EA FC 26 new gameplay features confirmed with upgraded dribbling, passing and two dedicated modes

EA Sports has released a deep dive into the new gameplay features coming to EA FC 26, and there's a lot for players to look forward to, on paper at least.

The EA FC 26 hype train is well and truly pulling out of the station, with EA Sports confirming theEA FC 26 cover stars, as well as the FC 26 release date, the official trailer, and all of the EA FC 26 Ultimate Edition pre-order details that are getting players incredibly excited. And now, EA has released an in-depth pitch notes article, going into detail about all of the new gameplay features coming to this year's EA Sports FC title, including more responsive dribbling, quicker passing, new roles, two distinct gameplay modes and much, much more.

Here's the complete EA FC 26 pitch notes, as per a post on EA's website.

READ MORE: EA FC 25 Futties Team 2 revealed with 99 Lionel Messi – every 'Best Of' Batch 2 player in packs

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EA FC 26 gameplay features confirmed

Welcome to the EA SPORTS FC 26 Gameplay Deep Dive Pitch Notes.

Our names are Keegan Sabatino, Gigo Navarro, and Thomas Caleffi, designers and producers from the FC Gameplay Team, and together with the whole team we’re excited to share the new Gameplay features coming to FC 26.

Our focus this year can be summed up in 3 words: make gameplay better.

FC 26 is powered by your feedback, and we aim to make it feel more responsive, rewarding, and enjoyable. We concentrated on three main areas:

Competitive and Authentic Gameplay separation

Gameplay Fundamentals

Feedback-Inspired Features And Updates

Let's jump right in.

Note: the [NG] tag denotes a feature exclusive for the New Generation of consoles (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2) and PC.

Competitive and Authentic Gameplay

In FC 26, we’ve separated gameplay into two presets: Competitive and Authentic. This split is based on where and how you play FC, and with this change, we’re able to customize the match experience of each mode to suit what you want out of the game.

• Competitive Gameplay is tuned for added responsiveness and higher player control, mainly focused on online modes like Ultimate Team and Clubs.
• Authentic Gameplay is tuned for higher realism and true-to-life match tempo/speed in offline modes, like Career Mode.

We’ll cover both in more detail later in this article.

Gameplay Fundamentals

Along with separating Competitive and Authentic gameplay, we had the goal of addressing the most requested changes by the community, and the problems that prevent you from having the best football experience.

We’ve refined the foundational gameplay mechanics, including Dribbling, Pace, Passing, Tackling, Shooting, Goalkeepers, and Physicality.

These refinements apply to both Competitive and Authentic Gameplay.

Feedback-Inspired Features/Updates

We also wanted to bring some new and updated features that you’ve been requesting, and that are important for us. These range from our new High-Contrast mode, to more Corner Kick Assignments, tweaked Player Roles, and new PlayStyles.

Let’s start with the fundamentals.

Gameplay Fundamentals

Refining Fundamentals Driven By Community Feedback

While the split of Competitive and Authentic gameplay will allow us to tweak each individually, there was a great deal of common feedback from the community around the general gameplay of FC. With FC 26 we wanted to address this by focusing on what matters most: the fundamentals. All of the improvements to fundamentals mentioned below apply across both Competitive and Authentic gameplay.

• Dribbling and Movement - make players more agile and responsive on and off the ball.
• Goalkeepers - make them more consistent and intelligent.
• Defending - reduce the quantity of balls that bounce back to the opponent.
• Passing and Shooting - make it more responsive and improve available options.
• Attacking and Defensive Positioning - make better runs and provide more support.
• Physicality - make it more reliable to protect and shield the ball.
• First Touches and Controlling the Ball - improve the control of trapping the ball.
• Online and General Gameplay Responsiveness - make the game more consistently responsive for both Online and Offline.

Dribbling and Movement

One core fundamental is how players move both with and without the ball. Our goal has always been to make players on the pitch feel agile and responsive, so for FC 26 we narrowed in on the community's feedback to provide a more fluid dribbling experience, overall better control with and without the ball, and responsive movement.

Dribbling

In FC 26, Dynamic Dribbling is a new way to give you better control with increased responsiveness and more consistent outcomes. In order to achieve this, we made the changes below to our dribbling system.

Dynamic Dribbling [NG]

In FC 26, dribbling has received a significant amount of changes to improve responsiveness and fluidity.

• Dribble Touch Intervals - re-tuned how close the player keeps the ball to themselves when dribbling.
• The interval between dribble touches varies between Competitive and Authentic.
• Player Height - adjusted animation consistency and speed for players based on height to balance the performance between tall and short players.
• Foot Preference - adjusted dribbling foot preference logic and animation branching logic to allow for more responsive ball control.
• Dribbling Animation - re-evaluated and re-tuned our dribbling animation library to ensure the consistency, speed, and responsiveness for dribbling were standard across the board.
• Animation transitions and branching have been improved for increased responsiveness and to diminish the feeling of being ‘locked in’ to animations.
• Jog Dribble - increased speed of jog dribbling alongside improved logic for ball direction when dribbling to achieve more consistency in their desired speed.
• Effort Dribble Touches - Effort Touch animations now trigger during drastic dribble turns to ensure faster and authentic turns.

We have removed the Agile Dribbling mechanic due to its low usage and to make the Shielding controls more consistent.

• Removed Agile Dribbling - L2 + R2 || LT + RT
• Removed contextual Agile Dribbling and its setting from the menu.

Movement

We heard feedback that players felt sluggish and heavy, especially when changing directions or when chasing down the ball. Our goal with FC 26 is to make all players more agile and able to accelerate more explosively in any direction, so we tuned the relative pace of players to ensure that the fastest players feel like the quickest ones on the pitch.

Here’s what we have changed to achieve this:

More Agility [NG]

• Explosive Sprint - increased player agility and explosiveness in every direction.
• Run Styles - adjusted runs to be more natural and explosive to reflect the pace of an authentic football match.
• Attacker Vs Defender Speed - improved the speed differentiation between Attackers versus Defenders to achieve an improved balance between the two.

Acceleration Types [NG]

For FC 26, we’re going back to 3 Acceleration Types to allow for a more predictable pace of play. We felt that three types were easier to understand and created a better acceleration balance. We also separated the formula that determines the Acceleration Types between male and female players in order to provide a better distribution among players.

Acceleration Type Changes

Explosive

• Agility minimum 65
• (Agility - Strength) >= 10
• Acceleration minimum 80
• Height has been separated between male and female players
• Male height maximum 182cm (~6’0”)
• Female height maximum 162cm (~5’4”)

Lengthy

• Strength minimum 65
• (Strength - Agility) >= 4
• Acceleration minimum 40
• Height has been separated between male and female players
• Male height minimum 183 cm (~6’1”)
• Female height minimum 164cm (~5’5”)

Controlled - any player that does not meet the other two requirements above.

• Adjusted the early stages of all three types to be more responsive.
• Adjusted deceleration of all players to be faster and snappier.

Other Changes

• Jockey - improved Jockey movement to be more agile and responsive.
• New Jockey animations to improve maneuverability and feel more grounded.
• Turns - improved animations for all types of turns (drastic turns, swivel turns, etc.) to be faster and more responsive.
• Low Urgency - improved low urgency and relaxed animations for players not directly involved in the play to be less frantic and have them ready to accelerate when needed.

Goalkeeper

We received a lot of feedback on goalkeepers, especially regarding their positioning, the place where they deflect the ball, and how they look when doing so.

Our goal with Goalkeepers is to make them more consistent and reliable, reducing the frustration they can cause, and improving the balance of skill vs authenticity.

Goalkeeper Fundamentals

In FC 26, goalkeepers received several improvements, such as how they handle deflections, how they position themselves, and even their decision making, all with the goal of reducing frustration while staying authentic to football.

• Deflection Control - added a new level of control for save deflections to significantly reduce the amount of deflections going back to opponents.
• Most deflections will now go out of bounds, toward teammates, or to open space away from opponents.
• Goalkeeper Senses - refined goalkeeper's ability to read shot trajectories to better reflect real-world save efforts and shot detection.
• Technical Improvements - improved base systems for goalkeeper handling, more consistent shot-stopping, and more reasonable decision making in one-on-one situations.

RL GK Positioning [NG]

One of the most significant updates in FC 26 is the introduction of Reinforcement-Learning (RL) Goalkeeper Positioning.

• This new system uses machine learning to help AI-controlled goalkeepers make more realistic decisions about where to position themselves in the box.
• By analyzing countless scenarios, the AI can now better cut down angles and react to different types of attacks while adjusting their position more intelligently.
• It’s important to note that RL Positioning is only active in certain situations, and is only used to position the Goalkeeper. The system is not active when making a save or performing a catch.

New Volumetric Animations

Animations play a crucial role in how goalkeepers look and feel on the pitch. In FC 26, we’re introducing new volumetric animations for goalkeepers.

• These animations are based on real-world volumetric motion capture data, resulting in more fluid and realistic movements.
• This not only enhances the visual authenticity of the game but also ensures that goalkeepers respond more accurately to different types of shots and situations.

Be-A-Goalkeeper

We could not improve the fundamentals of GKs without touching the Be-A-Goalkeeper (BAG) experience. BAG has received many updates, including new controls and assistance levels, PlayStyles, revamped UI components, and an updated presentation, along with unique camera and audio treatments.

Revamped Be-A-Goalkeeper Experience

For players who enjoy controlling the goalkeeper directly, the Be-A-Goalkeeper (BAG) mode has received a comprehensive update. Players can also play as keepers in Clubs RUSH.

You can also use Goalkeeper PlayStyles when in BAG Mode.

New Control Scheme - new controls to give you as much control over your actions from dive direction, claiming crosses with a punch or catch, smothering the ball, or reaction saves.

• Dive Direction - flicking the Right Stick will prepare your goalkeeper to dive in that direction for a short period.
• Right Stick Flick
• Cross Claiming - when there is a cross coming in, you have the ability to request either a catch or punch attempt, timing will matter.
• Punch (When ball is crossed): Circle/B
• Catch (When ball is crossed): Square/X
• One-on-One Situations - rushing the attacking dribbler, you have the ability to attempt to smother the ball or attempt to make yourself big to block the incoming shot. The direction of this action is based on your movement direction.
• Rush: Triangle/Y
• Ball pickup / smother: Square/X
• Reaction Save / Make Yourself Big: Circle/B
• Reaction Saves - when the shooter is close or you wish to take the dive timing into your own hands, you can modify your dive direction to play an instant save attempt.
• Reaction Dive On Demand: R1 + Right Stick Flick || RB + Right Stick Flick

Visuals

• New Dive Direction UI - a new Dive Direction UI that appears when there is potential for a shot.
• Updated Positioning UI - updated the auto-positioning AR visual.
• Camera - new 11v11 camera that brings you closer to the action with the ability to manually pan the camera.
• Camera Pan: L1 + Left Stick direction || LB + Left Stick direction

Defending

We know how it can feel to time a tackle perfectly only for the ball to go right back to the opponent.

So, when working on fundamentals, we spent a lot of time focusing on improving these issues during tackles, interceptions, and blocks. Our goal is to reward you for well-timed challenges or anticipating a pass, and now you’ll be more likely to win the ball cleanly and retain possession in those moments.

Tacklebacks, Bouncebacks, and Reboundbacks

• Tackle Outcomes - improved logic when Stand or Slide tackling the ball to a teammate.
• Shot Blocks - added a new deflection control system to make blocked shots put the ball away from danger.
• Interceptions - added a new deflection control system to try to keep possession or move the ball to a teammate when making an interception.
• Tackled Opponents - opponents will feel the effect of a tackle more severely when dispossessed of the ball by playing a realistic reaction after the tackle, thereby reducing the likelihood of them recovering the ball back right after getting successfully tackled.

Defending

• Tackle Spam - improved logic for spamming tackle, to make the delay after a missed tackle more consistent.
• Tackle vs Block - when pressing Stand Tackle near the dribbler about to take a shot, the defender will be more likely to try to tackle rather than block.
• Tackles From Behind - reduced the effectiveness of tackling from behind the dribbler.
• Tackle Personality - added more player personality for stand tackles
• Players with a low stand tackle attribute (below 71) can only perform basic stand tackle animations.
• Players with a medium stand tackle attribute (71-84) can perform most stand tackle animations.
• Players with a high stand tackle attribute (85+) can perform all stand tackle animations.

Passing and Shooting

Some of the strongest feedback we got on Passing and Shooting is that they can often feel sluggish, as well as that some shots or pass types are unbalanced. Our goal in FC 26 is to improve the options available to players and ensure that the shot or pass is as responsive as possible.

Passing

Pass Responsiveness

With our focus on core mechanics, we dedicated significant effort to ensuring passes, particularly first-time passes, are as responsive as possible.

• Passing Angles - rebalanced animation restrictions to allow passing to cover a broader range of angles.
• Faster Animations - enabled first-touch animations for passes when contextually appropriate, such as short distance passes.
• Passes Behind - Increased animation coverage for 135° and 180° passes, also allowing backheel passes to play contextually in these scenarios.
• First-time 135° and 180° through passes are now significantly less accurate to avoid Directed Run-related exploits.
• Quick Passes - Optimized short-distance, low-power passes to prefer faster, more responsive animations with minimal wind-up.
• Note that in Competitive Gameplay, first-time pass accuracy is reduced, despite being more responsive.

Improved Through Pass Targets

We’ve introduced the concept of Passing Lanes for semi-assisted through passes. Aiming at a specific passing lane (the gap between two opponents) ensures the best target selection for the intended receiver within that lane, respecting your aim and intention.

Through passes will also now lead receivers more effectively.

Other Changes

• Pass Receiver - improved pass receiver selection, especially for Ground and Through passes.
• Crosses - adjusted Crosses to lead more in front of the target, along with increased accuracy when in easy contexts.
• Ground Passes - regular Ground passes will now have a straighter trajectory with less contextual curve.
• Teammates will now maintain their position to receive ground passes.
• Lob Passes - Lob passes will have more driven trajectories when the path is unobstructed.
• Goalkeeper Throws - improved throw targets from the goalkeeper.
• Clearances - adjusted Clearance logic to make them more responsive.

Shooting

Shooting Responsiveness

To make shooting more fair and rewarding, we’ve enhanced responsiveness. Our goal for this is that when you ask your player to shoot, it happens quickly and as expected.

• Close-range Shots - shots near the net will use more reactive animations with minimal wind-up.
• Shooting Angles - rebalanced animation restrictions to enable shooting to cover a broader range of angles.

Low Driven Additions and Timed Finishing Removal

In FC 26, Low Driven shots will be performed by double-tapping the shot button. Low Driven is now a global* shot modifier instead of being contextual based on your shot power.

With the new button mapping, we had the opportunity to extend the Low-Driven mechanic across all shot types* by pressing the Shot button again after powering up your shot.

Trivela Shots and Gamechanger PlayStyle

Trivela shots will now be connected to the new Gamechanger PlayStyle. A player without this PlayStyle will not be able to perform trivelas.

• While visually impressive and powerful, Trivela Shots became overused by players across all positions, often leading to unrealistic and exploitable scoring patterns.
• Our goal with this change is to balance the shooting mechanics of the game, especially in Competitive Gameplay.
• GameChanger PlayStyle - Trivela Shots can only be performed by players with this PlayStyle or PlayStyle+
• If a player doesn’t have the Gamechanger Playstyle or PlayStyle+, attempting a Trivela Shot will default to a lace shot instead.
• See the PlayStyle Section for more details on the new Gamechanger PlayStyle.

Attacking and Defensive Positioning

You’ve been asking us to increase fluid attacking movement, while also having a logical defensive structure, for a more fun and dynamic match.

Our goal in FC 26 is to make your teammates’s positioning more flexible, regardless of Role, allowing them to make more runs and provide you with more supporting options as you progress up the pitch.

Attacking Positioning

• Player Support - reevaluated the positioning logic to provide better supporting options for the ball carrier, trying to always have someone available as a passing option.
• Attacking Runs - made several changes to the attacking runs logic:
• Increased the number of attacking runs by players, to lower reliance on triggered runs.
• Attacking runs more consistently run into open space.
• All players will be more likely to make the best attacking run options instead of strictly following what their player Role dictates.
• Ex. a Winger can cut into the box if the opportunity arises, where before they would wait out wide.
• Ex: a Wingback can move forward if there is open space in front of them.
• Balanced Build Up - teams will have a more balanced approach, giving you run options as well as close-support options.
• Offside Runs - improved attacker’s ability to stay onside, and the speed in which they come back when offside.

Defending Positioning [NG]

• Player marking - adjusted positioning of defenders to now man mark opponents when close and inside the box.
• Defensive Line Height - the defensive line will not automatically push up as far when trying to keep players offside.

Physicality

Protecting the ball and keeping it is an essential part of football, and we agree that this is an area with lots of room for improvement.

Our goal is to give you added consistency with the shield button, allowing you to protect the ball, be it when receiving a pass, when the opponent presses against you when controlling the ball, or when bumping a marker with your shoulder as you dribble to make a bit of space.

Shielding Improvements

In FC 26, Shielding has been fully reworked to provide you with more consistent options and extra authentic physicality across the pitch.

• Shield Trapping - our objective was to give players a new tool when trapping the ball and wanting to stand their ground instead of immediately moving.
• Improved positioning when receiving the ball and Shielding Hold L2 || Hold LT.
• Increased Strength-based differentiation when Shield trapping.
• Prioritized getting in the way of incoming opponents instead of getting the perfect touch on the ball.
• Rebalanced and improved outcomes of several scenarios and timings when starting to Shield before and after receiving the ball.
• New Shielding trap animations, to increase shielding coverage and effectiveness
• Shield Dribbling - Dribble shielding has been fully reworked to make it more consistent and better at respecting your input.
• Improved consistency of player positioning relative to the ball when Shielding.
• Improved transition from Shielding to Sprint.
• Re-tuned how long you can Shield depending on how much short-term fatigue you have.
• New Shielding movement animations.

Shield Entries

We added multiple new ways to perform one-off Shield actions while moving. These actions can be used to quickly and physically get in front of the opponent before going into a rapid burst of speed, or they can be a way to start shielding when out of position.

• Dribbling Shoulder Challenges - new type of Shielding action that allows you to better protect the ball while dribbling.
• Physics - improved physics effects for both the shielder and the shieldee, to accentuate the physicality of the action.
• New Animations - multiple new animations added for Step-ins, Seal Outs, and Shield Turns.
• Enforcer PlayStyle - new animations added for players with the new Enforcer PlayStyle and PlayStyle+.

Contested Box Outs

On top of all the improvements to physicality in FC 26, we are adding a new mechanic called Contested Box Outs.

Stronger players are able to keep opponents away when fighting for an incoming air ball. This allows players to use Shield when in front of their opponent, triggering a strong physical action that provides more space to either trap the ball or set up for a header.

• The effectiveness of the Box Out is based on the Strength difference between the two players.
• It can only be triggered if your player is in a good position when waiting for the ball.
• Following a Box Out, you can transition into any action to allow a fluid continuation of play.

Other Physics Changes

We’ve spent a lot of time ensuring that we’ve reduced physics-based frustrating scenarios that could sometimes occur.

• Jumping over fallen players will now be much more reliable and effective..
• Players getting stuck together when stumbling will be moved to the side to allow them to detach and continue play.
• When trying to avoid other players, we have made them more slippery. This is so that player avoidance doesn’t cause players to get stuck on each other.

Controlling the Ball and First Touches

Similar to physicality and defending, first touches could have been frustrating in the past when they felt sluggish, non-urgent, or when they fell back to the opponent.

Our goal with these improvements is to make players feel more agile and in control of the ball, especially when trapping it.

Controlling the Ball - Responsiveness

• First Touch Responsiveness - significantly improved responsiveness of first touch ball control to seamlessly transition into dribbling right after contact with the ball.
• Ball Control - refined players’ ability to control the ball after a pass or interception to maintain possession.
• Factors influencing the difficulty of a first touch include ball speed relative to the player's speed, ball height, requested exit angle, opponent pressure, the part of the body used for the touch, the extent of stretching, and player attributes such as Ball Control, Interceptions, and Composure.
• First Touch Precision - when receiving or intercepting a pass, holding L2 || LT will greatly improve the players ability to control the ball at the trade-off of player’s move speed.
• Earlier timing of this input will result in increased control.
• Flick Ups - improved flicking actions when receiving an aerial ball in all directions to be more consistent and predictable.
• Consecutive Flick Ups will progressively become less effective to prevent exploits.
• Loose and Contested Balls Player Urgency - new ability to increase players' urgency when attempting to reach a loose ball or contested ball by pressing Sprint R2 || RT.
• Holding Sprint prompts immediate acceleration toward the contact point. Without the Sprint input, the response might be less immediate, highlighting the importance of your reaction time in critical moments.

Gameplay Animation Improvements

• Animation transitions and branching have been re-evaluated and retuned across most areas of Gameplay to improve consistency and responsiveness.
• Adjusted the following areas across all animations to make them more internally consistent: time to contact ball, ball trajectories better aligned with animation, pose fidelity, and animation exit speed.
• Improved selection of animations to better match the player’s current speed and animation speed.
• Relaxed the coverage required for animations, allowing them to start faster in many situations.

Fatigue Redesigned

When investigating responsiveness, one common piece of feedback was that players would sometimes not feel the same across the course of a match. For Competitive Gameplay purposes, we decided to redesign some elements of the Fatigue system.

Our goal with this change is responsiveness; a player should always feel and play well when you are controlling them.

Note: the changes below only apply to Competitive tuning, though Clubs has a slightly different design.

• Short-term and long-term fatigue only affects AI-controlled players
• User-controlled players are NOT AFFECTED while being controlled.
• CPU-controlled players in Competitive tuning are also not affected by fatigue. An example is when playing Squad Battles.
• When controlling a player, the effect of fatigue on the Sprint Speed and Acceleration attributes is not in effect.
• Meaning a user-controlled player acts as if they have full stamina when controlled.
• For AI players, they will have a reduction in Sprint Speed and Acceleration when fatigued (proportional to the fatigue level).
• Relentless and Relentless+ PlayStyles have been changed to increase how quickly your short-term fatigue recovers (more details in the PlayStyles section).
• For Authentic Gameplay, fatigue works as before.
• For Clubs, short-term fatigue works as before, however, long-term fatigue doesn’t accumulate for any player.
• For example, when short-term stamina depletes, the player is slower when running until the fatigue bar recovers.
• Note: this design is subject to change.

Inputs, Indicators, and Overlays

• Improved the Input Processing System.
• More info in the Responsiveness Deep Dive: https://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-fc/fc-26/news/pitch-notes-fc26-gameplay-responsiveness-update
• Fixed Skill Move detection issues.
• We made the Player Indicator more responsive during gameplay.
• Created a new overlay to better display connection status (visuals subject to change):

Competitive and Authentic Gameplay

Let’s dive into one of the most significant changes we’ve ever done to gameplay - splitting it into two separate experiences based on how and where you play the game.

Online modes like Football Ultimate Team and Clubs will have their own gameplay type called Competitive Gameplay, while offline modes like Manager Career and Player Career will use Authentic Gameplay as default.

This change is a direct result of your feedback, from the comments, posts, and threads, to the hours of conversations we’ve had with the community about how our game could improve.

And yes, this means that we can tweak, tune, and change the gameplay for each type without affecting the other. If we add a more realistic feature like slower skill moves, we can make sure they only happen in Authentic, while something like removing the fatigue from user-controlled players can be tailored to Football Ultimate Team.

We know that Online and Offline players have different priorities, and we want to showcase that by creating two enjoyable, separate ways to play FC 26.

Competitive Gameplay

Made for FUT and Clubs Competitive Gameplay is mandatory/locked in FUT, Clubs, Online Seasons, and Online Friendlies. It is optional in Kick-Off and Career Mode.

Our goal with Competitive Gameplay is to create a more skill-driven competitive experience by reducing the impact of randomness and assistance. This is an experience tailored for those who enjoy fast-paced, responsive gameplay.

The changes to Competitive Gameplay aim to deliver on the three “competitive community” priorities: Responsiveness, Consistency, and Control.

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