Similar to Madden NFL's Franchise Mode, Career Mode -- nowadays dubbed Manager Career -- is the premium single-player mode in the EA FC series and dear to many of its players. FC 26 is set to expand this offering with a new component called Manager Live Career.
Manager Live Career's goal is to bring more variety to the single-player mode. Career Mode fans used to draw up extensive custom scenarios for especially challenging or thematic campaigns to keep things fresh and the developers have taken note of that.
In Live Career, EA will provide fresh custom scenarios as part of the game's content updates. In part, these will be inspired by current events in the world of soccer, which is something that EA's been doing with some success in the F1 series already. Other challenges will be based on iconic "What If?" questions or simply amp up the difficulty by changing certain circumstances.
By completing such challenges, players can earn new kits for their teams and progress through the Season Pass, earning Icon and Hero players. These will be available to play with in Career Mode for the first time in FC 26, allowing players to manage some of the sports' most legendary names.
Similar to AI managers, players will be able to move clubs in FC 26, whether voluntarily because they're looking for a new challenge or greener pastures, or because they underperform and are forcibly replaced. With managers having their own tactical preferences -- similar to what Madden NFL 26 is doing with coaches -- this changes how teams play over time and what transfer needs they have, kicking off interesting market movements.
For this purpose, FC 26 allows players to not only simulate their current league, but up to five other competitions in the background. Naturally, this provides a lot more data to tackle for any manager as well as creating more interconnected stories for clubs and athletes. Unpredictable events help with that as well, such as unexpected transfer offers or injuries kicking off a crisis.
Paired with the ability to use the Authentic gameplay settings, which are less predictable than the Competitive settings, FC 26's Manager Career looks set to supply aspiring managers with all the drama and twists they could wish for.