The AI received a major overhaul with everything being added this year. The amount of skill moves that can be done will take mastering, as everything from recent years carries over, but with important and positive updates. There’s a noticeable change in ball behavior across the board. The gameplay isn’t as wide open as in the past it came down to finding a skill player breaking away and making a direct pass to try and score the goal. The AI is aggressive on defense and will now counter and catch players that tend to break away. This is where the strategy really comes into play as proper pass placement and moving the ball into scoring position is much more important.

On the pitch, it’s EA FC. It looks the same as last year and the general feeling of the game is similar, too. That’s to be expected, and while going back to those videos from EA did reveal some under the hood tweaks (more on those below), it’s hard to see that much impact in the short time I had actually playing the g

As part of my preview for EA FC 25 , I was sent around 90 minutes of panel discussions of the new features in the game. But sometimes these can cloud your judgement – I’ve been playing EA FC (or FIFA , as it was then) since FIFA ’99, as well as several of its competitors, so I know how the game feels. The best place to start was with a ma

Mid-fielders are the core of your offense in **EA Sports FC 25 ** , with the best players in this position using creative passes to set up your strikers for a goal. Athletes who can control the ball are strong assets for the three positions in the middle of the field. By analyzing a player’s traits, you can determine which ones will be the most talented mid-fielders to recr

But in presentation and organisation, EA FC feels very different. It feels a lot more Tactico-coded; no longer do players play in Defence or Midfield but as Inverted Wingbacks, Ballplaying Centre Backs, Wide Forwards, Shadow Strikers, and Roaming Playmakers. There have been options to control your positioning on a more micro level before, but this brings it front and centre, emphasising tactical input – how the players react to this is called FC

Speaking of his specifics, Kylian Mbappé comes with an overall rating of 91, holding stats like 97 pace, 92 dribbling, and 90 shooting. He will make your work easier, and it would be extremely hard for the opponents to counter

Greater depth has been added to the youth academy with more chance to push a philosophy over relying on stats and regens, while transfer rules and negotiations can be customised to include embargoes or be skipped and done automatically. For Player Career, you can adjust the start of your career to create a mini version of The Journey, and in a move every sports game ever has tried and none have ever succeeded at, there’s a redesigned in-game social media f

It can make picking your formation and best line-up take a little longer, but playing Foden and Doku in the same position but with different roles, I did see an impact in how the players moved around the pitch. It seems good for Career Mode, but takes away from the pick up and go feeling of playing with friends or online, and how it will work in Ultimate Team when cards change players’ stats is still uncl

You can also pick up Career Mode halfway through a season, taking over from a sacked manager or following a player’s transfer, with live updates being added as real-life incidents happen in the leagues. In a similar vein, you can take Icons through their careers, which is getting closer to the features we’ve seen in previous World Cup games of recreating classic moments . One day, ma

Then there’s Career Mode. I’m a rare breed of EA FC player (or at least I feel like I am) in that Career Mode is my go-to , followed by Online Seasons. Ultimate Team has never had its claws in me much. This time, the biggest change is the addition of women’s teams for Career Mode. In our short preview we only had Kick-Off and Rush, but it’s a requested change which adds more options to the FC25 game blog guide with a simple

EA SPORTS has introduced FC IQ to EA SPORTS FC 25 that aims to overhaul the gameplay and add strategy to building teams and approaching game day. Along with this, another major addition is a completely new game mode with Rush, which minimizes the teams to a 5v5 setup for both offline and online options. While VOLTA has seemingly taken a back seat this year (even though it is technically still in the game), shoring up the gameplay experience in both 11v11 and the new Rush mode is clearly evident and pays off. This may be EA SPORTS best soccer/football game to date thanks to these updates.

EA SPORTS FC 25 ‘s implementation of FC IQ and the addition of Rush pays off. Rush is fun and addictive, but doesn’t need the commentator. Playing Clubs Rush is the peak way to play this mode thanks to quick turnover times and player progression. The inclusion of FC IQ and being able to build tactics suited to boost players is a much beneficial addition. The only issue is with menu design in forcing players to back out to swap out bench players to see if they would better fit the scheme. The rest of the overall experience remains the same, but with VOLTA not being the stand out mode it once was. The other game modes benefit from FC IQ. The gameday experience remains fantastic and properly replicates the atmosphere, while the changes to AI greatly affect the gameplay. These two additions alone make EA SPORTS FC 25 stand out as one of the best in the series.