When you launch EA Sports FC 25 for the first time, you’ll be greeted by the legendary Zinedine Zidane. The former France international and multiple Champions League-winning manager was keen to extoll the virtues of tactics in an introductory video that felt more like the opening of a Football Manager game than EA’s latest football simulation game. The introduction of FC IQ is the reason behind this, putting player characters at the forefront of a tactical overhaul of the series. This is a big change and, along with the new Rush mode, gives EA FC 25 two new features that should be commended. Beyond that, however, improvements to the game’s on-field action and suite of game modes are either incremental or non-existent, making this feel like a half-step forward for the long-running series.
FC IQ is the driving force behind much of EA FC 25’s forward momentum. The previous tactics system has been scrapped and replaced with a malleable set of new player characters that determine how your team operates, with more variety than before. As a result, the team-wide aspect of any given tactic is simplified, simply letting you set the depth of your defensive line and choose a playmaking style based on short passing, counter-attacking, or a balanced combination of the two. Once you’ve chosen a strategy and formation that you’re happy with, you can start applying specific roles to each player to truly define their identity, balancing the risks and rewards of certain roles and their impact on the team.
There are multiple player roles for each position, used to control player movement and positioning without the ball, both when your team is in possession and without the ball. For example, a midfielder can play in one of five roles, from playmaker to scrum-half. The latter is new and sees your center forward drifting out wide – similar to how Kevin De Bruyne often plays for Manchester City – allowing you to create overloads on one side of the pitch, or with more Any more skilled crosser than anyone else gets the ball into the box. This gives you more ways to create chances and gives you other things to consider when designing your tactics, making the whole process more engaging.
Most characters also have a focus that changes the player’s behavior within the scope of their character. You can allow the scrum-half to play a more balanced game, alternating equally between attack and defense, or give them the freedom to be more forward-thinking, relinquishing defensive duties in favor of driving the attack.
To fill this vacated space in the middle of the park, you can deploy a full-back in a new full-back role so that when you have the ball, they move centrally as an extra midfielder. However, not every defender can fully utilize such a professional role. The reality is that no player fits every role, even in their preferred position, so role familiarity can guide you on how best to build your team. The likes of Vinicius Junior can play as a winger without compromising his ability, but switching to the role he plays in a world-class position, such as an inside forward, will allow him to show more Tactical and positional intelligence, leading to better runs and running opportunities.
This makes building a team in Career Mode or Ultimate Team even more compelling than before. Will you develop a tactic and find the players to suit it? Or do you make sure every player plays their preferred role, regardless of how that affects the shape of your team? These are all important factors to consider, adding another layer to the puzzle when it comes to team building, in addition to digital attributes like speed and shooting ability.
The formation you choose (whether it’s a 3-5-2, 4-3-3 or something in between) determines how your team will shape up when defending. Player characters in this formation will likely stay in the same shape once you transition to attack or transform into something entirely new. Fortunately, there’s a handy toggle button that shows you how your players position themselves with and without the ball, which in practice will allow for a lot more variation in the teams you come up against. You might face two teams with the exact same formation, but you’ll often notice clear differences in their approach based on how they customize each player role.
It’s great to add more variety to the way players move and occupy certain positions, but it would be even more so if the actual gameplay of EA FC 25 didn’t feel significantly different compared to last year’s game. Of course, the game’s overall pace slows down – as it does at the start of each annual cycle – and the plethora of new animations, especially when shooting, make for some satisfying moments and objectives. However, it’s not enough to consider itself a positive step forward. There’s still a good game of football here, but any improvements are only incremental and still suffer from the same long-standing problems. Tackles and substitutions are unreliable, goalkeepers are maddeningly inconsistent – making great saves only to concede shots that hit them directly – and rubbish technical moves are still more effective than breaking down defenses with complex passes. Unfortunately these problems still exist.
To make matters worse, the input lag that currently affects online matches makes for a frustrating and slow experience when playing against others. Oddly, this isn’t an issue in the new Rush mode, but trying to play a Rivals match in Ultimate Team is difficult. Even the game’s menu suffers from a similar problem, feeling like it’s constantly rattling behind your button inputs. This makes menu-heavy modes like Career and Ultimate Team difficult to navigate. I’ve also experienced multiple crashes on the PS5, most commonly when visiting the store to open new packs and when the game ends.
Luckily, like FC IQ, Rush is an excellent new addition to the series, replacing Volta with a fast five-man game (one AI goalkeeper and four outfield players) that guarantees frantic action and plenty of goals . These five-minute games are played on smaller venues and follow a unique set of rules. For example, kickoffs are similar to kickoffs in Rocket League, with both teams lining up in their own half of the court before the ball drops into the center circle, leading to a frenzy of both teams trying to gain possession first. Rush to the middle. Meanwhile, offside is only triggered in the final third and the red card has been replaced by a blue variant, sending the offending player into the sin box for a minute. It’s chaotic fun that feels distinct from regular games and provides a satisfying change of pace.
Rush is available in Kick-Off, Pro, Ultimate Team, and Club, so there are several different ways to play. In career mode, it’s used in youth tournaments, allowing you to play as the best prodigies and develop their attributes before they’re ready for the first team. In Ultimate Team, you can play in random matches with three random players, or you can play with friends, choosing one player from your club to control. Sometimes the pool of players you can choose from is limited, and you’ll also be incentivized to select players from specific leagues and countries to earn bonus points that will be used to redeem XP for season passes. Scram games are a bit dicey when it comes to finding good teammates. Some will refuse to defend or pass the ball, while others don’t seem to know how the offside rule works. It’s easy to disrupt the game when there are only four players per team, so it’s definitely better to play with friends if you can.
In addition to youth tournaments, career mode is gaining traction in a few other areas. Now you have more flexibility to customize your experience, from setting how loose your board expectations are to speeding up or slowing down player development. If you choose the simulation game genre, you’ll also have to deal with bad weather. Windy afternoons can affect ball trajectory, while downpours can increase the speed of ground passes and cause players to occasionally slip. It’s disappointing that these effects aren’t a factor in online play, but it makes sense in the name of balance.
The long overdue addition of several major women’s leagues is another welcome addition to the career mode. You can even start a player career as one of the game’s icons, although it’s odd that you can only choose from a meager four options considering how many people are on Ultimate Team. Who wouldn’t want to start a Stevenage career with Thierry Henry anyway? These may only be minor improvements, but they are improvements nonetheless.
As for Ultimate Team, there are few changes to EA’s cash cow, but the changes introduced aren’t entirely positive. The rewards for winning in Rivals have been downgraded, although you now need to win 15 games in a week instead of the previous seven. This is a significant time investment when you also consider the other objectives you may want to complete in sprints, squad battles, and friendly matches. Beyond that, championship qualification—where the highest rewards are located—is now reserved for the best players. In the past, you only had to win 4 out of 10 games to qualify. You now have to win three out of five games to earn a spot in the finals, a decision that feels like it’s driven by the mode’s pay-to-win microtransactions. Those who spend the most are more likely to receive the best rewards.
There’s a lot to like about EA FC 25, from overhauled tactics to chaotic charges, as well as some welcome improvements to the career mode. However, it wasn’t a complete victory. The action on the field has been stagnant, maintaining its quality but suffering from many flaws, while the changes to Ultimate Team feel antagonistic by design. Issues like input lag and its tendency to crash will hopefully be fixed in the near future, but long-standing issues are unlikely to be fixed. At the end of the day – to borrow common footballer lingo – EA FC 25 is fun, especially if you liked last year’s game, but it doesn’t make a significant leap forward and is content to settle for mid-table status.
