Is EAFC 27 Ultimate Plus Edition Worth It..?

It's the 10th of September. The game comes out on the 25th. I'm not allowed to touch it until the 18th.

And I have already handed EA one hundred and thirty-nine pounds and ninety-nine pence. So here's the straight answer before I start grieving in public. The FC 27 Ultimate Plus Edition costs £139.99 and gets you unlimited early access from September 18, 10,000 FC Points, an untradeable 85-plus Icon, a Hall of FUT player pick, an extra Evolution slot, and Premium Passes for seasons one through five.

Worth it if you're playing every night from launch. Not worth it if you just want in early, because there's a route that gets you playing on the exact same day for the price of two coffees. I found that out after I paid. We'll get to it. I need a minute.

Sit with that opening with me for a second. I've paid more than full price for a football game I am physically not permitted to open for another eight days. I'm paying rent on a house I can't move into. There's a countdown timer where my dignity used to be.

And the worst bit? I didn't hesitate for a single moment. The Ultimate Plus Edition slid onto my screen with those two little words underneath, limited time, and something ancient in my brain lit up and went "well I can't miss THAT," and my thumb had already tapped Buy before the rest of me got a vote. Gone after August 31, they said. Couldn't risk it. Had to be a hero.

Reader, I was not required to be a hero.

What Do You Actually Get In The FC 27 Ultimate Plus Edition?

Six things, and they are not equally useful. Here's the receipt, with an honest column on whether you'll ever touch it.

The Icon and the Hall of FUT pick are the two lines I'd defend in court. Both are cards you'd otherwise be gambling for. Everything else is either a lottery ticket or a promise about a version of you who plays more than you do.

When Does FC 27 Early Access Actually Start?

September 18 for Ultimate and Ultimate Plus buyers. September 25 for everyone else. That's the seven days you're paying the premium for. Here's the full run of dates, including the one that already got me.

• August 31 — the window shuts

  The pre-order bonus deadline EA advertised. Two words, "limited time," and my thumb moved before my brain filed an objection.

• September 10 — you are here

  Paid in full. Cannot launch the game. Refreshing a countdown like it'll be impressed by the attention.

• September 17, 23:00 UTC — PC trial opens

  The EA Play 10-hour trial goes live on PC a touch before console. Cheapest way into the game, and it beats my £139.99 head start by an hour.

• September 18 — early access opens

  Ultimate Plus unlocks unlimited play. The console EA Play trial opens the same day, capped at 10 hours.

• September 25 — full launch

  Everyone else arrives. You've already done 40 hours and the meta has moved without asking you.

The Maths I Refused To Do At The Time

Let me walk you through what my £139.99 actually bought, because at the time I told myself every single line of this was essential. Ten thousand FC Points. Ten thousand. I know exactly what happens to those. They will not last the weekend. I'll do one Friday-night pack-opening session, convince myself the next one's got a walkout in it, and emerge on Saturday morning with 40 duplicate golds and a 74-rated Championship left-back I'll never use.

That's not a fear. That's a prophecy.

An extra Evolution slot. Sure. Great. I use Evolutions the way I use gym memberships, with tremendous enthusiasm for nine days. An untradeable 85-plus Icon. Lovely. Can't sell him, can't really replace him, will bench him by October for someone with an extra star of skills.

Premium Passes for seasons one through five.

Five. I have never, not once in the history of me, made it to season three. I'm buying passes for content I'll experience the way I experience the far end of a boxset. Theoretically aware it exists, personally never going to get there.If you want to know what those seasons and Evolutions actually involve this year, we've broken the lot down in the FC 27 Ultimate Team guide.

And then there's the Hall of FUT pick. I get to choose one, one, legend from a shortlist. I have been agonising over this decision like I'm remortgaging. Spreadsheets. Opinions. Lost sleep. Over a pretend footballer I have not yet met and cannot play as for over a week.

Annual FC Point gamble every year

Does Buying The FC 27 Ultimate Plus Edition Actually Save You Money?

Only if you were already going to spend that much. Otherwise it's a bigger bill wearing a discount's clothes.

This was the lie I told myself, and I told it beautifully because I owned FC 26, I got ten percent off. Ten percent! Basically free, when you think about it. A saving. I was being responsible.

I have, of course, already spent that saving. And then a fair bit more on top, on nothing, in the confident belief that the maths still comes out ahead. It does not come out ahead. It has never once come out ahead. The maths and I stopped speaking years ago.

None of which is unique to you or me, by the way. This game reportedly topped GTA VI in pre-orders, which tells you the button works on a scale that makes my thumb look positively principled.

So Is The FC 27 Ultimate Plus Edition Actually Worth £139.99?

Verdict: Worth it only if you'll play more than 10 hours in that early week and you buy FC Points every year anyway. Everyone else has a much cheaper route in.

Here's the fork, as plainly as I can put it.

Where I'd push back hardest on my own purchase is the Points. Points buy packs, and packs are a lottery. You don't get the player you want, you get the player you're given. If the goal is a specific card in your squad on day one, coins do that job directly. You can buy FC 27 Coins and go and get the exact player instead of rolling for him, with a 72-hour money-back guarantee on the order.

We've been at this since 2017 and sit at 4.7 out of 5 from around 1,768 Trustpilot reviews, so it's not a leap of faith.

The Part I'm Least Proud Of

The embarrassing part is that I know precisely how this plays out. I've watched myself do it every single year.

I'll get my early access on the 18th. I'll treat those days like a caffeine-fuelled trial run, hammer 40 hours into a team, feel like a genius.

Then the game officially launches on the 25th, the moment the whole thing was supposedly building towards, and I'll already be half cooked. The meta will have shifted. Someone on my rival's team will have a card that ruins my week. And I'll be sat there, season one pass in hand, four passes still to go, wondering where the joy went.

The Bit That's Going To Sting: How To Play FC 27 Early For Almost Nothing

Here's what I probably shouldn't be telling you, having just set fire to £139.99. You don't need any of it to get in early.

There's a thing called EA Play. A few quid a month, cancel whenever, roughly the price of a couple of coffees.And it hands you a 10-hour trial of FC 27 from September 18, the same day my "premium" early access kicks in. Ten full hours. Every mode. Ultimate Team included.

And the part that genuinely twists the knife: whatever you build in those hours carries straight over when you buy the full game. It's not a demo. It's a head start.

So while I sit here weeping into a receipt, here's how you actually claim it.

• Get EA Play

  Sign up on the EA Play page and pick a plan. Or, and I cannot stress how much this one hurts, if you already have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate you've had EA Play bundled in this whole time and didn't need to lift a finger.

• Preload FC 27 now

  Download it from the EA Play hub or your console store before the 18th, so you're not burning your first precious minutes glaring at a progress bar.

• Boot it on September 18

  That's when the trial opens on console. PC sneaks in a touch earlier, the 17th at 23:00 UTC. The 10-hour clock starts the second you load in.

• Guard that clock like it owes you money

  It ticks down in the menus too, not just matches. So don't stand in the squad screen re-arranging your bench for 40 minutes like I absolutely, definitely will.

• Buy the game when the timer dies

  Everything you did in those 10 hours, your club, your progress, your coins, comes with you.

To be fair to my own bad decision, the two routes aren't identical. Ten hours is a taste. Unlimited for seven days is a proper head start on the market. If you're the sort who'll do 40 hours that week, the edition earns its keep. If you're not, EA Play does the job for a rounding error. Either way, get the chemistry basics right before you burn a single minute of that clock. The beginner's guide to your first FC 27 squad takes ten minutes and saves you an hour of the trial.

So no, this isn't a warning. I'm not here to talk you out of anything, because I'd be a hypocrite and you'd ignore me anyway. I'm here because I know you did it too. You're reading this with your own confirmation email sitting in your inbox, aren't you. Your own countdown timer ticking away. Your own quietly panicked "was that a bit much?" that you've decided not to answer.

The button doesn't care about any of us. It's the same machinery that turns the whole mode into a very well-lit casino, and it works on me exactly as designed. FOMO is undefeated and it always will be. Next September it'll do the exact same thing, dangle the exact same "limited time," and my thumb will move before my brain files an objection.

Yours will too.

FAQ : 

Final Whistle

So go on, tell me I'm not the only one. £140 down, eight days early on a game I can't launch, pretending in public that this was a sound financial choice. Comments are open. Let's grieve together. Bring your receipts.

I'll be here. Refreshing the timer. Still can't move into the house.