Letter to EA

[fallow sundial]

I’m writing this not just as a long-time player of the franchise, but as a seasoned software developer who has been in the industry for decades.

I understand the complexities of game development. I know that the Frostbite engine is a beast, and that simulating physics and rendering at 60+ FPS is a heavy lift. I am usually the first person to defend devs against gamers who think "fixing a bug" is just flipping a switch. But FC26 has crossed a line where the issues can no longer be excused by engine complexity.
The state of this game,specifically the non-gameplay elements like the menus, the UI logic, and the Companion App,points to a severe lack of engineering rigor and basic QA methodology.

When I see menus that lag or lock up, or simple database queries in the Companion App failing repeatedly, it doesn't tell me "this game is advanced." It tells me you have a massive gap in your development and testing lifecycle. These aren't physics glitches; these are transactional errors and state management failures that should be caught in basic unit or integration testing. Every patch you release breaks at least 3 other fundamental components of this game. Add player on Playstation is broke. I could go on and on.
It feels like a codebase held together by duct tape, where fundamental best practices are being ignored to rush a product out the door, and where developers are afraid to touch legacy code for fear of breaking a fragile ecosystem.

I believe that with the right leadership and oversight, every single one of these menu and query issues could be resolved. This isn't a lack of talent; I’m sure individual devs at EA are capable. This is a lack of priority.

So the question stands: Do you actually care to improve the engineering culture that allows this to ship? Or are we going to keep pretending that broken menus are just a "quirk" of the engine?

Signed, A Tired Developer

[cinder kindle]

This doesn't just affect the ultimate team. The coding practices are visible throughout the game and the menus lag/lock up the same whether you're in clubs or career.

Also, within our club, at least every other night the game freezes completely for someone or it dashboards on a next gen console. That's multiple times a week! And it's just not one or two players who suffer from this. I believe every member of our team has experienced this at some point.

Codebase held up by duct tape seems a very accurate description of the state of the game.

[icy garden]

It is not only online but also offline experience. For example sliders like aggression frequency or dribble frequency do not work at all since game release in september. It is like there is no game testers :/

[tidal plume]

Honestly i don't understand too much of coding, but it's clear that they swept problems under the carpet for too much. Hope they will take a break to solve issues and come back stronger.