EA made some much-needed changes to FC 26 with a Holiday update that adds new content all across the game. This time, the changes are pretty clear as soon as you enter the game, with snow and festive decorations outside of some of football’s most iconic stadiums. But, players will be much more interested in what’s actually different apart from the menus.
We’ll break down all the changes in this patch, including what’s new in Ultimate Team. There’s some new changes to Rush in this update that some users will be really happy with. Speaking of Ultimate Team, if you ever want to buy the best players or get an evolution you can’t afford, get FC 26 coins from LootBar at the best prices to buy anything in-game.
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Changes to Career Mode in The Holiday Update
Career Mode got some love for once which is a nice surprise. The update builds on weekly Live Challenges, Live Start Points, and Snapshots to keep things fresh. In Squad Hub, you now see a clear field showing if players are open to extending contracts, so no more guessing games. Manager Live Hub gets a dedicated tab for jumping into new Live Start Points or saves super quick, with easy access to your earned retro kits rewards. Shortcut selections remember themselves when you bounce out of the switcher menu, saving you clicks every time.
Create Your Club flows smoother with in-menu previews for mascots, and they fixed that bug stopping you from replacing clubs that aren't your favourite. Over in Player Career, the Archetype preview tile spells out your current XP plus what's needed for the next level. Creation screen swaps out raw Attributes for Recommended Archetypes to guide you better right from the start. In short, there’s nothing major but a lot of nice little changes that make menus feel better in a game mode where you spend 90% of the time scrolling menus.
Changes to Keeper Movement
Based on how goalkeepers feel after the update, EA has completely nerfed keeper movement to the ground to make things more “realistic”. They're slashing the speed and distance keepers cover with Manual Goalkeeper Movement during open play, so it stays as a smart positioning tool without feeling cheesy or overpowered. EA is also removing Goalkeeper Rush To Center mechanic from open play entirely because people were exploiting it.
It's a sensible change, but not so much since there’s no nerfs to all the broken ways to score like Low Driven, Finesse, and everything else that’s busted. It’s getting harder and harder to defend thanks to these updates while Pina and other players spin around defenses just to shoot a Low Driven rocket into a corner. Hopefully EA can take care of that by balancing the broken shooting playstyles in January’s update, but there’s not much to suggest they will.
Changes to Clubs in The Holiday Update
Anyone that regularly plays Pro Clubs will be more than happy to know that EA has finally increased the level cap from Level 60 to Level 75. On top of that, after 3 whole iterations of FC games, we can finally have 3 Playstyle+ on our pro. Each archetype is getting a third signature Playstyle that’ll auto-upgrade to it’s + version when you hit level 75 on your current build. CAM Match Ratings are getting rebalanced too, tweaking weights on actions to match other positions better. This cuts those silly inflated scores and makes ratings actually reflect how your CAM performs.
Other Changes That Came in The Holiday Update
Rush in Ultimate Team is getting a rematch feature. From now on, you’ll get to vote with your teammates to stay as a team. You don’t have to worry about never seeing those two teammates that actually pass the ball in Rush again. Timeouts on full groups just boot everyone to lobby, keeping it fair. Apart from Ultimate Team, Kick Off got a surprising update with 10 entire new Classic XI teams that are based on Liverpool, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Juventus, and Bayern, plus star-studded XIs from Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, and Ligue 1.
EA's testing tweaks internally and promises an early January update or fix for AI defending, which is good. Visuals get festive love too, like we mentioned at the start. The main menu transforms with falling snow and holiday vibes in to celebrate the Holidays this month! Ultimate Team wasn’t focused on too much in this update, so there aren’t too many improvements there. But, if you want to make improvements of your own to your Ultimate Team squad, check out LootBar to get any FC 26 players at the best prices.
Conclusion
That’s it for everything new in FC 26’s Holiday update. There isn’t a whole lot new, but most of the changes are definitely welcome ones, especially new levels to grind in Clubs. And remember to go to LootBar to buy FC 26 coins and easily improve your squad at any time.
