EA SPORTS FC 25 Review

EA SPORTS FC 25 introduces the brand new FC IQ system to unleash the tactical genius out of you.

EA SPORTS FC 25 finally arrives as it becomes the 2nd entry into the brand-new EA Sports Era, but it’s the 32^nd game in the franchise overall. It’s also yet another EA Sports title in such a short time, as we’ve just entered into the new football season. Unless you’ve been chilling in a cave for the last couple of months, you’d know about the return of College football games with the new College Football 25. And, of course, the latest installment into the Madden franchise, Madden NFL 25. 

The cover athlete of EA SPORTS FC 25 needs a mention since he had an impeccable season with an outstanding individual record that steered him to becoming La Liga’s Player of the Season. He also won La Liga, the Champions League for the first time in his career and was a finalist at UEFA Euro 2024, making him a strong candidate to win this year’s Ballon d’Or. It’s fair to say that the Real Madrid and England superstar, Jude Bellingham truly deserves to be this edition’s cover athlete. 

EA SPORTS FC 25’s arrival comes with the expectation of being an improvement from last year’s title. You might’ve noticed a pattern in recent years, but EA Sports/FIFA games would end up being free on PlayStation Plus and available on Xbox Game Pass either at the end of the football season or at least very close to it.

Because of the lack of innovative features over the years, some would rather wait until then to play them, and we expect the latest game also to hit those services in several months. Don’t worry; EA SPORTS FC 25 definitely comes with improvements and changes. The real question is, does this game have enough to sway players into getting it now or wait until the end of the season? Stick around, and we’ll find out together. 

EA SPORTS FC 25 introduces you to FC IQ. This brand-new tactical AI system enables you much more strategic freedom and control over your squad, and takes your football matches to the next level. Plus, you’ll have total control over every player on your team, and with this new system, you can link your tactical nous with the game, feeling like an actual football manager. 

The system is based on three foundations: Player Roles, Team Tactics, and Smart Tactics. Player Roles involves how players position themselves whenever they don’t have possession of the ball. Team Tactics is a revamped feature that involves players being given presets based on actual teams. Smart Tactics is a brand-new feature that provides actual tactical suggestions depending on the situation during your matches.

There isn’t a drastic number of changes or improvements for the on-field gameplay, but you’ll definitely notice a more refined and realistic gameplay with some changes made. For instance, they’ve improved the dribbling animations, making dribbling much smoother when controlling the ball. For example, you may have experienced before when 180-degree turns would take longer than necessary. The improved animations makes dribbling much smoother, quicker, and more efficient.

Passing mechanics have become much more realistic as they’ve added a new accuracy system that mimics passing in actual football matches and situations. Now, you have to be more careful when passing to a teammate. Because of this new system, players passing from under pressure, certain angles, and so on are also factored into how well a pass is made. 

And yes, the passing stats of players matters more than ever – meaning, the better passing accuracy a player has, the better their passing accuracy is. So, you wouldn’t have many issues with players like Arsenal’s Martin Ødegaard. And with the Corner Roles system, corner-taking has also gotten a touch-up to allow you more control over your corners. You can now choose players you want in 3 positions: Target Player, Near Post, and Back Post. 

After scoring goals, you can choose from many brand-new celebrations, such as the darts celebration, where it looks like you’re playing darts and hit a bullseye. Or the chicken dance celebration where the scorer is bending and flapping his arms like said chicken. Or you could do the mascot celebration, where the scorer dances and celebrates with the club’s mascot. However, this celebration is only available for players who select teams such as Benfica, Tottenham Hotspur, and Juventus. 

For all of you skill heads, EA SPORTS FC 25 brings to you brand new skill moves. Moves like the stop and go and the big feint are new two-star skill moves. For the four-star skill move, you have the step-over ball, and for the five-star skill move, you have the move called the toe drag step-over. 

When playing matches, you’ll see that with additional animations, cutscenes are more realistic and livelier. Also, depending on the situation, managers will be more interactive with the players and will display much more emotion than ever before. This includes authentic actions from the sport’s most successful managers, such as Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola and Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti. 

The substitutions have increased. Now, you have up to 9 bench players available in your matches. And speaking of the bench, just like the managers, again, based on the situation in matches, the bench will also be as reactive, interactive and will show more emotions, just like you see in real-life matches.

If you love that, you might also love the brand-new change to the POV Camera angle system is made. In EA SPORTS FC 24, you know about the recent technology that allows you to watch the views of the referees? You could see in the eyes of referees in instances such as free kicks, penalties, fouls committed, and so on. 

Well, with this feature in EA SPORTS FC 25, you see not only in the eyes of officials but now also in the eyes of players when corners or penalties are about to be taken, substitutions are happening, a scorer’s goal is being replayed, and so on. This is great for the Player Career Mode only, for the immersion, but it just doesn’t sit right with me when you’re also seeing the POV of players in regular matches, as it makes it a little unrealistic.

And speaking of Career Mode, as for the content, EA SPORTS FC 25 brings a more realistic experience in Career Mode as both a player and manager with a few additions to both professions. For the Manager Mode, you’ll need to take the job a little more seriously as they’ve made some changes to make your virtual managerial career more authentic. 

An example is the improved Development Plans feature. Because of the new Player Roles feature, you can now assign players to certain roles, train them in that role, and if they show progress in that role, the player will level up in that role. Another is Youth Recruitment. Like other tasks as a manager, it’s now more difficult for you to show how well you recruit and develop players. Now, you can play as a youth player and, at the same time, monitor them to help them grow in your youth academy to boost their chances of making your first team.

Another thing you should be focused on as a manager is the adjustments made to player morale. Before, you probably made sure that your players have the best morale possible. For example, in post-match press conferences, you absolutely made sure to answer the questions that involves praising the players to boost their morale, right?

Well, this year, doing that too often might have adverse effects. Because, now, if their morale is too high, they might get a little big-headed, become complacent, and their stats may plummet temporarily. In case you’re confused, this is not an advocacy for you to lower their morale as much as possible because obviously, that’s also bad. However, in EA SPORTS FC 25, the idea is to find and maintain a healthy balance of your players’ morale to keep them and your team flowing consistently. This is actually a nice touch from EA to see how well you can manage the potential development of egos in footballers. 

In Player Career mode, you can now use ICONs. You can start your Player Career with some of football’s greatest players ever, such as French Arsenal Legend Thierry Henry and Dutch Manchester United Legend, Ruud Van Nistelrooy. Moreover, any of the three players from the historic Galacticos Era: Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Nazário, and David Beckham. 

For all of you Women’s Football fans, your wish has finally been granted, as you can now play through the actual experience of being a professional female footballer and manager. You get to control a Woman footballer or manager in one of the top 5 leagues in Women’s Football.

Also, along with other sources such as The Athletic, in Career Mode, social media has now gotten astronomically bigger with more frequent activities, feeds, posts and more. This includes transfer news and more being reported and announced by the renowned Italian football journalist, Fabrizio Romano as he finally makes his debut in an EA Sports game. And, of course, he’ll be using his famous “HERE WE GO!” catchphrase when confirming transfers. 

After almost half a decade since its existence, the game mode, VOLTA FOOTBALL, is no longer with us, but they’ve pretty much replaced it with the brand-new 5v5 Rush mode. This feature allows new methods of playing with your buddies in Kick Off, Football Ultimate Team, and Clubs modes, providing the better overall experience. You simply create your own 5-player dream team, and you and 3 of your other buddies would each be controlling your player item. 

There are two versions in Rush mode: Best of 3 and Best of 5. Best of 3 is when you take your 5-a-side squad and defeat your opponent 2 out of 3 times to win. The Best of 5 is the same as the former, except this is the definitive showdown, and you need to win 3 out of 5 times to collect bragging rights. The idea of this mode is to reduce the Arcade-like feel and give a more realistic experience, just like you do when playing the usual 11v11 matches, but in smaller environments, of course. 

However, despite this, Rush does indeed have some of its own rules. For example, red cards are being replaced with blue cards, and players who are shown this colored card are temporarily ejected from the match. Also, the offside rule is only applicable in the final third of the pitch. 

EA SPORTS FC 25 is definitely an improvement from last year’s title, but not by much, especially when it comes to the on-field gameplay, and that’s a good thing; let me explain. EA SPORTS FC 24’s on-field gameplay was already good to the point where it didn’t need drastic improvements. However, its content and other areas needed more work. It’s clear that EA placed more emphasis on their content, tactical gameplay, and more to increase the longevity of this game and have done very well in doing so. Plus, the new FC IQ system is an incredible addition to the game.

Everything mentioned are some of the biggest changes; obviously, there are more. And because of the improvements, additions, changes and modifications to the game overall, it’s fair to say that it’s definitely worth getting it right now and play the game while enjoying the new football season. Moreover, for the Women’s Football fans will be very pleased, as EA SPORTS FC 25 has shown much more love to them. This also goes to the players who enjoys playing Player and/or Manager Career Mode, as this year provides a much more authentic footballing experience for both.