The World’s Game Update, players will also be able to select a national team at the start of a new Live Starting Point

• Added Festival of Football themed ICONs and Heroes

• Weekly releases of Festival of Football themed Manager Live Challenges starting 5 June

• New Season objectives for playing with national teams

  • Complete X amount of Y Category Name Challenges

  • Play X amount of full matches with national teams in Career Mode

To mark the beginning of knockout football, we’re introducing Penalty Shootouts, a new limited-time event available from 28 June in Football Ultimate Team™ and Kick-Off. 

The following updates have been made in Clubs to further expand the ways you can customise and improve your Archetypes:

• Increased Archetypes level cap

  • Increased level from 90 to 95

• Increased Archetype customisable PlayStyle slots

  • Increased from 8 to 9, unlocked at level 95

• Increased Signature PlayStyles from 3 to 4

• Fourth Signature PlayStyles: 

  • Shot Stopper

    • Deflector

  • Sweeper Keeper

    • Far Throw

  • Progressor

    • Intercept

  • Boss

    • Anticipate

  • Engine

    • Rapid

  • Marauder

    • Trickster

  • Recycler

    • Tiki Taka

  • Maestro

    • Incisive

  • Creator

    • Quick Step

  • Spark

    • Technical

  • Magician

    • Inventive

  • Finisher

    • Acrobatic

  • Target

    • Press Proven

• Fourth Signature PlayStyle can be upgraded to PS+ at Level 95

• Increased the maximum range of Archetype-specific Attributes

  • Shot Stopper 

    • Vision MAX: 99

  • Sweeper Keeper

    • Short Passing MAX: 99

  • Progressor

    • Ball Control MAX: 99

  • Boss

    • Standing Tackle MAX: 99

  • Engine

    • Defensive Awareness MAX: 99

  • Marauder

    • Dribbling MAX: 99

  • Recycler

    • Aggression MAX: 99

  • Maestro

    • Short Pass MAX: 99

  • Creator

    • Cross MAX: 99

  • Spark

    • Curve MAX: 99

  • Magician

    • Ball Control MAX: 99

  • Finisher

    • Balance MAX: 99

  • Target

    • Balance MAX: 99

Thanks for taking the time to check out The World’s Game Update Pitch Notes. We continue to listen and respond to feedback from the community and can’t wait for you to experience the latest changes.

• The EA SPORTS FC Team

*Conditions & restrictions apply. See

https://ea.com/en/games/ea-sports-fc/fc-26/game-disclaimers

for details.