EA FC 25 review: Game's not gone yet

Despite the name and branding shake-up last year, it wouldn't be particularly unfair to call a new EA FC game familiar. It's a series often defined by incremental changes rather than sweeping shifts, and that's very much the case once more with its latest edition, EA FC 25.

A week on from release and I've had plenty of time to spend with FC 25. While many of the same problems persist, they're outweighed by an abundance of new additions that might not seem significant in isolation, but add up to something great.

Big time Rush

I was perhaps most intrigued heading into Rush, FC 25's new 5v5 game mode, but I certainly wasn't expecting to be won over as much as I am. It's always going to be challenging to penetrate the hegemony of existing game modes, especially in the Ultimate Team space, yet Rush feels like the perfect blend of quick, easy, and fresh to compete with the staple modes.

In simple terms, it emulates the five-a-side format that's so popular in real-life football into the world of EA FC. This leads to fast-paced end-to-end matches that never feel boring, and the short match timer is the icing on the cake that makes the experience as a whole so easy to pick up and play.

What really elevates the mode to another level though - especially within Ultimate Team - is the Bonuses that are available at the player selection screen. While winning will earn you a fair amount of Rush Points, you'll get the bulk of your post-game prizes by fitting your player selection into these bonuses.

They'll be things like a German player, a player from the Premier League, or even an active Evolutions card. On top of this, there are also often ratings restrictions, which force you to be creative and use cards that you perhaps wouldn't have even looked at otherwise.

This creates a healthy break from the meta, at least at the start of this cycle, as while you can still often go in and use your best players it's encouraged against. 

I think there are still improvements to be made to the player selection process though. While you can scroll and search through your club, and you're given an initial selection of the five highest-rated eligible players, it's still a chore to find the best players for the current bonuses - and I can imagine it puts plenty off from going through the effort in the first place.

The experience is also seamless whether you're playing with a group of friends or dropping in with randoms online. Unlike Clubs, which in my experience requires a lot of coordination both off and on the pitch, Rush is so easy to jump in and play - and there's even a Rocket League-style chat function if you're a fan of spamming 'Thanks!' when your teammate misses a tackle!

I tended to take the role of defender in the matches that I played, but it's very much an experience free of positional restraints, and you'll find yourself all over the smaller-sized pitch. It rewards intelligent movement and intuitive teamwork, and I really hope that it continues to play a key role in the Ultimate Team experience as the year progresses.

While not an issue with the mode itself, I did run into a fair amount of frustration when it came to AFK/rubber-banding players, and I would prefer a stricter kicking mechanism to help prevent games from feeling hopeless.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Ultimate Team experience as a whole, however, is very much a mixed bag. Key new additions are often highlights that feel like they should have been added years ago, yet the experience as a whole is held back by problems that just keep cropping up year after year.

Starting with the good, it's no surprise that the Duplicate Player Storage system is a game-changing feature, especially as EA has trended overwhelmingly towards untradeable rewards in recent years.

Having the option to quickly send any duplicate untradeable into a hole you can deal with later is infinitely better than the Sophie's choice-esque scenario you'd be faced with in previous years. Being able to access this Duplicate Storage pile directly from an SBC is the finishing touch I didn't expect either, and it's the perfect way to use the system that removes any tedium.

Evolutions have also received a well-deserved revamp after their successful introduction last year, as while they were an excellent addition to the FUT formula, their initial form posed some key frustrations. Previously strict restrictions have been relaxed due to the new stat limits system, giving you a much wider pool of players to choose from when starting a new Evolution.

I've been able to get a much-improved Ryan Gravenberch in my side, and I can almost guarantee you I wouldn't have been able to do even the first part of the chain last year.

There is also the option now for new cosmetic-based Evolutions, giving your cards a new aesthetic flavour beyond simple stat increases. These include simplistic flair touches to styles that symbolise your own club legends, and I think it's a fantastic addition that helps your Ultimate Team feel personalised.

What did very much dampen my experience though was the copious bugs that I encountered, and the incredibly sluggish menus that persist still. There have always been bugs at the start of a new EA FC game, especially in the early access period, but I've never encountered as many as I have here.

It felt like every ten minutes or so I was having to restart the game after being stuck in an infinite loading screen or simply reaching a freeze, and it reached the point where it felt like anything I did had a chance of breaking the game.

These have calmed down slightly in the week post-release, but they were still incredibly frustrating to deal with and feel counter-productive to the 'privilege' of those paying above and beyond to play the game early.

What doesn't help on top of this are menus that are a chore to go through, and these persist beyond the bugs. Despite most of the action happening on the pitch, any seasoned FUT player knows how much time you spend in the menus, yet they once again feel so sluggish and unresponsive in almost every aspect.

Some instances simply feel overturned and could be condensed into a more seamless experience, but otherwise, it's just a case of things taking far too long to load or your actions lagging behind.

Balancing progression

Progression in Ultimate Team has always been tricky to approach, especially as someone who's exclusively done Road to Glory clubs for years. 

FUT is, by definition, an experience tailored towards those who spend money. Promo packs are now in the store the second the game goes live, and constant waves of new releases cater to players who are happy to spend real-life money on said packs.

Yet at the same time, it's never been easier to be a 'free-to-play' player, and that's once again the case this year. Rewards, in particular, have received a huge boost, with noticeable improvements to the prizes you'll earn at the end of each Squad Battles and FUT Champions reset. I don't love the increased number of games needed to get rewards in Rivals - and I'm not convinced that the rewards are, for most players, worth the effort, but it's a decent start.

Of course, there's the double-edged sword that these rewards increase the greater you perform, and it's easier to do well with a stronger team which is much easier to obtain if you spend real money on packs, but it remains promising to see that there's still plenty of ways to increase your coin balance without diving into the world of FC Points.

What does worry me on top of this, however, is the looming introduction of a paid season pass. While not present currently in Season One, this enhanced version of the seasonal ladder would have the potential to really swing the balance in favour of those who can or want to invest in it.

I would be surprised if, like most other Battle Pass systems, these rewards were purely cosmetic due to the pack-filled nature of the current free pass, but it remains to be seen how far the boat is pushed.

New tactics but the same speed

From a gameplay perspective, there haven't been too many changes, and your perspective on that will very much depend on how well you got on with FC 24.

It does feel rather slow and sluggish at times, especially when passing, and I'd generally prefer it if the game leaned a bit more into the arcadey side of things at this point but it is a challenging balance to achieve. Passes have felt inaccurate some of the time, and it's challenging to move quickly up the pitch without driven passes too.

I still also don't feel like there are enough options when it comes to different passes - especially compared to recent years. The replacement of a driven lobbed pass with a 'precise' placement from last year persists and I find that functionally useless, and the double-press chipped passes feel awful to pull off this year, despite being one of my favourite techniques in recent editions.

The big new feature in FC 25 within the gameplay is the new FC IQ system, which gives you far greater flexibility when it comes to your tactics and also enhances the way that players on the pitch move both on and off the ball.

Having got to grips with the system now it has proven to be a dramatic improvement over the previous version, giving much greater - and clearer - control over the movement and structure of your team both in and out of possession. Before there were so many limitations in what you could achieve, and you'd had to read between the lines a lot to actually understand how your players would perform tactically on the pitch.

I've been able to understand where my team has gone wrong and what I need to improve with much greater accuracy, whether it's moving my striker from the False 9 Player Role to a poacher to create more threat up front, or switching my left back from an Attacking Wingback to a defensive Fullback to prevent opposition switches of play.

Clear zone-based graphics make it easy to understand what spaces your players will take up on the pitch, and pairing this with the new Player Roles - which sees each player specialise in a certain version of their position - can create a deeper level of customisation that we've not seen in-game before.

While it won't matter to most players, I was also pleasantly surprised with the enhancements made to the replay system. Not only are you able to pick from a number of key in-game highlights instead of just the most recent stretch of time, but it's also far easier to actually control and tweak the settings in the editor.

There's even a new photo mode which makes taking stunning screenshots of the intricately detailed player models a delight, and while I'd be shocked if most players touch this feature even once, it was definitely a great addition for players like me.

Reaching GOAT status

While I don't typically delve into Career Mode, and admittedly most of my time with FC 25 has been spent grinding FUT, I am very impressed with the numerous additions that have been made to both Player and Manager Career.

The sheer amount of customisation is one of the highlights, as Live Start Points and in-depth difficulty options let you create your ideal experience. Whether it's cutting out the faff and starting from a particularly key game, or placing a transfer ban on yourself to make things that much harder, you've got so many options to play around with.

Personally, I was super intrigued with the new Icon Player Career option, which lets you take control of a small selection of rotating Icons and give their career a new tale. Icons have always been both elusive and intriguing to me, so being able to use them in a completely new context was delightful - especially when you get to create your own stories.

Playing Zidane alongside a new era of Galacticos, letting Gerrard shine in the current Liverpool setup, or even being a bit nefarious and placing a club legend like Henry in the Spurs squad for a laugh. More than anything it's made me properly want to explore with Player Career for the first time in a while, and that's the sign of a great addition.

The Verdict

There's a lot that I like about FC 25, and the amount I've played since getting my hands on the game is probably a testament to how enjoyable the experience overall can be. At its core, it remains the same game that has proven impenetrably successful within the sports market for over three decades now, and an abundance of improvements has made the experience overall that much better - especially when it comes to FUT.

Rush in particular is a key inclusion that's much better than I could have predicted. I could see it becoming a staple of the series in future titles, and I hope that it continues to get the love and focus it deserves.

However, many of the same frustrations still persist when it comes to the user experience, and it can hamper the experience quite significantly at times. While FC IQ and the tactics overhaul are more than a welcome addition, I am slightly unconvinced that they've done enough to win over the doubters from a gameplay perspective, and I wish that the game overall just moved with a bit more haste.

4/5

Reviewed on PlayStation 5. Code provided by the publisher.