EA Sports FC 27 launches worldwide on September 25, and if you're planning your kickoff, Athlon Sports has the platform-by-platform release time breakdown. That's the one worth bookmarking, since unlock times differ depending on where you play.

The bit that matters for anyone stateside: per Athlon's breakdown, PC players get access earlier in the U.S. than console players. Got a rig? You're not waiting on the PlayStation and Xbox crowd. The exact times for each platform are in the Athlon piece, and I'd rather point you there than paraphrase a chart and botch a time zone.

We've known the September 25 date for a while, and the annual hype machine has rolled toward it right on schedule. Every year it's the same rhythm, and every year I still end up refreshing the store page like the release time is somehow going to surprise me. It won't. It never does. I've been doing this since the thing shipped on cartridges with a fraction of the buildup, and the wait feels exactly the same anyway.

There's not much else to say until the servers fill up and the first weekend of Ultimate Team chaos begins. Squad-building, market flipping, the inevitable complaint threads about pace merchants. All of it coming, right on schedule. If you're jumping in at launch, keep the Athlon breakdown handy and set your alarm. Or don't, and just start on a sensible evening like a person with a functioning sleep schedule. I'll land somewhere in between, same as every year.