The Grounds: EA Sports FC 27 Opens the Stadium Gates and Leaves the Old Generation Behind

EA Sports FC 27 arrives on September 25, though anyone with early access can already play it, and one of its most eye-catching features is The Grounds: a mode built around a small open world designed as a social space. According to real gameplay footage shown by Vandal, the idea takes the action out of the stadium and into streets, terraces and pitches where you run into other players, football stars and ways to play that go beyond the classic eleven-a-side.

This matters for two reasons. First, the series has been crying out for years for something that breaks the routine of menus, packs and back-to-back Ultimate Team matches. Second, The Grounds is exclusive to the current generation (PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2 and PC), so it draws a clear line between those who have made the jump and those still on PS4, Xbox One or Switch. For a community as spread out as ours, with people across the Americas and Europe playing on very different setups, that divide is no small detail.

What you need to know

• The Grounds is a new mode in EA Sports FC 27 with a small open world that works as a social space outside the stadium.
• Its shared zones hold up to 100 players: there's a football pitch, a terrace and districts inspired by football cultures from around the world.
• You can play 1v1 kickabouts, meet football stars and team up with friends within Clubs.
• Roaming its streets are mentors like Kylian Mbappé, Chloe Kelly, Paulo Dybala and the fictional Alex Hunter, star of The Journey.
• It will only be available on PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2 and PC; the PS4, Xbox One and Switch versions miss out.

What exactly is The Grounds

The idea is simple to explain and hard to pull off well: a shared hub where football feels like it does in the neighborhood. Instead of hopping from menu to menu, you wander through a space with other players, step onto a pitch for a 1v1, sit down at a terrace or head over to a district styled after a specific football culture. According to the source, that world is deliberately small, designed more as a meeting point than a sprawling sandbox.

The mentors bring the personality. Seeing Mbappé, Chloe Kelly or Dybala as figures you can approach is what you'd expect from a game with licenses of this caliber, but the return of Alex Hunter, the fictional protagonist of The Journey, is a direct nod to those who enjoyed that story mode and have been missing it for a while. On top of that, there are zones for trying football variants mixed with other sports, like pétanque, which point to quick minigames rather than serious matches.

Clubs as the way in

One of the points that interests us most is that from The Grounds you can form teams with friends in Clubs. If the hub genuinely works as a living lobby for building squads, meeting up with your teammates and jumping into a match without going through ten screens, it will make sense beyond the cosmetic side.

The generational divide

Here's the part that's going to make the most noise. The Grounds isn't a cosmetic extra: it's the game's social mode, and part of the player base won't get it. The source makes the split clear:

Having Switch 2 on the list of platforms with the full mode is good news for those playing on the hybrid console, who until now usually ended up with cut-down versions. But in markets where the PS4 is still very common, especially across much of Latin America, the exclusion stings.

Our take

Here at the Underworld Lordz newsroom we see The Grounds with equal parts interest and caution. For content creators it's a gift: a space with up to 100 players, recognizable mentors, minigames and terraces where you can film meetups, 1v1 challenges with followers or tours with the squad is near-endless video material, at least for the first few weeks. If EA keeps it alive with events and doesn't let it die after launch, it could become the place where a community like ours organizes things inside the game itself.

For the competitive player it's a different story. A social hub doesn't improve the gameplay, doesn't fix latency and doesn't make an Ultimate Team or Clubs match any fairer. What decides whether FC 27 is worth it at a competitive level is settled on the pitch, not on the terrace. Our fear is the usual one with this kind of mode: plenty of shine in the trailer, a couple of months of momentum and then a half-empty open world that only serves to show off cosmetics. The Grounds being linked to Clubs is the best sign that it could have real utility; it being exclusive to the new generation is the worst, because it splits the community in two in the very mode that's supposed to bring it together.

Our stance: test it thoroughly in early access, measure whether it really speeds up getting the team together and playing, and demand that the competitive side doesn't take a back seat because of the showcase.

What do you think?

The Grounds promises to turn FC 27 into a place to hang out, not just a game you log into to compete, but it leaves out those still on PS4, Xbox One or Switch. Tell us in the team chat or on our Discord: is this social mode what the series was missing, or would you rather EA focused on polishing the competitive gameplay?