EA SPORTS FC™ 26 | FC 26 v1.1.0 Update

FC 26 v1.1.0 is releasing soon with a number of improvements based on your feedback, and in this article we’re digging deeper into what you can expect from this update and in the near future.

From empowering manual defending, to adding in your much-requested Objectives tracking, and even fine-tuning your Football Ultimate Team experience based on your feedback, let’s jump right into it.

Table Of Contents

• Faster Jockeying For More Effective Manual Defending
• More Aggressive Marking During Competitive Gameplay Kick-Offs
• Additional Gameplay Improvements Based On Your Feedback
• New Objective Tracking In Football Ultimate Team
• New Evolution Consumable Preview In Football Ultimate Team
• New SBC Sorting Filters In Football Ultimate Team
• Football Ultimate Team Feedback Update
  • Division Rivals Rewards
  • Evolutions
  • Live Events, Tournaments, & Gauntlet
  • Limited Checkpoints
• Manager, Clubs, And PC Updates

Faster Jockeying For More Effective Manual Defending

As we mentioned in our October Feedback Update, FC 26 v1.1.0 aims to empower manual defending. Here’s the change we’re making:

• Slightly increased Sprint Jockey speed for user controlled players.
• Moderately increased Jockey and Sprint Jockey responsiveness for user controlled players.

With this change we’re looking to have more of a balance between attacking and defending, but without compromising the attacking responsiveness you enjoy.

We’ve heard your feedback about skilled dribblers being too strong when attacking, and we want you to have an improved defensive option when dealing with them.

Here’s a quick comparison of a defender Jockeying before and after FC 26 1.1.0:

As usual, we’ll continue to closely watch your feedback in this space. You can expect to see a poll about this change in our Discord soon, and you can give us more detailed feedback in the FC Feedback Portal.

More Aggressive Marking During Competitive Gameplay Kick-Offs

FC 26 v1.1.0 introduces an additional change to kick-off defending aimed at making kick-offs significantly harder to score from.

• [Competitive Gameplay] Increased aggressiveness of player marking that only applies to the defensive side’s AI players around kick-off.

We heard your feedback that kick-offs previously led to too many goals being scored, and now you can expect to see the defensive side’s AI players work harder and more urgently to prevent that.

Keep in mind that this change only applies to kick-offs, AI player marking has not changed for other scenarios, and this update does not affect Authentic Gameplay at all.

Additional Gameplay Improvements Based On Your Feedback

While the main gameplay focus of FC 26 v1.1.0 is to empower manual defending and reduce kick-off goals, we’re adding in a number of improvements based on your feedback. For example, we’re:

• Making Through Passes more consistent, less assisted, and respectful of your aim input.
• Lowering Controlled Sprint Dribbling speed.
• Improving goalkeeper in specific cases, such as during corner kicks.
• Plus we’re addressing a number of issues you’ve told us about.

To see the full list of gameplay updates in FC 26 v1.1.0, be sure to check out our update notes on the EASFC Tracker.

New Objective Tracking In Football Ultimate Team

We’re delighted to be able to bring you a much-requested Football Ultimate Team feature, Objective Tracking.

Following a Server Release shortly after FC 26 v1.1.0, you’ll be able to favorite Objectives and Objective Groups in Football Ultimate Team. Favorited Objectives and Objective Groups will show up in the pause menu when you’re playing, including Evolutions and Rivals Bounties, and you can track your progress as it happens.

Your favorited Objectives and Objective Groups will also have their own dedicated UI tab in the FUT menus.

You can also get gameplay notifications for completed Objectives, which can be controlled through Game Settings.

New Evolution Consumable Preview In Football Ultimate Team

Following a Server Release shortly after FC 26 v1.1.0, you’ll be able to see Evolution challenge requirements and player eligibility criteria before even owning the corresponding EVO.

Here’s how you can access these previews:

1. View an Evo consumable.
2. Follow the on-screen button prompt for previewing (it’s the same as previewing Player Items).
3. Enter a filtered version of the Evo hub showing your specific Evo being previewed.
4. View entry requirements, challenges, and rewards/upgrades.
5. You can browse through your Club for eligible Items and preview how they would look like in the Evo if you were to obtain it.

We know that you have to make a lot of choices as you build and upgrade your Squad in Football Ultimate Team, and we want to make the process easier and more informed in the Evolution space. 

With the new preview functionality, you can see key details before using an Evolution Consumable reward, whether it comes from Squad Building Challenges, Objectives, or other rewards sources. This gives us more flexibility to include a wider range of Evolution Consumable rewards across the mode.

New SBC Sorting Filters In Football Ultimate Team

We’re adding 2 new SBC sorting filters for you following a Server Release shortly after FC 26 v1.1.0:

• Sort By Newest
• Sort By Expiry

We hope these new filters make it easier and faster to navigate the SBC menu, helping you quickly find the challenges that interest you most. We’ll continue listening for your feedback and exploring more quality-of-life improvements in the future.

Football Ultimate Team Feedback Update

As the FC 26 Ultimate Team experience continues to evolve, we’ve been listening closely to your feedback. Heading into Season 2, we’re introducing a series of updates aimed at making your experience more rewarding, balanced, and engaging across the mode.

From balance adjustments to updates in Live Events and Rivals, to Evolutions design changes, our goal remains the same, to ensure FC 26 delivers a fun and fulfilling experience for every type of player.

Let’s dive into what’s changing and why.

Division Rivals Rewards

We’ve heard that weekly rewards in Division Rivals haven’t felt as reflective of your effort and engagement as they should.

To address this, Season 2 will introduce increased Rivals rewards, with a particular emphasis on tradeable content and FUT Coin rewards. These changes are designed to make participation in Rivals feel more meaningful and rewarding each week.

Evolutions

In FC 26 we shifted the focus of EVOs to provide smaller, repeatable Attribute boosts with open requirements in order to provide maximum flexibility. 

However, we heard your feedback that we focused too much on these types of boosts at the start of Season 1 and that it was taking too long to upgrade your favourite lower-rated items.

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve made changes to focus more on EVOs that provide bigger, more comprehensive upgrades, with differing maximum OVR requirements. This allows us to tailor upgrades that are meaningful for Player Items across various OVRs.

This focus will continue throughout Ultimate Scream to help you upgrade more of your favourite players through EVOs.

Live Events, Tournaments, & Gauntlet

Live Events, Tournaments, and Gauntlet have created some of the most exciting moments in FC 26, giving you new ways to compete, experiment with diverse squads, and earn exclusive rewards.

However, we’ve heard your feedback that many rewards have felt too difficult to achieve. We’re always evaluating the competitive balance across FUT, and we agree that some rewards have required more effort than intended.

In Season 2, we’ll be adjusting how value is delivered in these modes by placing greater emphasis on play-to-earn objectives rather than win-to-earn ones. This means you’ll start seeing objectives that reward both consistent play and skill.

For example, a Tournament objective group might let you earn rewards by winning 3 matches or playing 6 matches.

That said, we still want to celebrate players who rise to the top. In Season 2, expect a stronger focus on exclusive cosmetic rewards for those who demonstrate competitive excellence across in these limited time modes.

Limited Checkpoints

In FC 26, we introduced limited checkpoints to help support your progression in Rivals.

Overall, we’ve seen positive feedback in this space. However, we’ve also heard from some players that it can feel frustrating to get stuck in Divisions above your true skill level.

To address this, we’ll be removing the permanent checkpoint at the start of Division 6, allowing players to relegate into Division 7. This change is intended to make progression smoother and better aligned with each player’s current skill.

Manager, Clubs, And PC Updates

Career Mode Manager Market Improvements

We’re making improvements to the Manager Market logic for a more authentic and refined experience. 

We’re addressing a number of issues that resulted in managers switching too early, or moving to teams that weren’t an intended fit for them. 

We are also tuning the AI Manager job security logic to allow for a more refined behaviour, decreasing the incidence of unrealistic board expectations set for managers hired during the season leading to unintended manager movements. 

Additionally, we’ve made improvements to the Manager Market mail notifications system, addressing issues where updates were triggered in unintended scenarios or too often.

We’re also addressing stability issues manifesting in both Manager and Player Career Modes and restoring the Trainer functionality’s availability in Manager Career Pause Menu.

And last but not least, we’re addressing a series of visual issues related to some Social Media posts’ composition, the number of roles presented in scout reports, and Deeper Simulation stats permanency across seasons for players transferring across leagues.

Clubs Archetype Max Level Increase

Alongside Season 2, we’ll be increasing the Clubs Archetype Max Level from 50 to 60. The Consumable max level remains the same. You can also expect to see one new customizable PlayStyle slot unlocked at level 60. You’ll now have a maximum of 300 Attribute Points you can use.

Look out for the next step up in Max Level in December!

PC Optimization

As our PC optimization efforts continue, we’ll be reaching out to players more directly to better understand the issues you’re facing, since our game runs on a wide variety of hardware. In FC 26 v1.1.0, we’re addressing the following PC specific issues:

• Graphics settings could have reset when exiting Game Settings.
• Improved shader caching to address some cases of performance drops when matches start.
• Some textures could have appeared incorrectly on some Intel GPUs.
• Addressed instances of vibrations and haptics being too low when using a PS5 controller.
  • This issue could have also occurred on PS5.
• Simplified Aspect Ration setting list.

Thank you everyone for checking out the FC 26 v1.1.0 Pitch Notes. We’re excited to see your feedback on this update and we’ll keep updating you on what we’re working on throughout the season.

The Club is Yours in EA SPORTS FC™ 26, available now on PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch™, Nintendo Switch™ 2, PC, Amazon Luna as well as through EA Play.

Thanks to those who’ve provided and continue to provide feedback. Throughout the course of the EA SPORTS FC 26 season, we'll provide you with more information and updates if and when they become available. Be sure to follow @‌EASFCDIRECT on X and to check out the EA SPORTS FC Tracker for the latest news and updates. Stay in the conversation on all things EA SPORTS FC™ by joining our official Discord, following us on our official X, Instagram, and YouTube, and participating in the official EA SPORTS FC Forums.