EA Sports FC 25 review: meaningful off-pitch upgrades mitigate plaguing issues

Published On: 25 September 2024 | 13:00 ISTLast Updated On: 26 September 2024 | 09:25 IST

EA Sports’ football video game franchise – FC (formerly known as FIFA) – releases a new entry in the series every year in September. The trade-off for such consistency is that most iterations come with incremental changes instead of major overhauls. While players have somewhat made peace with this, there has been constant criticism that the series doesn’t experiment enough on a yearly basis and new games feel the same. To counter this, EA introduces multiple new elements each year. Some of these stick, and some others are dropped or at least taken out of the spotlight. This year, most of the marketing around the gameplay improvement was focused on FC IQ + Hypermotion V and how these combine to change the game.

Having played the game enough, I can say that the on-pitch gameplay remains mostly the same. However, the introduction of ‘Rush’ game mode (5v5), improvements to career mode, duplicate SBC storage, and changes to season progress ensure that FC 25 feels fresh and the most enjoyable football simulation game in the market.

Before we jump into the review, I would like to disclose that I received the review code for the game for PlayStation 5. The game is already available for purchase on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Career mode gets some major changes

For years now, fans have been urging EA Sports to make some serious changes to Career mode, which has been the most popular single-player game mode. This time around, you get more flexibility in terms of managing your budget as you can set the board expectations to ‘No Sacking’, which essentially means that irrespective of how you choose to manage your budget, the board will not fire you from your job. You also get more control over the training routines too and even something as minor as recovery rates from training plans. Across the game, you also get more tactical control over how players play in their respective roles. I can talk about more aspects where you get to have more control but instead of listing out everything, I’d just say that you can now customise this mode more extensively.

EA has now included ‘Icons’ in career mode too, which means that you can play with all-time great players in this single-player mode as well. Notably, players such as Ronaldo Nazario, David Beckham, and Zinedine Zidane were previously available only in the Ultimate Team. You now also get a social media feed in the game that features well-known sports journalist Fabrizio Romano. So, you can expect to see a lot of ‘Here we go’ announcements on your feed. All these new additions give a new lease of life to this game mode and genuinely make it more exciting to play. There are some gameplay elements that are only available in single-player modes such as wind and rain. While dynamic weather conditions were available in previous versions of the game, the wind effect definitely makes its presence noticed. If you want to pass or shoot the ball in a particular direction, now you will have to consider the wind direction and speed too.

Ultimate Team

Whenever the history of gaming would ever be written, this game mode from FIFA/FC will be referenced. We are talking about a game mode that makes more than a billion dollars on an annual basis for the company. This is all thanks to microtransactions that can heavily tilt the game in your favour if you spend enough money. While a large proportion of the gaming community hates the fact that spending money can give you an unfair advantage in this game, the fact of the matter is that you can have a great team and loads of fun even without spending this money. Although EA will have to move in the direction of removing the pay-to-win aspect from its game, for now, it is something you still have to deal with.

Now that we have addressed the elephant in the room, let’s discuss what else do we have in store. Some quality-of-life changes such as the removal of contracts, the addition of SBC storage, and not needing to start from Division 10 in Rivals, remove some unnecessary frustrations that were previously present in the game. Let me go over the different game modes of Ultimate Team to get into the changes in detail.

Division Rivals – more rewarding than ever

By the end of the last year, almost no one was playing this game mode as it had become extremely monotonous. At times this game mode was overly competitive and after reaching a certain division, you could simply not enjoy the game. To keep things more exciting this time around, EA has implemented a new progression and point system. Now, from Division 2 and Division 1, you can be relegated if you end up having a losing streak. Also, the reward system has received an overhaul to ensure that skilled players get better rewards. While you will now get better rewards across divisions in comparison to last year, you will also have to register 15 wins instead of 7. You essentially need to achieve 45 points to get the best possible rewards in each tier, which can either be achieved with 15 wins (3 points each) or with a certain amount of wins and draws (1 point each) to reach the collective point target of 45.

(Gold)Rush

‘Rush’ is the most exciting game mode in Ultimate Team and it’s really not close. The five-a-side game mode lets you compete online either with your friends or random teammates. The experience you get here is unparalleled. As Rush is closely integrated into Ultimate Team instead of being a separate mode like Volta, jumping into this game mode feels intuitive. With Rush, much like Division Rivals, you can complete objectives to get season points, which help you progress through the season pass. To put it simply, playing Rush feels like you’re playing ‘Clubs’ game mode but it is far more intense as there are more goals scored in each game as the pitch is smaller. Instead of multiple players being controlled by one player, like in Clubs, here you get an action-filled game with results helping you progress towards better rewards in Ultimate Team.

There are ‘Events’ in this game mode that pose certain restrictions on the players you can choose to play. This helps in keeping the game mode competitive as players who spent real-life money or got lucky enough to pack Icons or high-rated players won’t get an unfair advantage in this mode. As of now, this game mode feels like absolute madness as players play like school ground football where everyone either runs towards the opponent’s goal or towards their own goal. This can also be frustrating if you get selfish teammates who just won’t pass the ball but honestly, I’ve not had this much fun playing this football simulation game in a long time. EA has found gold in the form of Rush, let’s just hope they keep on improving it now.

FUT Champions

As of writing this review, FUT Champions (aka weekend league) has not started but we do know that the format has received an overhaul. Instead of playing 20 games over the weekend, you will now have to play 15 games with each game awarding 1 point. This means that each game will carry more weight than ever and matches will be extremely competitive. High-skilled players have demanded such a format for years and it feels good that EA has finally delivered. The qualification process for the FUT Champions has also become harder now as instead of winning 4 games out of 10, you now need to win 3 games out of 5 to qualify. Again, the idea is that this will be the most competitive game mode and will reward players who perform at a high level.

Squad Battles

While there is a lot of scope for improvement in this game mode, EA has just reduced the number of matches from 32 to 12 each week. This is a positive move as single-player modes should ideally not be too taxing on players to receive decent rewards.

Graphics and Gameplay

If you were expecting major changes to the graphics in FC 25, I hate to share that you’re in for disappointment. The game looks almost identical to the previous entries in the series and as far as graphic settings are considered, you only get two options – Enhanced Visuals and Favor Resolution. In Enhanced Visuals, you get dynamic resolution but better lighting. Both modes aim to hit 60fps at 4K resolution. PlayStation 5 managed to play the game at a consistent 60fps in both modes for me.

As far as gameplay is concerned, you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between last year and this year if we talk about on-pitch performance. However, the inclusion of ‘FC IQ’ aims to bring authentic on-ball and off-ball player movement into the game. I didn’t find this to be a game-changer and often, players were not following instructions as well as they should have. Custom tactics can be modified more precisely than ever or you can choose to go with the tactics of the manager that you choose for your team. While the game might seem more complicated than ever for a newcomer, you can simply copy the tactics from better players by using the QR code for that particular tactic. The inclusion of QR codes for tactics makes sharing them far easier than ever.

For the most part, FC 25 plays like a football simulation should, but then you run into the glitches that have been present in the game for years and that truly frustrates you. Player movements can be finicky, offside calls are inconsistent, and sometimes penalties can be called when there is no contact between players. EA has also included a deliberate foul feature that can intentionally take down the opponent’s attacker if you think they are in a position to score a goal. I don’t think this feature belongs in the game as it will only encourage toxic behaviour in the game. Further, I accidentally triggered this foul myself when I didn’t want to. Hopefully, EA will remove this feature with a future update.

Overall, the gameplay in FC 25 is pretty similar to last year’s game but with minor refinements – Goalkeeper movement has been slowed down to make the saves more realistic, more animations, the pace is less overpowered, and so on. If you liked last year’s game, there’s a good chance you will like this one too. But if you had major complaints, you might be disappointed.

Verdict

In many ways, FC 25 marks a major shift for the series as instead of doubling down in every department, EA has decided to take a couple of steps back in certain departments to make things right. Reducing the number of matches in FUT Champions to increase competitiveness and increase the required wins in Rivals will easily divide the player base into those who only want serious competition and those who want a mixed bag. Instead of making any mode less rewarding, the company has adjusted parameters to make the game modes equally rewarding, basis your effort. For those of you who just want to have fun, Rush is the best addition to Ultimate Team for years. Having said that, the game still comes with microtransactions that make it pay-to-win, it still has some gameplay glitches, and it can feel like that at times, momentum can make it impossible for you to change the outcome of a particular attack within the game. If you can take the good with the bad, you will enjoy playing FC 25 but if you get too frustrated with these issues, you might want to give this one a pass.