EA SPORTS has confirmed that Version 1.1 of EA FC 26 is targeting a release before the end of October, and it’s shaping up to be a significant gameplay adjustment focused on one thing: giving manual defenders a fighting chance.
If you’ve felt frustrated by kick-off exploits or unresponsive defensive controls, help is on the way. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming update.
Table of Contents
Gameplay Changes
Better Jockeying responsiveness
- Jockeying will feel tighter and more reliable. That means quicker micro-adjustments when you face a dribbler — defenders should respond more predictably to your inputs, improving one-on-one defending and containment.
- The goal is to empower players who prefer manual defending, without making dribbling feel clunky.
Manual defending improvements
- EA is explicitly tuning mechanics to reward skilled, manual defending. Expect tweaks that make standing tackles, jockey pressure and timely interceptions more consistent when you actively control your defender.
- This should create a clearer balance: attackers can still shine, but defenders who read the play and act quickly won’t be left helpless.
Kick-off defensive positioning
- More fixes to AI positioning during kick-offs: defenders will be set up to close down early scoring opportunities more intelligently.
- There’s also planned temporary aggressive man-marking behavior around kick-offs to reduce the number of easy goals immediately after kick-off — designed to blunt the “kickoff rush” exploits while the proper balance is refined.
When: EA is targeting the end of October for these changes.
PC Optimization & Controller Fixes
Additional PC performance optimizations are coming — EA aims to reduce stuttering and improve stability in busy scenes (corners, goalmouth scrambles, etc.).
Dropped controller inputs: EA will address cases where controllers stop responding or face input lag, especially on PC. If you’ve been hit by missing button reads or controller disconnects, this patch should help.
Ultimate Team
- Brand new Season and Season Pass content — new rewards, objectives and Evolutions to chase.
- More Evolutions (including Cosmetic and PlayStyle changes) are coming to give you new ways to shape your squad.
- Manual defending & kickoff improvements will also be felt in FUT thanks to the gameplay tuning noted above.
- Objective Tracking improvements to make it easier to see and claim what you’ve completed.
- Consumable Evolution Previews — see what a consumable will do before you use it.
- New SBC sorting filters — find the squad builders you need faster.
Manager Market & Career Mode
Manager Market tweaks: EA is responding to awkward manager swaps and will make the market logic feel more realistic (so managers stop making baffling moves).
Clubs Archetypes: the maximum Archetype level in Clubs is being increased, giving players more progression room and longer goals to chase in team growth.
Final Whistle
EA’s priority with v1.1 is balance. Players asked for fixes that reward good defending without killing the dribbling feel that makes FC 26 satisfying.
We expect there will be more bug fixes in Career Mode and gameplay in the update and there will be some updates to real faces.
The update aims to give manual defenders more tools and make the kickoff phase less exploitable — while also smoothing PC performance and fixing controller input issues.
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