A supposed leak suggests that the EA Sports FC 26 game will release on a dramatically different date to the game’s usual launch times.
According to AhcanFut, a big name in the community, the Ultimate Team edition of EA FC 26 will be available much earlier in the year than usual on Saturday, August 23. Every game in the FIFA/FC franchise since 2000 has released in September or October. In the early 2000s the games would release the end of October but in recent years the games have always come out in late September.
An August release date would mean the game would come out before the Premier League’s transfer window even closes on September 1. However, the game won’t release in time for the Premier League season to start, as that kicks off a week earlier on the 16th.
This apparent date is only for the Ultimate Team edition, which typically offers early access to the game. A whole month of early access would be egregious and surely unpopular, seems unlikely, usually the Ultimate Edition comes out a week early so it’s likely the standard edition of the game will also release in August if this leak is to be believed.
The leak also claims that the next version of EA FC still won’t include cross-play between PC and console players, only between console players. This will mean we’ll likely still see any esports competitions for the game split between consoles though the new more powerful Nintendo Switch 2 releasing this Summer could complicate things.
And in addition to all of this, the leaker also claims that Moments mode will be removed from Ultimate Team. The single-player mode saw players attempt challenges by replicating iconic moments in football history. Whether this will be replaced with anything or not remains to be seen.
Finally, the leaker alleges we will see the first trailer for the new game sometime between May 20 and May 27, just five or six weeks away from the time of writing. That’s not long to wait and find out just how accurate this information really is.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
