Similarly, the developers are also keeping an eye on how the new features of EA Sports FC 27’s Ultimate Team mode shape up. While they acknowledged that player response to things like the gallery and the use of the Transfer Market has been strong, they are still keeping an eye on how making any adjustments might end up affecting player time and Squad Battles difficulty.

However, the team intends to keep updating the title consistently with bug fixes as well as quality-of-life features. An example of these features is “Streamlined SBCs on Companion”, which is coming with an upcoming update. Systems like Dynamic OVR and Stamina are also under the microscope for now, and the team will keep an eye on how player behavior evolves over a longer period of time. The developers of EA Sports FC 27 have also confirmed that they are working on improving queue times for Kickabouts in The Ground and Clubs.

EA Sports FC 27 was released on PC, SP4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2 just last week. The title is available in two SKUs – a standard edition and an Ultimate Edition. The latter features extra in-game items like 6,000 FC points over the course of three months, an additional slot for FUT Player Evo, and more.

Some of the biggest changes in this year’s entry have been made to the Ultimate Team mode, which now includes a Gallery where players can see how their club has performed over a long period of time. Player Items are also a new feature that gives players a new progression path as they collect items in the mode.

Solo players also have plenty to look forward to, like Manager Career’s transfer market seeing major revisions after a complete rebuild. With this, the developers wanted to emphasize realistic player values and active club bidding. There are also new negotiation tactics like buy-back clauses, performance clauses, and options for dynamic OVRs.

For more details about EA Sports FC 27, take a look at our review, where we gave it a score of 8 out of 10. We praised the long-overdue improvements it brought along in career mode, as well as the incremental-yet-solid upgrades made to the core gameplay. Our only complaint is the fact that The Ground – the new social hub where players can hang out together – is quite lacking in content and generally feels unpolished.

For a more in-depth look at how EA Sports FC 27 is meaningfully different from its predecessor, here are the 15 biggest gameplay differences between the two.

It was once synonymous with horror in gaming, being a pillar of the genre within the medium with innovative ideas, well-written stories, insightful interpretations of complex themes, and of course, gameplay that had you on edge for a significant part of your playtime. But that rise to glory had been balanced out by a fall from grace marked by inconsistent releases, cancelled projects, and a loss of the creative identity that set its games apart in the first place.

But all that’s in the distant past, and a more recent appraisal of the franchise’s fortunes, beginning with that excellent remake of Silent Hill 2, paints the story of a comeback worth examining as we look at a busy, and potentially bright, future for the franchise.

How has it shaped that turnaround? What has Konami done differently this time around to warrant its newfound success? We asked the same questions, and we’re happy to tell you more about what we found along the way. Let’s begin!

Back To The Beginning

Silent Hill’s newfound glory is better understood through the lens of what it has managed to achieve in the past, and the decisions that led it there. It’s important to remember how the first four titles in the franchise created an identity distinct from Resident Evil, another strong presence in the horror space at the time.

Where human greed and its consequences guided the stories in Raccoon City and its surroundings, Silent Hill took a more psychological approach, diving deep into human depravity and how it could manifest in the worlds the franchise’s protagonists found themselves in.

Every title brought an atmosphere so oppressive it became a frightening presence in and of itself, while the excellent use of each soundstage, subtle symbolism, and very insightful storytelling were once hallmarks of the franchise. Silent Hill 2 became a benchmark thanks to how well all of these elements came together to make it a title that didn’t really have anything to compare it against at the time.

But all of these positive traits would have meant nothing in games that didn’t manage to keep their players invested in what was unfolding in front of them. And while the franchise’s early lineup didn’t need to worry about such concerns, the same can’t be said for the ones that followed.

A Frightening Lack of Direction

Silent Hill: Origins is probably a good game to examine what caused the franchise to lose much of the momentum it had built through its earlier successes. The prequel was quite good as a Silent Hill title, but you could already see that it lacked the inspiration and insight that made its predecessors as famous as they were.

It was still a moody, atmospheric return to the titular town, but it lacked the subtlety of the franchise’s other entries, a facet that often made it feel like a lore drop rather than a full-fledged story that took the franchise in an interesting new direction. Homecoming felt largely the same, although it did bring technical improvements like a controllable camera and some excellent visual upgrades to the franchise’s formula.

But Alex’s search for his brother began to feel like the franchise’s ability to innovate was beginning to run out of steam despite a fairly strong offering from Double Helix after it took over from Climax Studios, which handled Origins.

Climax Studios would return with Shattered Memories, a radical reimagining of the original Silent Hill that drew praise for its bold ideas but rather shaky presentation, with the weaponless chase sequences not feeling as potent as they could have been thanks to the game distinguishing between safety and danger too strongly.

Vatra Games’ effort with Downpour was a similarly flawed experience, drawing both praise and criticism alike, and bringing an important aspect of the situation to the forefront. Despite each title’s individual strengths, it was clear that the Silent Hill franchise was lacking direction and focus, and different interpretations of its best features weren’t necessarily making the most of them all.

But does that mean the franchise had already lost its potency and potential? We’d argue that that was hardly the case.

The Comeback That Never Was

There was still P.T. in the mix, and it came out of nowhere to revive hope in a franchise that could have been easy to write off as past its prime. Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro, and what was slated to eventually become Silent Hills.

Not only did it revive interest in the franchise, but the potential from such a collaboration of great minds could also blend very well with a formula that was already proven to work when it was targeted at things beyond the ordinary. A detail that becomes significant as we move a little later down the line.

But for now, we return to the cancellation of Silent Hills, and the loss of a potentially exciting future for the franchise at the time. It would mark the beginning of a long period of dormancy, one that would see the franchise’s reputation survive only through its community and word of the heights that it was once capable of. It also marked an era where the competition continued to delve into psychological horror, a territory that the franchise once had firmly in its grasp, and perhaps even helped define.

The vehicle for the franchise now felt like it had been abandoned along the side of the road it once helped pave, blazing a path that other titles were now speeding along. But Konami didn’t give up on a franchise that was as great as this one, and the next few years might already be familiar to you, but merit a close look to understand why the new bevy of Silent Hill games have succeeded where others have not.

Regaining Its Form And Footing

2022 marked the beginning of a new chapter for the franchise, although there was no way of knowing about all the great memories it was going to give us at the time. We didn’t get news of just one game from Konami, but were told about the remake of Silent Hill 2 from Bloober Team, two new games, and a new movie!

Producer Motoi Okamoto would later explain that Konami never really intended to “test the waters” with one remake before committing to the franchise again, but was rather choosing to bet big on it right from the get-go. However, the intent behind the move doesn’t negate the valid skepticism that surrounded the announcement given the franchise’s history with external studios working on Silent Hill games.

That Silent Hill 2 was the game being remade was a big enough reason, given how much reverence it has garnered from fans over the years. Bloober had its task cut out for it, having to modernize the classic without sacrificing any of its original appeal. But the remake didn’t just manage to impress its critics, but also generated revenues that were impressive.

Five million cumulative players over combined sales metrics isn’t a joke after all, and is perhaps the best example of how the franchise regained its relevance in the current generation of games. Of course, the remake’s success could not dispel apprehensions about the game that followed it.

Silent Hill f was bringing several departures to Hinako’s story that could have, and perhaps even did, put off a few hardcore fans before they actually got to play it. It was based in Japan, in an entirely new location for starters, with combat mechanics that looked like they were putting too much of an emphasis on action instead of the franchise’s horror-focused roots.

And yet, what we got was a game that was quintessentially Silent Hill, packaged in a new world, premise, and story that helped sell everything that was great about the franchise so well, it made 1960s Japan feel like a natural new home for the experience it aimed for.

Hinako’s deeply personal story, her harrowing confrontations with her own inner demons, and the way all of it resolved was nothing short of extraordinary, and perhaps the best reflection of what the franchise was capable of when it fired on all cylinders back in the day. Konami was quick to point out that it was the first new Silent Hill game in a dozen years, and it reaching a million sales in two days is a showcase of the franchise’s unfading allure over the years. Townfall’s our next stop on this examination of the franchise’s current fortunes, and it marks an exciting new chapter for it.

A More Modern Silent Hill

If you think about it, Townfall is the third piece of a revival trilogy that showcases what has worked well for Silent Hill this time around. The first-person perspective was a welcome touch in an experience that used it well to bring a new location, art style, and narrative angle to life.

We didn’t expect examinations of the relationships between individuals, corporations, and societies in small towns to be effective vehicles for the kind of story beats that the franchise is used to telling, but Simon’s time in St. Amelia is definitely among the finer outings it has given us.

Okamoto’s assertion that it was intended to bring yet another axis to the franchise after the remake’s traditional approach and the new Japan-focused title showcases a revival that isn’t relying on a standardized formula, but on creating thoughtful interpretations of what the franchise has always examined, through the lenses of different creative teams.

With SH2 Remake, Bloober Team was able to successfully preserve those examinations while presenting them in a modernized classic. Silent Hill f took things to a new setting, story, and very unique art style to prove that it could be fresh yet familiar. Townfall has now reiterated that, while also proving that new external studios can radically reinterpret its formula while preserving its best elements and psychological horror foundations.

That variety is perhaps the best feature of Silent Hill’s current-gen revival, and it’s great that Konami isn’t asking every developer to deliver another SH2, but is instead asking them what the franchise means to their particular teams and creative perspectives. That’s probably the biggest difference between the franchise’s less successful years and now, as it has found success today despite some common factors.

Various developers working on different titles is an obvious one, as are the varying interpretations of the franchise’s story and gameplay loop. However, one crucial difference is that three successive titles could not give us a sense of deliberate strategy, and the feeling that each new game was building on the ideas before it.

However, diversity and a sense of forward momentum have felt like they’ve been baked into the underlying pillars of the latest titles, and it’s an irony that isn’t lost on us. Silent Hill has rediscovered its identity by accepting that it doesn’t have to be one specific thing, and operate within a limited framework of creative and technical options because of it.

A Long Road Ahead

It’s all well and good that the franchise has found a solid enough purchase in a modern gaming industry where even great games might not get the recognition they deserve from time to time. But how does Konami aim to sustain the momentum it has built for it?

We think the news is good, or at least a reason to be optimistic about the franchise’s chances. The remake of the original Silent Hill from Bloober is on the cards, and we see no reason to doubt that studio’s outing after the excellence it has displayed with its previous effort and with Cronos: The New Dawn. It’s a solid next step, and perhaps indicative of a newfound confidence.

Modernizing Harry Mason’s journey while rebuilding the 1999 game to make for a new experience that doesn’t just feel like SH2 Remake again. We’ve no information on how combat and exploration are changing yet, or about whether Bloober plans to expand the town, but we cannot understate the significance of making the original game that started the franchise’s journey more accessible to a modern audience.

Konami’s ambitions for the franchise might have seemed surprisingly aggressive to us when it first announced its plans for the franchise four years ago, but with Okamoto expressing hope for an “annual release of new games”, and that players should look forward to future experiences that take the franchise’s formula in bold new directions, it’s easy to see that it certainly has high hopes for its continued success.

The company has since stated it aims to go beyond the confirmed remake and Townfall too, which means we’ve got more Silent Hill on the horizon. But what would it entail? Remakes of Silent Hill 3 & 4 are definitely options to look into, considering how those games mark the franchise’s golden years and have been benchmarks against which the ones that followed them were judged.

But there’s the risk of bringing in too much Silent Hill to a franchise whose greatest problem was not having enough of it at one point. Once again, the irony is evident, but that doesn’t mitigate the risk of an ambitious release cadence diluting Konami’s ability to quality-control releases well enough for them to sustain the standards its recent titles have now created.

This is a franchise that relies heavily on its atmospheric storytelling and gameplay to bring distinctive creative voices and narrative insights to life through the eyes of its characters. A yearly release cycle could make things a tad too predictable, a fallacy that has often brought problems to even the finest of stories and innovative series of games.

Silent Hill’s exciting revival could become the very reason it loses steam if it doesn’t manage to meet the standards that its latest titles have now established as its baseline. However, this is a franchise that has already weathered one rise and fall, rising again and managing to stand tall in the process.

Its return isn’t as remarkable to us in hindsight, though. It’s in how it achieved the comeback that fascinates us, and also gives us confidence that whatever’s coming next is going to cement that revival by making clever use of new ideas grounded in the franchise’s familiar penchant for weaving in the unexpected into the very fabric of its games. There’s been no doubt in our minds that Silent Hill is back after our time with Hinako, and Simon has now made us confident that it’s here to stay for a while yet.

And we can’t help but feel a thrill even as we tremble at the thought of what horrors it’s going to bring our way when it does.

The multiplayer for EA Sports FC 27 will feature The Grounds – a social space where players can meet up to engage in small-scale challenges, like 1v1s, between more standard regular matches. Players will also be able to find NPCs that allow them to improve their abilities on and off the pitch in The Grounds.

The transfer market in Manager Career has also seen some major revisions after going through a complete rebuild with an emphasis on more realistic player values and active club bidding. Players will have access to new negotiation tactics, like performance and buy-back clauses, along with options for dynamic OVRs that reflect player form, morale, and fitness.

Fans of the franchise’s Ultimate Team mode also have plenty to look forward to, such as a new Gallery where they can track their in-game achievements. Players will get to keep records of Player Items that have passed through their clubs, along with new progression paths to earn even more rewards. The core of the new progression paths revolves around the Gallery Sets system, which allows players to focus on specific themes while they fill out their galleries.

The Gallery itself will also be an in-game space where players can keep track of their club’s performance, with 3D objects accumulating over time and, in turn, giving players a new way to reflect on their club’s journey.

Other refinements to FUT include more player choice and planning tools for Evolutions thanks to the new Pathways system. This allows players to pick between multiple options. An example of this, provided in the game mode’s deep dive trailer, showcased how a player’s dribbling getting improved could lead to a new PlayStyle, while another player might get improved defensive ratings.

The career mode got its own deep dive trailer last month, showcasing how changes to the OVR ratings system will lead to more fluctuations between individual matches. Each athlete has new parameters that are calculated to make sure that their in-game versions are as close to real life as possible. The behaviours of teammates have also been changed, and EA Sports FC 27 now also allows players to create custom challenges for a new way to climb up the progression ladder.

For more details about EA Sports FC 27, check out our review of the PS5 version, where we gave it a score of 8 out of 10. We praised the long-overdue improvements that have been made to the career mode, as well as some of the incremental updates made to on-pitch gameplay. However, we found The Grounds to be quite lacking when it came to polish and amount of content.

Players may see crossplay options on the same day as the expansion, but it won’t be active. On November 10th, Stage 1 will begin and apply to PC players, who will only play with each other. Console players will be migrated in, and once everything is seemingly stable, crossplay should be available as intended.

Clans should migrate seamlessly, and new leaderboards will be available. If you’re partial to any existing records, better record them now while there’s still time.

As for Echoes of Central Park, the next paid expansion for the looter shooter, it’s looking to be quite a sizable experience and not just because it’s twice the size of Battle for Brooklyn. A new campaign will be available alongside the addition of Upper West Side and Central Park, the latter serving as the site for the new endgame experience.

And while you’ll have new gear, weapons and the Ratel Exotic to look forward to, perhaps the biggest addition is the three new companions. Each has different abilities, though how their stories play out remains to be seen.

Reportedly led by Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, it ended up canceled in Summer 2024. While details about Payback are sparse, the report indicates that it was going to essentially be the “future” of Destiny. Despite sharing the same universe, however, it may not have shared the franchise’s name. Its gameplay structure was also described as being quite different from what Destiny players might be used to.

Bringing up Genshin Impact for comparison, Schreier said that Payback was being designed as being more hero-centric, with gameplay revolving around open-world exploration and puzzle-solving.

“There were a lot of things that were different about Payback, but one of the ideas was to try to appeal to younger audiences, to new audiences, the audiences that weren’t already in the thick of the Destiny universe, because the average demographic of Destiny players kept getting older and older.”

Further discussing how Destiny 2 had become quite bad at bringing in new players due to poor onboarding and even Bungie’s content vaulting decisions, Schreier went on to say that Payback was a way for the studio to figure out how it can further grow its audience.

Since Bungie recently announced that it is “not done with Destiny” after confirming that it is bringing back Destiny 2’s vaulted content like the Red War and Forsaken campaigns, we might end up seeing Payback get further development. The studio made its announcement earlier this week, promising more stories and worlds for the shooter.

“We understand that removing these experiences had a lasting impact on player trust and enjoyment of Destiny,” said the studio on its content vaulting decisions. “Destiny 2 is more than just the content itself. It is a place where players have built memories together, formed lasting friendships, and shared experiences that have stayed with them for years. We cannot change the decision we made, but we can acknowledge its impact and do the work to make it right by restoring these important parts of Destiny’s history.”

However, the studio has said that it will need some time to bring back this content, largely due to the fact that the Destiny 2 engine has seen many changes since the content was vaulted with the release of Beyond Light. As a result, a lot of work has to be done to bring the older zones’ lighting, encounters, combatants, and gameplay systems up to modern Destiny 2 standards.

In the meantime, Bungie is also continuing its work on Marathon with the aim of creating a “deeper survival experience” that can evolve “beyond the genre constraints placed on it”. The next major update for the PvPvE extraction shooter will arrive in December, which will bring with it a team deathmatch mode, a social space, and a dedicated PvE mode.

While you’ll be dealing with the Cleaners and the returning Black Tusk, three new companions – Brayleigh Callahan, Elwood Franklin and Morse Feeney – accompany you through this darker tale, each with “powerful” abilities. You’ll also discover six new skill variants, a new Exotic weapon (the Ratel) and gear, and a “replayable endgame experience” in Central Park.

It essentially involves entering the location without guidance and collecting gear while being hunted throughout. Equip yourself well enough and eventually, you can mount an offensive. An intriguing set-up that definitely encourages different ways to play. If that wasn’t enough, it also includes additional stash space and a level 40 boost.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, Xbox One, and PS4. It’s currently in the middle of Season 3: Red Horizon, which introduces the new Blackout Dark Zone. Head here for more details.

Hamaguchi also spoke about some of the logistical challenges that came up alongside the decision to split the remake into a trilogy, since a similar development team would need to be maintained for all three releases to ensure that there was gameplay and story continuity.

“For example, if the first title had sold really poorly and been poorly reviewed, I mean, what do you do with the rest of the titles? There’s also this need to keep the team as similar as possible across all of the titles, and that’s another huge headache, especially for people who control the strings. Those are big risks that you have to take, and I don’t think many will.”

On the subject of holding on to the same team, Hamaguchi also spoke about how there has been a “level of success here” that can potentially be replicated with other teams across Square Enix to help iterate on new games at a quicker pace rather than having fresh teams having to start each game from scratch.

“I do think there is a success level here that I think can be replicated now. In the old way of doing things, things were obviously very hard, and once a game was done, the team would separate and do their own thing, but obviously we have a dedicated team working on this right now. And while it is really hard to develop games now, I think the level of expectation is just so high, and the difficulty is just so great, but the way we are doing things, I think, could be sort of a lodestar for the company.”

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is being developed for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2, and is slated for release on April 8th, 2027. Being the final game in the planned trilogy, Revelation is also slated to be a massive release, and Hamaguchi has said that players will need to play through it multiple times to experience everything in the game.

Among other things, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will take into account when a player picks up a side quest and with which character, resulting in a variety of different dialogue depending on the larger story being told. The director said, “We have prepared many cases where it changes not just whose perspective the quest is told from, but the story experience, the gameplay experience, and even the conclusion.”

As for just how much content will be in the game at launch, Hamaguchi said that it “probably exceeds Rebirth.”

Meaningful changes and additions are something we hope to see in new FC releases pretty much every year, but FC 27 actually delivers those changes. Unfortunately, the results are uneven- while some improvements actually do change things for the better, other flagship changes feel like they could have done with more time in the oven.

"Meaningful changes and additions are something we hope to see in new FC releases pretty much every year, but FC 27 actually delivers those changes."

Let’s start with the positive stuff, and not just because it tackles the area of the game that I personally pour most of my time into every year- career mode. EA Sports FC 27 makes a number of changes to the manager career experience, and for the most part, unlike most years, those changes actually do end up being as meaningful as they’re made out to be. Chief among them is the overhauled transfer system, which addresses some of the series’ longest running career mode issues in clever ways.

Gone are the stilted and awkward cutscenes that would see your manager negotiating transfer deals and contracts with managers and players, with a new and overhauled system instead slotting in. Each transfer negotiation is now a multi stage affair, requiring you to scout out players, enquire about their availability, and engage in negotiations with both club and player before finalizing deals. Each step feels much more deliberate now, with negotiations taking longer and requiring more thought and actual engagement with the mechanics.

More granular negotiation options are now on offer, allowing you to offer deals structured in a variety of ways to navigate your transfer budget, while clubs and players also have more realistic financial expectations going into negotiations, effected more believably in turn by players’ form. Clubs can also take their time to mull over offers submitted by you, while you also have other tools to resort to, such as publicly declaring interest in a player in order to pressure reluctant clubs into negotiations.

Though things are still not quite on the same level as something like the Football Manager series where transfers are concerned, the new system definitely does make for more believable and engaging experience, often even getting you embroiled in legitimate, long drawn-out transfer sagas. There’s also new cutscenes sprinkled in, as well as an entirely new hub with a slick new interface, all coming together to finally deliver the long overdue overhaul to the transfer system that we’ve been hoping to see in career mode for years.

"More granular negotiation options are now on offer, allowing you to offer deals structured in a variety of ways to navigate your transfer budget"

Career mode makes several other solid improvements as well. For instance, there’s the new dynamic overall system, which sees players’ overall ratings fluctuating through the season based on their form, fitness, how they are training, and other factors. Morale is one of those factors as well, of course, which means effectively juggling your squad and ensuring that your best players are getting enough minutes becomes much more crucial than it has been in previous years’ career modes.

Rival clubs also behave more realistically in terms of how they go about building their squads, which means AI transfers in later seasons in long-running career mode saves are less outlandish than they tend to be in most entries. The repetitive press and media interaction cutscenes have also been replaced, allowing for things to keep moving at a better pace. With a couple of significant overhauls and a handful of smaller improvements coming together, FC 27’s career mode feels fresher and more enjoyable than it has in years.

When it comes to the actual on pitch gameplay, the improvements are much more granular- albeit still worthy of praise. EA Sports FC 27 allows players to swap between competitive and authentic gameplay styles, with the former being closer to the arcadey style that FIFA and FC entries have usually been known for, and authentic gameplay going instead for slower, more deliberate, simulation focused gameplay. There is, of course, plenty of fun to be had either way, especially with the tried and true arcadey style of the series, though personally I found myself greatly enjoying the authentic style.

Much greater control is given to you, making everything from tacking and closing down to making runs and sweeping with the goalkeeper much less automated than you may have been expected to in past years. FC 27’s on pitch gameplay feels much slower, more skill oriented, and much more tactical this way, and though it can certainly take some getting used to, I’ve found it to be quite enjoyable so far. Set pieces have also seen significant tweaks, allowing you to set up corners and free kicks with much greater precision- though that also means opposing players are also much more adept at scoring with free kicks or driving in deadly crosses from corners now.

"Conceptually, The Grounds is a great idea, though unfortunately, it feels like it could have done with more fleshing out."

Unfortunately, not all of EA Sports FC 27’s big swings are success stories. In fact, the game’s biggest new addition, the social hub known as The Grounds, is perhaps where it is most disappointing. Similar (at least in a very superficial sense) to NBA 2K’s The City, FC 27’s The Grounds mode allows players to navigate a small open world town that serves as both a social hub and a hub for a variety of football related activities.

These range from 5v5 Rush games and 3v3 matches to 1v1 and 2v2 affairs and even minigames like balloon ball (which tasks you with, you guessed it, bursting balloons with a football). Outside of that, there are stores to shop at, targets to shoot down all over the map, football facts and tidbits to find in the environment, and more.

Conceptually, The Grounds is a great idea, though unfortunately, it feels like it could have done with more fleshing out. For starters, there isn’t nearly enough content in here to keep players meaningfully engaged for a long stretch of time. Then there’s the fact that the movement feels stiff at times, while the town itself can also feel a little dull.

Though there’s some nice environmental variety across its three zones (inspired by Britain, Argentina, and France), overall, it feels like a static location with not much depth and interactivity, and not nearly enough content to keep you engaged. Even worse are the supremely awkwardly voiced cutscenes that se real world footballers like Kylian Mbappe and Paulo Dybala speaking with your avatar character to deliver some of the most painfully milquetoast athletic advice the human brain could imagine. While I don’t doubt that The Grounds is an idea that can lead to a legitimately great mode down the line – and hopefully will – right now it feels half baked and shallow.

Overall, EA Sports FC 27 is definitely somewhat uneven with some of its bigger additions, but in other, rather critical areas, it does manage to make several meaningful improvements. Career mode in particular sees some long overdue improvements with transfers in particular, while the on pitch gameplay is also suitably addictive and enjoyable in the state that the game has launched. The Grounds could definitely do with significant post launch upgrades, from new content to crucial layers of gameplay polish, but by and large, FC 27 feels like a much needed change up for EA’s stagnating football series.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.

Of course, our first thoughts were of all of you waiting to learn more about the game, and whether it’s going to be worth diving in from day one. We figured knowing about some of the gameplay changes that stood out to us is going to help with that decision one way or another, so let’s get right to it!

1. Keep Control With Off-Balance Dribbling

While FC 26 placed a welcome emphasis on shielding and responsive play when dribbling, things could get a tad dicey when physical contact sent us into stumbling animations that soon became a sure-fire way to lose possession.

Well, that’s changing now with players who are sufficiently specced into Balance, Agility, and Dribbling able to enter an off-balance state in which a bump, collision, or shoulder charge lets them retain directional control and take an additional dribble touch even as they stumble. That immediately makes physical contact an opportunity to compete for control of the ball instead of a punishment for not avoiding contact altogether.

2. Teammate Contain

We liked what this one was meant to do in FC 26, the idea being that a defender always has backup when trying to block an opponent’s effort to slip past them and score; prevention being better than a cure and all that. However, that second defender could often get too close and even interfere with our own plans from time to time, or in the case of our own defenders, often create a scoring opportunity in the effort.

That’s different now, as FC 27 makes that second defender hang back, waiting for you to take control and get to pinning attackers on your own, a change that’s immediately more palatable than the previous solution.

3. Changes To Shoulder Challenging

FC 26 made spamming your shoulder challenges a little too viable for our tastes, a sentiment that seemingly echoed across the board as they were changed to reduce challenges coming from directly behind your opponent.

FC 27 has taken that a step further to make shoulder challenges work best when you’re side-by-side with your opponent, while merely spamming it now slows down your defender as they stick out an arm for balance. That’s a nice way to ensure players use the game’s mechanics with intent rather than simply wishing for things to click on their own.

4. Restrictions To Team Press

The previous game had already taken things down a notch as far as Team Press was concerned, reducing marking and pressure in the defensive half. But the AI could still be quite troublesome if you were in possession, getting even more aggressive higher up the field.

In FC 27, Team Press isn’t in effect when the ball’s in your defensive third, and it does still function as you go further up the pitch, but with changes. Defenders aren’t going to be as aggressive as midfielders and forwards, and the defense becomes more vulnerable to a ball behind the line the more defenders step up to the ball. That could make quite the difference in practice, requiring more manual switching and defensive positioning.

5. More Conservative Lower Defence Positions

Defenders could keep pushing too high up the pitch in FC 26, a facet of the experience that needed a patch to low-depth positioning.

That’s been taken a bit further this year, with defenders retreating sooner and trying to minimize available space behind the line. That immediately changes how low blocks play out in a match, and it could mean more meaningful defensive lines that help sell the simulation much better than what was on offer before.

6. Separating Running Speed from AcceleRATE

The three core categories in the AcceleRATE system brought distinct acceleration types in FC 26 alongside the Acceleration and Sprint Speed ratings, but that’s changed this year to reduce its influence on running performance.

That automatically makes Explosive, Controlled, and Lengthy feel less disparate, while raw pace attribute ratings now better influence running speeds for a player on the pitch. It makes AcceleRATE feel like its own movement classification system without letting it interfere with how fast you perform in a match.

7. Changed Lengthy Requirements For Female Players

The requirement for a female player to fit into the Lengthy category, provided she meets Strength, Acceleration, and Agility requirements, was at 165cm/5’5″ in FC 26 but is now increased to 172cm/5’8″ this year.

That’s immediately going to change which female athletes on your roster can fit into the Lengthy category, which in turn influences your team compositions based on the kind of strategies you’re adopting.

8. Riskier Player Lock Implementation

Switching away from whoever was controlling the ball last year would let the CPU maintain possession while you lined up your off-ball runner. That’s changed now, and the CPU carrier doesn’t automatically evade defenders and is going to continue in the direction you left them going. Passing error margins on a CPU-controlled ball carrier also get an increase, making it risky to switch in tight situations.

That automatically makes Player Lock feel more like a deliberate choice that you use sparingly to set up a good offense instead of a mechanic that you could use to let the CPU do the heavy lifting whenever you wanted it to.

9. Deliberately Heavier Player Movement

The movement overhaul that FC 26 brought to the table was definitely welcome, bringing a more agile roster of players who could turn faster and were generally more responsive, while Authentic Gameplay slowed that down in relation to what you could expect from Competitive.

Well, version 2.0 now brings a more physical weight to touches, turns, and sprints, especially when you’re under pressure, which can definitely help make things feel very real on the pitch. That it happens whether you’re on or off the ball is a really nice touch in our opinion, as it can make the experience feel consistent and authentic when you experience it in action.

10. More Authentic Weather Effects

The rain, snow, and wind from last year’s title were great additions to give us a feeling of being in the thick of the action while bringing meaningful twists to the gameplay, but they’re more potent this year around.

The weather isn’t just influencing the atmosphere in the stadium, but is going to have a direct impact on the flow of a match as players struggle to retain their footing after sharp turns in wet or snowy conditions. It’s a great way to expand on the new system and is definitely a step in the right direction as far as Authentic Gameplay is concerned.

11. More Variety In Physical Interactions

While there was a focus on making physical interactions more reliable with the intention of enabling better shielding and protecting possession in the previous game, FC 27 is changing things up by making physical interactions feel stronger and more varied.

Expect frequent stumbles if you come into contact with other players too often, as the broader physical collision system makes its presence felt right off the bat with this one.

12. A More Aggressive CPU

Remember how tackle accuracy and physical play felt quite realistic last year? That’s now been improved with CPU players committing more fouls as they try to get the ball away from you, and it immediately creates the scope for more realistic physical confrontations in a match.

That’s not to mention the positive effect it has on free kicks and set pieces that occur within games, with the added benefit of making CPU aggression feel like a more influential factor in Career Mode.

13. Expansions To Authentic Gameplay Customization

We were quite pleased with the addition of controls for margins of error on headed shots, headed passes, interceptions, and ball-deflections last year, and that’s now been expanded from FC 26’s five new gameplay sliders from last year to twenty-five new ones, alongside ten CPU sliders that are also brand new in FC 27.

The latter includes separate controls for CPU Opponents and Teammates, so you get to tune the behaviour of both playing sides in Player Career and other compatible modes.

14. Stronger Tactical Identities For CPU Teams

Last year brought tighter midfield positioning and better defensive organizing from CPU-controlled teams, and this year is building on that with more distinct playing styles, improved decision-making, and a wider gamut of tactical approaches for your opponents.

EA is also tuning areas such as CPU 1v1 finishing and defensive responses, which should further distinguish opponent behaviour. You’re going to have to work for your wins, and that’s exactly how it should be!

15. More Distinction between Difficulty Levels

The Professional, World Class, and Legendary difficulties from last year are getting a bit of tweaking to make them feel more distinct.

That’s been recalibrated this year to make for clearer jumps between the three categories and different slider thresholds on parameters like Sliding Tackle Frequency and the like to allow more dynamic tactical behavior from AI opponents for when you’re playing solo. It could help change how they behave to present a more tangible difference between them

And that’s it for this one. FC 27 is certainly shaping up to be a fun addition to the long and prestigious line-up that the franchise now enjoys. You can bet you’re going to be seeing us on the pitch once you join in on the action.

The company noted that GTA 6’s launch will be entirely focused around its single-player content. To that end, “We will continue to support GTA Online after GTA 6 release and beyond,” said the company, essentially reaffirming what its CEO, Strauss Zelnick, had said back in February.

This indicates that Rockstar isn’t quite ready to release an Online mode for Grand Theft Auto 6 yet, and we might see a repeat of what happened with Grand Theft Auto 5, which saw the release of Grand Theft Auto Online a couple of weeks after the single-player base game came out back in 2013. There is also the slim possibility that the companies are waiting for the inevitable PC launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 before GTA Online 2 is released.

Interestingly, Zelnick also spoke about the company’s plans for PC as a platform going forward. As caught by GamesRadar, he said that Take-Two always wants to “launch for any platforms for which there’s a meaningful audience.” He went on to say that “that isn’t always the case, and certainly, if platforms were no longer viable, we could change that strategy. And I would note that the PC platform is becoming more and more important to our company over time.”

As for Grand Theft Auto Online’s sequel, CEO of livestreaming service Twitch, Dan Clancy, has expressed the belief that it is slated for release in 2027. In an interview earlier this week, Clancy said that his belief comes from discussions he had with Rockstar about the company’s plans for Grand Theft Auto 6.

“We spent a lot of time talking with Rockstar about their plans, and also helping them think about how they can engage our creators. You are going to see this big bump with GTA 6, but then an even bigger one next year when they launch multiplayer.”

Reports from last month have indicated that Take-Two Interactive is primarily focused on the single-player aspects of Grand Theft Auto 6. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the company is “only talking about GTA 6 in terms of the single-player portion, which will not presumably have recurring revenue.” He went on to note that Take-Two is “not planning to talk anytime soon about what the new GTA Online will look like and what that recurring spend will look like.”

While neither Rockstar nor Take-Two has announced any plans for a follow-up to Grand Theft Auto Online, it is quite likely that work on the project has been happening, especially when you take into account the continued success of GTA Online since its 2013 launch. The companies are likely waiting for the dust to settle following the release of GTA 6 before they start talking about GTA Online 2.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.