FIFA 21 is scheduled for an Oct. 6 release. More freedom in Career Mode, customization options for Pro Clubs, and highly-anticipated Ultimate Team changes are just some of the alterations that this year’s title will introduce.
Like previous years, EA scheduled beta periods to iron out all the bugs before the game’s official release. The first beta was scheduled to start today (Aug. 14), only welcoming players who’ve unlocked specific achievements in FIFA 20. Verified Ultimate Team (FUT) champions or players who have won 27 matches during a Weekend League event received beta codes earlier in the week.
But the first bug that the beta-testers were able to spot was that the game wasn’t working at all. Most players couldn’t unlock the game with their codes, while others who could get in found nothing in the game that was functioning properly.
It’s highly unlikely that EA would invite thousands of players to an empty game and the issue itself shows characteristics of a server-related outage. EA acknowledged the problem on Twitter and forwarded players to the beta forums for future updates regarding the situation. These forums are only visible to players who have FIFA 21 beta access. There aren’t any publicly-known fixes that players can try out themselves so far, so the best option will be keeping an eye on both the FIFA 21 beta forums and the EA Help Twitter account.
While missing out on the first day of the beta can feel awful, considering it also kicked off on a Friday night, this stage of the beta is scheduled to last until Sept. 1, meaning there will be plenty of time to make up for this shortage.