EA Sports FC 27 (Switch 2) Review: Still the Top Football Choice

EA Sports FC 27 has arrived on Switch 2, and once again EA has delivered a game packed with features — yet the two big wishes for this year's Nintendo version remain unfulfilled. The game still runs at 30fps with no performance mode, and Ultimate Team remains cut off from the shared transfer market used elsewhere. Those hoping last year's wishlist would finally be ticked off are out of luck.

The Same Old Technical Story

The history between EA's football series and Nintendo hardware has been a bumpy one. After it turned out the Switch port of FIFA 18 was largely a refreshed FIFA 13, releases from FIFA 19 through 23 barely changed at all, offering no new modes or meaningful updates. That drought ended with EA Sports FC 24 and FC 25, which finally gave Switch owners full feature parity — though at the cost of dropping from 60fps to 30fps.

FC 26 kept the parity but stuck at 30fps, and FC 27 follows suit. There is no performance mode, and the popular Ultimate Team mode still lives on its own island, with a far smaller transfer market than other platforms.

What's New: The Grounds

The headline addition this year is The Grounds, a new mode also featured on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Anyone who has tried NBA 2K's The City will recognize the concept: a small open-world hub where you create an avatar and jump into bite-sized online matches — 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, Rush and minigames — to earn currency and grow your stats.

The Grounds is also the new home of Clubs, where up to 11 human players can team up online. The catch is that the Switch 2 version has no crossplay, so assembling a full squad and finding another team to face is a real challenge. Because the Switch player base has always been smaller, matches in The Grounds — which is online-only — were hard to find during the Early Access period, and even at full launch the population will remain a fraction of the crossplay pool on other formats.

Ultimate Team's new FUT Gallery feature suffers from the same problem. It tracks every player you've ever owned and grades your completed sets, rewarding rarer collections. With fewer cards circulating in Switch 2's smaller ecosystem, building an impressive collection is noticeably tougher.

Where the Game Shines

On the pitch, FC 27 still plays excellent football. The 30fps cap is immediately obvious to anyone switching over from PS5, Xbox Series X/S or PC, and there's now genuine competition to highlight it: eFootball Kick-Off on Switch 2 runs at a steady 60fps and looks smoother side by side. What keeps FC ahead — and it matters a lot — is that it simply plays a much better game of football than Konami's offering.

Because player movement is momentum-based rather than twitch-based, the game adjusts well to the lower frame rate after a couple of matches. Handheld play in particular feels perfectly comfortable, and newcomers may never notice the issue.

Career mode also gets a worthwhile upgrade this year, with a lengthier transfer negotiation process designed to inject drama — rival clubs swooping in late, players renegotiating terms, and so on. It's not revolutionary, but it's more engaging.

The Verdict

EA Sports FC 27 remains the best way to play football on Switch 2, with a huge roster of official teams, leagues and stadiums, and modes substantial enough to stand alone as full games. Whether The Grounds can attract a big enough player base is the open question — if that mode is your main draw, it may be worth waiting to see how populated it gets.

Fans content with Career mode in FC 26 can probably skip this year's entry. But Ultimate Team players, series newcomers and lapsed fans should find plenty to enjoy. As for a 60fps mode and cross-progression — maybe next year, EA.

Source: the original publisher