Just a week after EA officially revealed The Grounds as a new social hub coming to EA Sports FC 27, beta players have already put footage online. Two videos totalling over 10 minutes of gameplay appeared on Reddit's r/GamingLeaksAndRumours, and they cover a lot more ground than most pre-release leaks tend to.
What the leaked footage actually shows
The first video runs about 2 minutes and follows a player walking through different areas of The Grounds before landing in a cutscene with Chloe Kelly. Kelly introduces Kickabouts, a new mini-game format that mashes football together with other sports including dodgeball, basketball, and bocce ball. It's a strange mix on paper, but the footage makes it look like a casual, pick-up-and-play distraction rather than anything competitive.
The same clip also pulls up the full objectives screen. Players can work through Mentors, Live Events, Club Live Events, Club Milestones, and Closed Beta Objectives, all of which reward The Grounds currency. That currency presumably feeds into the cosmetics system shown in the second video.
The longer clip, at 9 minutes, spends a good chunk of time inside the Clubhouse store. The cosmetic categories are extensive: Tops, Bottoms, Boots, Outfits, Tattoos, Hair, Facial Hair, Facial Accessories, Arm Sleeves, Archetype Card Backgrounds, and Emotes. It's the kind of depth you'd expect from a live-service social space trying to keep players logging in between actual matches.
Kickabouts, ball targets, and 1v1 sessions
Beyond the store tour, the second video shows off two more features. The first is a ball-summoning mechanic where players can call a ball and knock it at floating targets scattered around the open world. It reads more like a time-filler activity than a core loop, but it adds something to do while waiting for friends.
More interesting is the 1v1 footage near the end of the clip. Two players enter a session together directly from The Grounds, and the match itself looks like standard FC gameplay with a stripped-back presentation. The area where these matches take place draws obvious comparisons to what NBA 2K has been doing with its open-world courts for years now. Whether EA can make it feel as lived-in is a fair question.
The bigger picture for FUT players
The Grounds is positioned as a social layer on top of the existing FC experience, not a replacement for any mode. For FUT players, the Hall of FUT card system ties into the same broader ecosystem. If you want to know which legendary players are already confirmed and how to unlock them, the EA FC 27 Hall of FUT guide has the full breakdown.
The beta is still running, and EA hasn't addressed the leak publicly. Given that the footage came from an active closed beta, more clips will likely surface before the game's full release. For anyone trying to get into the beta themselves, the EA FC 27 Closed Beta access guide covers exactly how selection works and the regional start times you need to know.
