EA Sports FC 25often abbreviated EA FC 25is the new football chapter from Electronic Arts released on September 27, 2024 for all consoles: PlayStation, Xbox, PC and Nintendo Switch. It’s a crossgen game, so it’s available both for eighth generation platforms (PlayStation 4, Xbox One), both for ninth generation consoles (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series Compared to the last iteration there are some new features regarding the animations of the athletes, but there are also some new implementations regarding the beating heart of the title: Ultimate Team. But what are they? Do they work well? Find out with our review of EA Sports FC 25.
We focus on strategy
The developers of EA FC 25 they put the focus on how to best run the team. For this reason now we see introductions such as FC IQ and Roleswhich have a fundamental role in building a functional team to be able to beat anyone, whether in one of the modes proposed in Ultimate Team, or simply to demonstrate to your group of friends who is the strongest.
It is essential to understand how FC IQ works for a very simple reason: variety. The system present in FC 24 has been completely removed to make room for this new implementation, which will allow you to build the formation and the way in which the athletes will move on the field. For example, you can give more importance to verticalisations, to tiki-taka or have something balanced between these two options. Once you have decided which formation is best suited to your way of playing, you can start applying certain roles to the various players to determine what they will do once the kick-off is heard. And it is applicable in any situation: possession, without the ball, with the ball and without possession. But if you know a friend who knows more than you, you can too have him send you the code to use his IQ Tactic.
Overall, this new feature of EA FC 25 manages to make the building the most fun and varied teamwhich should avoid “copy-paste” especially in the Ultimate Team, but you can also apply this feature in Career.
In addition to gameplay innovations, Electronic Arts has also implemented a new mode of game: RUSHwhich you will find within the Ultimate Team, and which replaced VOLTA. In fact, now you will play together with other people anyway in 5-on-5 matchesbut you will not have control of the goalkeeper and you will have control of only one player, taken from the Ultimate Team team. If played together with a group of friends it becomes much more fun, because it is played on a much smaller field and the games last only 5 minutes. This means that you will have to immediately give your best to be able to win, which will allow you to farm the points necessary to improve your Ultimate Team.
Pad in hand
While EA Sports FC 25 may look the same as its predecessor, it actually was New physics also implementedwhich significantly slows down the pace of matches, even online. But there are a series of problems we have encountered that are worth underlining: the first is that i goalkeepers sometimes they seem “useless”. In the sense that they often don’t block the ball, letting it bounce off their hands or body, which gives their opponents the perfect opportunity to return it to the net. Then we have the contrast and the player change which are decidedly unreliable, which is also notable in the Ultimate Team Moments, where there is a section dedicated to tackles, and although they are made, these are not calculated. Something that still gives a lot nuisanceconsidering that it should be a “football simulator” is that also in EA FC 25 it’s easier to make moves like champagne football, instead of piercing the defense with a working passing scheme.
Furthermore, we could notice that there is a slight lag both in the menus, and during matches, and in online ones they make you miss the perfect moment for the pass or shot, which is definitely annoying. The players have already made efforts to patch things up, but wait for the EA Sports update.
Some new features arrive in the main offline mode: Career. It’s possible choose whether to be a coach or a playerbut the most interesting thing is now there are changes to the physics based on the weather. For example, if there is wind the trajectory of the ball changes, while if it rains the player could even slip.
Some problems
On Xbox we were able to notice that if you keep the Ultimate Team open, you exit the game and then re-enter it using Quick Resumeyou are kicked out due to a failed connection (as it should be), but then it becomes impossible to access it because a network error is reported. It also happened that the game would freeze between menusespecially when opening packs in Ultimate Team, which leads to having to manually close and reopen EA FC 25.
Obviously with regards to thetechnical aspect we see the game running very well during matches, the animations make it clear that it is slowly ceasing to be too arcade. Certain, bugs are still commonplaceand although they often manage to steal a few laughs, other times they are very annoying and affect the results of the matches.
The details are numerous and additional short cutscenes have also been added before matches, which serve to immerse players more. They have also changed package cutscenesminutiae that should not be underestimated, despite the fact that they are often skipped by players.
When and if EA Sports manages to solve the lag problem and the problems we listed at the beginning of the chapter, EA FC 25 will be even more enjoyable. For the moment we can do nothing but wait. Overall, we can definitely say that this new iteration it’s a great foundation for future gamesgiven that now that the gameplay seems quite consolidated, it’s time to focus a little more on the strategy and technical side, so that we can truly have the definitive football simulator.
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