EA FC 25 devs on surprising World of Warcraft career mode influence
EA FC 25's Career Mode draws inspiration from some unlikely sources, including iconic MMO World of Warcraft, to add greater flexibility for players.
08th Aug 2024 17:15
Images via EA
EA FC 25 devs on surprising World of Warcraft career mode influence
EA FC 25's Career Mode draws inspiration from some unlikely sources, including iconic MMO World of Warcraft, to add greater flexibility for players.
08th Aug 2024 17:15
Images via EA
EA FC 25 feels like it’s running down a laundry list of community requests over the years, ticking off each item with relish. Customizable, live-service style starting points? Check. Women’s career mode? Check. Youth teams? How about youth tournaments, too?
Still, one of my favourite additions from my visit to EA Romania this week is the option to essentially decide how many skill points you have to play with at the start of the game. While in years past you could expect to start low and build up, it was often a slow process. Thankfully, the team at EA has taken that into consideration and has a solution inspired by none other than World of Warcraft.
EA FC 25 takes inspiration from MMORPGs like World of Warcraft
As part of a wide-ranging interview, Alex Constantinescu, Principal Game Designer discussed how players can select their origin story to determine how many skill points they start with.
“The default used to be that you have seven skill points, which we gave you just to get used to spending skill points and to learn how the skill tree works,” he explains.
“But now you can start as an established footballer and get 150 skill points, you get all of them, and you can just max out the skill tree and you can get that so you can just bypass progression altogether if you want to.”
“You look at MMORPGs like World of Warcraft where nowadays you can just create a maxed out character right from the beginning, because people, after years and years of playing the game, get tired of the grind, so we took inspiration from that.”
“We took inspiration basically from every game out there, not just sports games,” he added, saying the team wants to “leave it up to the people to choose how they want to play, if they want to be involved in progression or not.”
Andreas Wilsdorf, Line Producer says “You don’t have to start from the bottom anymore. You can even decide your personality types in the creation suite.”
The game offers a trio of ‘Origin Stories’, covering all the narrative bases. There’s one for a player returning from a big injury, one for being the child of a legendary player, and a ‘rags to riches’ option, but you can also bypass all three with what the developers call a ‘Clean Slate’.
“If you want to go really for the grind, you can, but you can also give yourself a head start if you want to,” Wilsdorf explains.
For more on our career mode coverage, be sure to check out our deep-dive preview and how the game will shake up the season pass.
About The Author
Lloyd Coombes
Lloyd is GGRecon's Editor-in-Chief, having previously worked at Dexerto and Gfinity, and occasionally appears in The Daily Star newspaper. A big fan of loot-based games including Destiny 2 and Diablo 4, when he's not working you'll find him at the gym or trying to play Magic The Gathering.
