EA Sports FC 25 Review – No title-winning pedigree

You’ll be greeted by the legendary Zinedine Zidane when you boot up EA Sports FC 25 for the first time. The former France international and multiple Champions League-winning manager is keen to extol the virtues of tactics during an introductory video that feels more like the opening of a Football Manager game than EA’s latest football simulation. The introduction of FC IQ is the reason behind this, bringing player roles to the forefront in a comprehensive overhaul of the series’ tactics. It’s a significant change that, along with the new Rush mode, gives EA FC 25 two great new features to write home about. Beyond this, however, the improvements to the on-field action and range of game modes are incremental or non-existent, in what feels like half a step forward for the long-running series.

FC IQ is the driving force behind most of EA FC 25’s forward momentum. The previous tactics system has been done away with and replaced with a malleable set of new player roles that dictate how your team functions with far more variety than before. As a result, the team-wide aspects of a given tactic have been streamlined, allowing you to simply determine the depth of your defensive line and choose a build-up style based on short passing, countering or a balanced mix of both. Once you’ve chosen a strategy and formation that you’re happy with, you can start applying specific roles to each player to really define their identity, understanding the risk and reward of certain roles and their impact on the game. balances the team.

Each position has different player roles that determine a player’s movement and positioning when he or she does not have the ball, both when your team is in possession and when it is not. For example, a central midfielder fits into one of five roles, ranging from playmaker to half-winger. The latter is new and causes your center center to swerve wide – similar to how Kevin De Bruyne often plays for Manchester City – allowing you to create overload on one side of the pitch or hit balls into the box with a more skilled crosser than either. your winger or fullback. This introduces more ways in which you can create opportunities and gives you something else to think about when coming up with a tactic, making the whole process much more engaging.

Most roles also have a focus that changes how a player behaves within the confines of their role. You can set a half-winger to play a more balanced game, alternating attack and defense equally, or you can give him the freedom to think more ahead and give up his defensive responsibilities in favor of attack.

To fill this vacated space in the center of the park, you can deploy one of your full-backs in the new falseback role, where they drift around centrally as an extra midfielder when you are in possession. However, not every full-back can adequately fulfill such a specialized role. In fact, no player is suited to every role, even if they are in their preferred position. Role knowledge therefore guides you in putting together your team. Someone like Vinícius Júnior can play as a winger without compromising his abilities, but if he switches to a role he has performed at world class, such as inside forward, he will demonstrate more tactical and positional intelligence, resulting in better timed runs and faster transitions from defense to attack.

This makes building a team in Career mode or Ultimate Team much more attractive than before. Do you come up with a tactic and find players who fit it? Or do you ensure that every player plays in their preferred role, regardless of what this does to the shape of your team? These are important considerations to make and add a new wrinkle to team building that goes beyond numbered traits like pace and shooting ability.

The formation you choose (whether it’s 3-5-2, 4-3-3 or something in between) will determine the shape of your team when defending. The player roles within this formation can remain the same shape as you transition to attack or change into something completely new. Luckily there’s a handy toggle that shows you how your players will position themselves both on and off the ball, and in practice this allows for a lot more variety in the teams you face. You could be facing two teams with the exact same formation, but depending on how they’ve tailored each individual player role, you’ll often notice a tangible difference in their approach.

Adding more variety to the way players move and take certain positions is great, but that’s especially true when there’s no discernible difference in how EA FC 25 actually feels to play compared to last year’s game. Sure, the overall pace of play is slower (as is often the case at the start of each annual cycle) and the plethora of new animations, especially during shooting, make for some satisfying moments and objectives. Yet it doesn’t do enough to stand out as a positive step forward. There is still some good football being played here, but any improvements are only incremental and it still comes with the same long-standing problems. Tackling and switching players are both unreliable, goalkeepers are wildly inconsistent – pulling off miracle saves to stop shots aimed directly at them – and it’s still more effective to spam skill moves than break down defenses with complicated passes. It’s a shame that these problems still exist.

To make matters worse, the input lag currently affecting online matches results in a frustrating and slow experience when playing against others. Strangely enough, this isn’t an issue in the new Rush mode, but playing Rivals matches in Ultimate Team is a chore. Even the game’s menus suffer from a similar problem, making it feel like it’s constantly chugging away at your button inputs. This makes menu-heavy modes like Career and Ultimate Team tricky to navigate. I also experienced a number of crashes on the PS5, mostly when opening the store to open new packs and at the end of games.

Fortunately, like FC IQ, Rush is an excellent new addition to the series, replacing Volta with fast-paced five-on-five matches (one AI goalkeeper and four outfield players) that promise frenetic action and bundles of goals. These five-minute matches are played on a smaller field and are governed by a unique ruleset. For example, the kick-off is similar to that in Rocket League, with both teams lining up in their own half before the ball drops into the center circle, resulting in a mad dash towards the center as both teams try to gain possession first . . Meanwhile, offside is only activated in the final third, and red cards have been replaced by a blue variant that condemns the offending player to the sin bin for a full minute. It’s chaotic fun and feels different enough from regular matches to provide a satisfying change of pace.

Rush is available in Kickoff, Career, Ultimate Team and Clubs, so there are a few different ways to play. In Career mode it is used for youth tournaments, allowing you to play as your best prodigy and develop their attributes before they are ready to progress to the first team. In Ultimate Team, you can enter drop-in matches with three random players or play with friends, choosing one player from your club to control. Sometimes there are restrictions on the player pool you can choose from, and you are also encouraged to select players from specific leagues and countries to earn bonus points that contribute towards XP towards the Season Pass. Drop-in matches are a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to finding good teammates. Some people will refuse to defend or pass, while others seemingly have no idea how the offside rule works. It’s easy to disrupt a game when there are only four players on each team, so it’s definitely preferable to play with friends if possible.

In addition to including youth tournaments, Career mode has also received attention in a few other areas. You now have more flexibility in customizing the experience, from lenient expectations for your board to speeding up or slowing down your players’ development. If you choose the simulation gameplay type, you will also have to deal with bad weather. A windy afternoon affects the ball’s trajectory, while a rainy downpour makes ground passes even faster and causes players to occasionally slip. It’s disappointing that these effects don’t come into play in online matches, but it makes sense in the name of balance.

The long-awaited addition of several major women’s leagues is a welcome addition to Career mode. You can even start a playing career as one of the game’s icons, although it’s strange that you’re limited to a paltry four options considering how many there are in Ultimate Team. Either way, who wouldn’t want to start a career with Thierry Henry at the top at Stevenage? These may be small improvements, but they are improvements nonetheless.

As far as Ultimate Team goes, EA’s cash cow has seen very few changes, but the changes that have been introduced aren’t exactly positive. The rewards for achieving victories in Rivals have been reduced, despite the fact that you now have to win fifteen matches in a week instead of the previous seven. It’s a significant time commitment when you also take into account the other objectives you may want to complete in Rush, Squad Battles and Friendlies. Additionally, qualifying for Champions (where the biggest rewards can be found) is now reserved for the best players. In the past you only had to win four out of ten matches to qualify. Now you’ll need to win three out of five matches to earn a spot in the finals, a decision that appears to have been driven by the mode’s pay-to-win microtransactions. Those who spend the most money are more likely to access the best rewards.

There’s a lot to like about EA FC 25, from the revamped tactics to the chaotic addition of Rush and some welcome improvements to Career mode. However, it is not a resounding victory. The on-pitch action has stagnated, retaining quality but also many of its shortcomings, while the changes to Ultimate Team feel hostile in their design. In the near future, issues such as input lag and the tendency to crash will hopefully be resolved, but the same is unlikely to be true for the long-standing issues. At the end of the day (to use common football jargon) there’s fun to be had with EA FC 25, especially if you enjoyed last year’s game, but instead of taking a giant leap forward, you can settle for take with the middle shape. .