With EA Sports FC 27 just around the corner, early pre-sale numbers suggest the franchise is facing one of its toughest pre-launch hurdles to date. Following the recent acquisition of EA by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund alongside a steady drip-feed of disappointing news and feature deep dives, community sentiment has been in the gutter. That growing dissatisfaction is now starting to reflect directly on the sales charts.
Disappointing Feature Drops Turn Away F2P Players
Much of the frustration stems from core Ultimate Team changes announced in recent deep dives. Community feedback heavily criticizes what many view as a “dumbing down” of the Squad Building Challenge (SBC) system, which strips away much of the tactical club management.
Additionally, recent nerfs to the Evo features and the PlayStyle Lab have raised serious concerns across the player base. These changes make it significantly harder for free-to-play players to stay competitive against users who spend heavily on store packs. For a player base already fatigued by aggressive monetization, these announcements leave fans with very little incentive to lock in early pre-orders.
Baffling Steam Sales Metrics
With roughly a month left before launch, early pre-sales are noticeably lagging behind past franchise benchmarks. As of August 8th, EA Sports FC 27 sits down at an alarming #194 on Steam’s Top Sellers chart.
To put that metric into perspective, upcoming titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 and Star Wars: Zero Company are comfortably outperforming FC 27 on the pre-order charts. Even older catalog games such as Fallout 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are currently generating higher sales volume on the platform than EA’s best selling sports title.
The Historical Trend: Pre-Orders Hitting New Lows
This performance isn’t just an isolated bad week; it reflects a troubling multi-year downward trajectory. Reddit user u/raptors201966 on the r/fut community recently shared historical comparison data tracking the franchise’s debut pre-order placement on Steam over time.
The findings highlight a clear downward spiral for the series. FC 27 debuted at #45 on the Steam rank during its initial pre-order launch week. That baseline is 14 spots worse than the franchise’s previous worst-performing first week on record, signaling a steep drop in initial buyer enthusiasm.
Final Thoughts
While a #45 weekly debut rank might not look like an outright disaster in isolation, it is deeply concerning given the current football climate. Hype for the sport is at an all-time high following a massive summer World Cup, which saw a surge in momentum that even drove FC 26 to hit its peak player count over the past month, breaking from the franchise’s traditional January peak window.
Despite having massive external interest working in its favor, FC 27 is failing to convert that energy into early pre-orders. If EA doesn’t rethink or walk back some of these controversial changes before launch day, FC 27 could be heading toward one of the quietest release windows in the series’ history.