EA Sports FC 25 adds the most vital new mode since Ultimate Team

The promise of EA’s divorce from the FIFA license was that eventually, once the decades of belongings had been separated and FIFA started looking for their own one-bedroom flat, EA Sports FC would be able to go onto heights that the footballing governing body held it back from.

While this wasn’t quite the case for last year’s entry, which had the vibe of a company hastily filing the word “FIFA” off of everything before it got the game out the door, EA Sports FC 25 is the first glimpse of what could be the future of the flagship football simulator.

EA Sports FC 25 includes large sweeping changes, as well as tiny tweaks that only the hardcore will notice. The biggest and best change is the implementation of Rush, a new 5vs5 mode that is implemented across all modes and is the best addition to the series since Ultimate Team.

Essentially, four player-controller outfielders and one AI-controlled goalkeeper go hell-for-leather in intense, frantic, and often hilarious games of five-a-side. This mode is available in Ultimate Team, wherein players can bring one of their very own items into the game to create a supergroup with their pals. It’s also in Clubs and Career Mode.

It’s rare that a series as long in the tooth as EA’s footballing giant can add something that feels so transformative, but now we genuinely can’t imagine the game without Rush. It’s a fun distraction from the hyper-serious Ultimate Team grind that was sadly missing. It’s also a great base from which the mode can grow and grow.

Rush is even implemented in the long-suffering career modes. In manager mode, players can play in games of Rush using their academy prospects to level them up, or discover a hidden gem. In the grind of playing through a whole season, this is a great way to do something different gameplay-wise, but still contribute to your main save.

There’s a welcome focus on synergy across the game’s modes. Players can now gain XP for the in-game battle pass across all modes rather than just Ultimate Team. While they’re not currently present in the game, the beta for EA Sports FC 25 did feature a paid tier to the season pass. It’s unclear if EA plans to implement that in future seasons.

Gameplay-wise, EA Sports FC 25 isn’t a great departure from EA Sports FC 24. The issue with commenting on how one of these games plays is that it’s often the part of these reviews that age the quickest. Sweeping patches that totally change the metagame have been ever more common in recent years. This is largely due to the sheer size of the community playing the game, and thus the number of people discovering “broken” tactics and skill moves.

Play Ultimate Team during the launch week of EA Sports FC 25, and you’ll see virtually every player using an easily-executed speed boost mechanic, which turns even the most average player into a rocket ship. But, by the time there’s a new influx of players during Christmas, or even as soon as the first Weekend League, this will be taken out, and a new mechanic will dominate.

However, one change that’s been made to the game which has already increased the variety in matches, and in some instances, the frustration, is the focus on tactics. This year, EA FC has had a bit of a Football Manager-ification. While players have been able to adjust formation and instructions for players for years, this year’s game places a much higher emphasis on becoming your own Bald Fraud.

Players now have certain roles assigned to them, such as a box-to-box midfielder or an inside forward, which dramatically changes their behaviour on the pitch. This is great in one sense in that it is the closest that the EA series has come to replicating that FM-style tinkering with formations, but it’s also pretty overwhelming.

The game does a poor job of explaining the system to you, and for those who aren’t familiar with a lot of tactical terms, we can see how it would become frustrating. For players that want to leave it to the pros, EA does allow players to enter a code and adopt user-created tactics.

There are long-running issues with EA Sports FC 25 that feel like they could only be fixed by several years of development time. The speed of the in-game menus has never been more glacial, there are animation bugs that have been in the game for a decade, and in outside of the gameplay, it often feels like a series that’s creaking along.

Obviously, due to the series being a yearly affair, there’s no room to take some time off, and at this point, plenty of these issues feel like they’ll only be solved by a full divorce from the current game engine.

But EA Sports FC 25 is the best, most complete entry in years. As with every annual entry, there are annoyances and things that feel like they will be ironed out over the coming months, but as a base football product, it’s excellent. Rush is a huge addition that adds something that’s quick, fun, and engaging to a lineup of modes that has been far too focused on the hardcore for too long.

It still feels like we’re not quite at the sunlit uplands that  EA promised in the post-FIFA era, but we’re certainly getting there. The Ultimate Team money printing machine marches ever onwards, and this year even reduces some of the mode’s more tedious play conditions.