EA FC 25: Everything new in Career Mode

While Ultimate Team has driven much of the focus for the series since its inclusion, EA FC 25 looks to be a big year for Career Mode with a number of new key additions to spice things up.

Check out everything new arriving in the mode right here, so you can stay up to date with the latest news.

Live Start Points let you drop in whenever

One of the most exciting new features to both Manager and Player Careers is the Live Start Points. Instead of always commencing your journey at the start of a season, these will allow you to start from any gameweek across the 24/25 season.

This is the perfect way to continue a narrative you've spotted during the season or change history if you don't like the trajectory of your favourite team. This applies to many of the sport's top leagues across both men and women, giving you a fantastic amount of flexibility when it comes to your career and story.

For example, last season you could have challenged yourself to dig Everton out of the ditch following their points deduction, or turned Napoli's dreadful form around, clawing them back into title contention.

EA FC's Principal Game Designer Alex Constantinescu explains this in an interview with GGRecon, remarking that "you always have that ‘armchair coach’ moment of like ‘I could do it better’”, Wilsdorf adds. “Now you can really go into that moment and see if you can do it better from that point.”

Alongside this, there are also new 'Snapshots' which link to specific stories spotted by EA during the season. This could range from key manager sackings to big player transfers and only add to the motivation you might have going into a new save.

FC IQ takes your tactics to the next level

Career Mode is arguably where the new FC IQ technology shines best, letting you truly unlock your inner tactician as a manager or player. Part of this new system is the numerous tactical presets that you can implement, giving you greater flexibility for your footballing ideology, alongside making it easier for new players to dive in with already fantastic routines.

Supporting this, of course, are the numerous Player Roles that help define and differentiate different players' skill sets and out-of-possession movement. Player Roles are innately linked with the different tactical presets, and you'll now not only have to think about signing great players but the right ones too.

What's more, unique to Career Mode is the ability to enhance and train your players in specific Player Roles, making them stronger and more defined for their specific roles. The example EA give is hiring a Tiki Taka specialist coach to enhance the Deep Lying Playmaker Player Role, but the possibilities certainly don't stop there.

Women's football comes to Career Mode

For the first time ever you'll also be able to dive into the world of women's football either as a manager or as a player in Career Mode. There are five officially licensed leagues to choose from, including the Barclays WSL, D1 Féminine, the NWSL, Frauen-Bundesliga, and Liga F, alongside the Women's Champions League too.

It thankfully features all of the same fantastic aspects that you'll see in the men's version, offering no compromises while also providing an authentic reflection of the growing rapidly world of women's football.

Customisation to the max

Things are in your hands more than ever this year too, as a number of new customisation features have been added to allow you to fine-tune your experience.

While this does include in-game difficulty settings of course, with 'Realistic' allowing you to emulate the feeling of real-life football, and 'Classic' giving you the rush of classic arcade-esque gameplay, the real highlight is in the features that tweak the experience off the pitch.

You can now play around with the difficulty of transfer negotiations if you fancy testing your dealing skills, or you can put yourself underneath a microscope with a stricter board for an anxiety-fuelled season. Who knows, you might even want to place a transfer ban on your own club, giving you the test of relying on your pre-existing squad.

However, if stress isn't quite your thing then there are also features that relax the experience. Your club could have just been bought out by a sugar daddy, players could develop faster than usual, and you could even be in a world where you can't get sacked!

Ultimately though, this just gives greater control to the player, letting them master their own experience and create the perfect save.

Icons arrive in Career Mode

What personally excites me most about Career Mode this year though is the introduction of Icons into the game mode. If you've ever played Ultimate Team then you'll certainly be familiar with the player type, encompassing many of the greatest now-retired players to ever play the game.

Names like Pelé, Ronaldo, Zidane, and more have their own legacy distilled into a card, and now you'll be able to explore that yourself in your very own Player Career.

You can either jump into the peak of an Icons career with them on top of the world, or see them at the start of their journey through the new Origin Stories pathway. Not every Icon will be available to use at any one time, but they'll be rotated and updated across the course of the game to provide new and unique experiences for players.