EA Sports FC 27's Ultimate Team mode is getting its most significant restructuring in years, with a simplified puzzle system, a new rarity tier, and a digital scrapbook that remembers every player you have ever owned.

The changes come from an interview with lead producer Azlan Mustapha and senior lead product manager Jamey Cane at EA's Vancouver office, reported by VGC on 3 August 2026, and fleshed out in EA's own pitch-notes article published the day before (EA Sports FC 27 FUT Deep Dive).

The headline change is a simplified Squad Building Challenges system. SBCs — puzzles where you submit players to meet a rating or chemistry target in exchange for rewards — previously required assembling up to 11 players hitting a specific overall rating. The new system gives each player item a number that contributes toward an overall SBC goal, removing the need to hit exact rating thresholds. The original SBC format will still exist for some items, running alongside the simplified version (VGC).

A new rarity tier called Holographic items is entering the pack pool. These cards carry the same stats as their base versions but feature a special card design, and they can be pulled from packs or earned through SBCs. For players who care about collection prestige rather than raw performance, the visual distinction is the draw.

The FUT Gallery is the addition most likely to change how people play day to day. It is a digital collection book that retains a record of every player who has been part of your club, even after you discard them or feed them into an SBC. Players can group acquired players into sets and submit them for rewards — 11 Premier League players for an exclusive kit, for example. Submitted sets receive a letter grade based on player quality, and you can improve that grade by swapping in higher-tier items later.

Match rewards are getting a boost. Ultimate Team matches will now yield more coins and more Season Progress than before, with match rewards feeding directly into the Season Track — the game's battle pass system that doles out cosmetic and gameplay items across a timed schedule. Solo players also get new content: single-player Live Events, modelled on the existing multiplayer equivalents but with different reward sets and challenges.

For fans, this amounts to EA loosening some of the friction that has defined Ultimate Team for years. The old SBC system could be a spreadsheet exercise — finding the exact combination of players to hit a number, often requiring third-party tools. The simplified version sounds faster and more intuitive, while the FUT Gallery gives players a reason to hold onto players they might otherwise discard, because every card contributes to a permanent record and potential rewards down the line.

EA Sports FC 27 will feature more than 21,000 players from over 800 clubs and national teams, across more than 140 stadiums and over 35 leagues, according to EA's product page (EA Sports FC). A release date for the game has not been confirmed in the materials published so far.