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FC 26 Launch Digest: First Look at Season Pass, Angry Ginge Smashes Skepta as TOTW 1 Leaks

FC 26

With the worldwide launch of EA Sports FC 26 on September 26, 2025, EA is making its most ambitious statement yet, promising an overhaul based on extensive community feedback. Following a lackluster response to FC 25, EA has placed unprecedented emphasis on player feedback, setting up a new Player Feedback Portal, a dedicated Discord channel, and utilizing AI powered social listening tools to monitor conversations across social media.

FC 26 also introduces a wealth of new features and improvements. A rebuilt dribbling engine, smarter goalkeeping AI powered by reinforcement learning, and a new double tap low shot mechanic are all designed to address specific player frustrations. Finally for non UT players, EA has improved as Career Mode and Clubs get RPG inspired Archetypes and Manager Live Challenges to inject new life and storytelling into long term saves.

Here are some of the latest updates/developments we are seeing as the launch date gets near:

FC 26 Season Pass First Look

Here is our first look for the FC 26 Season Pass thanks to a clip from DjMaRiiO’s twitch stream. For anyone wondering this is sort of like a Battle Pass in other gamemodes where you obtain items as you progress using SP. There is a Free to play version and a Premium version that should cost 500,000 coins (not confirmed). Here is how it works:

You can earn Season Points (SP) by completing various objectives across different game modes, including Ultimate Team, Clubs, and Career Mode. These objectives can be daily, weekly, or seasonal. As players accumulate SP, they level up on the Seasonal Track, unlocking rewards at each level.

The Standard Season Pass is a free tier available to all players. It offers various rewards, including player packs, club and stadium customization items like Tifos, and Evolution consumables. This is mostly filler stuff to get you to purchase the premium pass.

The Premium Season Pass is an optional paid tier that offers a separate and more lucrative rewards path. It can be bought with in game currency (FC Points) or coins. This pass includes more valuable rewards like high rated and tradable player packs, exclusive Evolution slots, and unique player items that are often tied to the season’s theme.

First FC 26 Gameplay Livestream

Yesterday night EA as usual invited celebrities and content creators to give fans their first ever look at the official gameplay. Angry Ginge one of UK’s biggest creators was invited to play the first official match against Skepta who is a British grime MC, rapper, record producer, fashion designer, film director, and DJ. The match was streamed on EA sports twitch channel to hundreds of thousands of viewers with the broadcast VOD garnering 2 million views. As you can imagine the gap in quality between Ginge and Skepta this was not a fair match with Ginge scoring the first ever goal in FC 26 using Ronaldinho.

The match result was 5-0 before halftime in favour of Ginge. Too make matters even worse Ginge was using the Soccer Aid team and Skepta had chosen Spurs.

EA also announced on their stream that they would be handing out PlayStation Codes that would allow the Full game to be playable after unlocking them. This obviously led to chaos as at the time they have over 200,000 concurrent viewers and out of people Danny Aarons managed to get the code and now has access to the full game.

Many people were angry about EA’s tactics, believing everyone should have access to the game on Day 1. However from EA’s perspective it is yet another way to monetize content, they would have seen the numbers and the money they can make from selling Ultimate Edition copies and from their EA play subscription. Not to mention it creates FOMO for those watching any FC 26 content and others play, enabling them to earn even more money from players who were not initially planning on purchasing the game.

FC 26 Soundtrack Released

The release of the FC 26 soundtrack has once again generated significant buzz, with EA continuing its tradition of curating a diverse and globally reaching collection of tracks. This year’s soundtrack is notable for its sheer size and the variety of artists featured, from established legends to rising stars from over 30 countries.

A major headline grabber is the inclusion of Italian international footballer Moise Kean, who, under his music moniker KMB, becomes the first professional player to be featured on an FC soundtrack with his rap track ‘BOMBAY’.

The soundtrack is a mix of genres and artists, featuring well known names like Ed Sheeran, Fred again.., Skepta, JENNIE, HAIM, The Cure, and PinkPantheress. In total, the soundtrack boasts 109 songs, with 27 of them being previously unreleased. Fans can listen to the full FC 26 soundtrack now on major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Slower Progression

Many players were upset with the abundance of Promo Packs especially at such a earlier cycle of the game. You could open 3x 100K packs on Day one in FC 25. This created a huge divide in the teams of Pay to Win and Free to play as well as casual players. Now they have reduced it to 50K and 35K packs. EA wants players to use their starter squads for longer this year. EA has also intentionally slowed the pace of progression in Ultimate Team. Player item ratings will be slightly lower on average, and weekly campaigns will feature smaller attribute boosts. This is designed to keep the game balanced and ensure that starter squads remain viable for longer. Here is what went wrong last year:

In previous titles, the power curve was so aggressive that the game’s base cards including Rare Golds, Icons, and Heroes would become outdated and unusable within just a few weeks of launch. This forced players to constantly chase new and more powerful promotional cards, which made the early stages of the game feel irrelevant very quickly.

When the power curve rises too quickly, the game’s meta becomes stale and predictable. Players feel compelled to use the same small pool of overpowered cards to compete, stifling creativity in squad building.

Everyone had the same depth and tactics. Most players had a formation with 2 CDM’s, fullbacks that were set to the instruction of only defending which meant you had 6 defenders total. Players kept depth of 85-95 to ensure they could take advantage of rebounds. The Finesse shot was also very broken especially with players that had that playstyle, all you had to do was spam finesse shots from the edge of the box and it was unsaveable. This led to FC 25 being the the worst user rated game in Franchise History according to several major review sites such as Metacritic and Steam.

Free Foundations Player Pick

You will have the choice of 5 excellent Foundations Player Picks when you open FUT all you need to do to unlock them is complete 5 grounded passes and take a shot on target. There will reportedly also be a unique evo for these players. There is a card from each of the top 5 European Leagues and they are all 84 rated.

Koopmeiners(CAM) is a great pick, all his core stats are 76+ and is a great player for your Serie A starter squad.

Garcia(LB) from Marseille is also a good pick, his 81 pace, 78 physicality and 84 defending are great stats. However, chemistry might be an issue given he is from Ligue 1 and has Swiss nationality.

Ruggeri(LM) is a great pick if you are creating a Serie A-La Liga hybrid due to his Italian Nationality and playing for Atletico. He has 86 pace, 81 passing and 81 dribbling however his shooting lets him down at just 69.

Endo(CDM) will be the most picked player due to his Premier Link, just like Koopmeiners his core stats are all great expect his 72 pace.

Stanisic(CB) is the perfect Bundesliga starter player, his 85 defending, 81 physicality and 77 pace make him a solid pick. He is the most Meta looking player in my option out of all the players.

These picks will all depend on which type of league you are planning on building, this is one of the rare free gifts from EA.

First Promo & TOTW on FC 26

The first campaign after Early Access will be Cornerstones. Here’s to hoping that EA will avoid the AI debacle for this promo. This campaign shines a spotlight on the players that teams are built around, dependable leaders, pivotal long term signings, and young talents who’ve stepped up to become central to their clubs’ success. The players featured in the promo receive a permanent increase to their overall rating. Each Cornerstones card provides an enhanced +2 Club Chemistry link. This is a significant boost for early squad building, as it makes it much easier to create hybrid teams and get full chemistry with players from different leagues or nations.

While the full list of Cornerstones players has not yet been officially confirmed, early leaks suggest that stars like Virgil van Dijk, Lautaro Martinez, and Cole Palmer may be featured. Hopefully EA does not make them super meta cards and creates an imbalance in the power curve as mentioned earlier.

We are also getting a new mode with this promo called the Cornerstones Exhibition Tournament. The Max overall team will be 83, you can only have one card that is 85 or higher and you need to have a minimum of 1 Evolution player in your team to play the tournament.

The first TOTW has leaked and here are some of the most notable players. Erling Haaland and Harry Kane are both given a +1 to their base card. Luckily there is no Van de Ven despite him scoring and keeping a clean sheet against West Ham.

However there is one big problem, Marcos Llorente. His rating maybe 86 but we already have a Gullit Gang member in early access as his card is absolutely stacked. He has 91 pace and all his core stats are above 81. EA are looking to slow down the power curve but this does not look like a step in that direction. Hopefully this leak is wrong as this is not ideal for such a player to be in the game in the first week of its release.

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