EA Sports FC 25 Review - gameplay over gimmicks makes for a season to remember

There’s a lot that EA Sports FC 25 does which isn’t iterative - and that, actually, is a good thing.

When Claude Makelele moved from Real Madrid to Chelsea at the height of Galacticos era, Zinedine Zidane famously said: “Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you’re losing the entire engine?”

And, despite the exciting addition of PlayStyles in the inaugural EA Sports FC, EA’s flagship football franchise has felt a little like that in recent years; with inconsistent gameplay full of exploitable mechanics that drove both casual and dedicated players wild.

However, EA Sports FC 25 feels like it’s done its doggies. Putting in the hard yards to redevelop the crucial underpinnings that aren’t as exciting on the back of the box, but make for a much better match-to-match experience in all of the different game modes.

But since EA does actually have to put these new systems on the back of a box, they’ve been dressed up with fancy, cerebral names that sound like they come from a piece of corporate expense software or a twitter account which tells you how fast the ball was spinning during every pass of a Tuesday fixture between Hull and Bristol City.

The most important is “FC IQ”, which overhauls the tactical structure of every game, giving players new roles to perform on the pitch and letting you set up real, tangible gameplans that actually have a visible and powerful impact on player behaviour.

It’s a transformational shift for players who want to engage with the system, letting you more predictably craft a proper playing style for your team, both with and without the ball. Us football nerds can actively live out all of the buzzwords we’ve heard on podcasts from people who know what they’re talking about, with “a back 3 in possession”, “5-and-5 split”, “repeatable offensive actions” and “box midfield” all possible with the new tools.

Mad for it. | Image credit: EA

They’re also a lot more shareable now, with unique Tactics Codes making it easy to import a pro player or content creator’s set up into your team management menu if you don’t want to dream up something yourself.

FC IQ, combined with a short passing rework which makes first-time and no-look passes extremely error-prone, make for a much more deliberate moment-to-moment loop. But crucially, this is a solid feature which brings something new to almost every gamemode in EA Sports FC 25. It brings an extra layer of depth and authenticity to the long-neglected Manager Career Mode, a fresh differentiator to the hyper-competitive Ultimate Team, and even makes different club sides feel more varied in Kick Off mode.

Although, while FC 25 has made great improvements to the gameplay, it’s still a mixed bag technically, with a few errant Jabulanis mixed in with the proper matchday equipment.

The menus can be stodgy and quite often freeze, especially in Ultimate Team - which is a returning frustration from last year’s game. Then in the revitalised Career Mode, some mechanics in key features like Youth Scouting have shipped either bugged (outfield youth players generate with too low heading accuracy, whereas goalkeepers have no diving ability) or incomplete (some new scouting nations only have one surname in their naming pool).

It’s an infuriating stumble, particularly when positive steps have been taken in so many areas.

What's this, Scotch mist? | Image credit: EA

But Career Mode is also a major beneficiary from another main addition to FC 25, which EA is calling “Cranium”. Put simply, it makes the players who don’t have an ultra-realistic face scan look more like themselves and less like NPCs from Runescape.

In previous editions, particularly licensed managers who didn’t have a proper facescan have looked embarrassingly bad. But, even though we still have the hilariously svelte Carlo Ancelotti because there’s only one body type, the floor has been raised so much across the board. In top division saves where most players have a scan, the non-scanned players don’t stick out like that meme where there’s one guy dressed as the Babadook at a diner party - so that’s a big plus.

Again, while the match-to-match experience in Career Mode is much improved by FC IQ, there are the same quibbles with the overall package. In long-term saves, the Overall Rating inflation of AI teams as almost every player hits their max isn’t as realistic as it could be, and the AI still also tends to build lopsided squads with 3 world-class right backs and only 1 central midfielder. You can sort this out with a bit of Peak Barclays or FPP headcanon (maybe the standard of football got better, or the weird rosters are the fault of a fictitious transfer embargo), but it shows that there’s still a lot of work to do to turn EA Sports FC into a really complete football sim.

Under Pressure. | Image credit: EA Sports/VG247

Interestingly, Ultimate Team almost feels like the most static mode in FC 25, since it’s so aesthetically similar to 24 - even if it’s benefitted hugely from all the same upgrades as other modes.

Ultimate Team is also the most difficult part of the game to review because it changes so much throughout the yearly life cycle of the game. It only takes the discovery of one overpowered exploit to pretty much throw most of the gains and variety of FC IQ out of the window.

In the opening weeks, it feels like a progression and escalation of the shift we’ve seen in recent years to more untradable rewards and a focus on completing the same handful of meta SBCs rather than building up your team with casual trading.

It’s definitely a grind, but one that’s helped out a lot by much better access to less competitive outlets like the stronger Career Mode and the new game-type, Rush.

Rush is a 5-a-side game type which features in Pro Clubs, as Youth Team tournaments in Career Mode and as a fantasy Powerleague in Ultimate Team. On a smaller pitch with blue card sin bins for professional fouls and an emphasis on quick interchanges and skill moves, Rush is pitched as a more social, less toxic game type in FC 25, designed to be fun, fast and engaging instead of brain-bustingly intense.

Real talk. | Image credit: EA SPORTS

When you get a like-minded team, it’s a lot of fun - but of course strangers on the internet aren’t always like-minded. But there’s also an anarchic energy to the people who pick a slow, silver CB then refuse to stand anywhere but offside at the opponent’s end of the pitch that I just have to respect.

The cliche with EA Sports games is that they’re always an iterative step. But, outside of the mid-console generation graphical similarity, there’s a lot that EA Sports FC 25 does which isn’t iterative. The big changes brought about by FC IQ, Cranium and Rush make for an interesting gameplay refresh which gives new impetus to both competitive online modes and long-underserved offline careers.

EA Sports FC 25 is out now on PlayStation, Xbox, PC and Switch.