Some things are inevitable in soccer: VAR will generate more anger than its benefits, Erling Haaland will score, and EA Sports' annual game releases will fine tune an already excellent product. EA Sports FC 25 is the latest addition to the 30-year-old series (let's face it, last year's FIFA rebirth was a rebrand in name only), and once again, you get the feel of Pep Guardiola tweaking things, rather than a Director of Football trying to change the culture.

Every year, EA Sports promises changes, and while the level of evolution will never match some players' calls to action, FC 25 does come with some comparatively sizable changes. Moving a battleship takes a lot, and FC 25 is an admirable attempt to add enough to make things feel fresh. There is no need to refurbish, just as the great soccer dynasties don't throw out great squads just because it's a new season.

EA Sports are not about radical experimentation, and it should come as no surprise that the changes made to this year's chapter of the soccer dynasty are focused on refinement. FC 25 has better AI, a more complex and rewarding tactical system, a genuinely exciting new game mode, and the chance to spend an extraordinary amount of money on Ultimate Team. Same as it ever was.

FC 25 Is About Refinement Not Radical Change (As Usual)

If you played FC 24, you're not going to get too many shocks in the gameplay of FC 25. It's just not that sort of franchise, and there's really not a steep learning curve for established players in the most played game modes. That might inspire the usual cynicism about how little things have changed, but it's an inspired move from a brand familiarity point of view. I've played for years, and I have no desire to have to relearn. Instead, the education requirements come more subtly or off to the side.

There are some relatively substantial changes, though, including the introduction of women's teams to Career Mode, and the ability to start a career at different points. The AI tune-up requires its own section, as does new mode Rush, but in terms of the impact on gameplay, there is a noticeable change in a couple of very specific ways. The rate of pass interceptions is higher, so pinged passes are more essential; the game feels more physical and marginally slower; rebounds also feel more random, and will likely to lead to more goals. They're all tune-ups in realism, which is not a negative.

Passing intelligence has also been overhauled, making it far more complex, in an attempt to introduce personality as an influence and reflect a more realistic experience. It's frustrating, but does feel more true to life. Bad weather also has tangible impact on play, which is fair, but again, will take some getting used to.

Even more specifically, EA Sports have - at least partly - addressed the issue of monster strikers in Pro Clubs. The last two years have been dominated by playing a 6'7" giant up front, and switching out wide for crosses; a tactic that proved almost impossible to defend against. The maximum height now for created players is 6'5", which feels immediately like closing off an exploit.

Rush Might Be The Best New Thing About FC 25

In 2019, game mode Volta was EA Sports' attempt to simplify soccer and adopt free-flowing and more accessible small sided games. It was the replacement for FIFA Street that fans of that unfairly canceled subfranchise had wanted since 2012, but it never really worked because it wasn't FIFA Street. It was too realistic, too lacking in fun, and somewhat inevitably, it became a ghost town very quickly every year.

But now, Volta is dead, and into the vacuum comes Rush, another small-sided game mode (5x5 this time), with the inspired addition of full integration into all game modes. Volta was too set apart, and there was ultimately too little reward for committing to it. In FC 25, Rush delivers a social gaming mode that values teamwork for rewards, as long as you don't end up stuck playing online games with players who think they're Ronaldinho. Crucially, in stark contrast to the grind other game modes are known for, it's genuinely great fun, even if the commentary is cringe-inducing almost immediately.

The all-round superior Rush is also a key part of Career Mode, where you can use it to improve youth players in 5v5 games. It's also part of Clubs as a further commitment to make it feel like something to invest your time in. There's also the bonus of something that feels overlooked every year in sport simulation - family play across different ages. My son is 7, and he's a nice little chap, but he's terrible at 11x11. Rush allowed for fun shared gameplay, and less barely suppressed rage at him misunderstanding the Gegenpress.

Career Mode Gets Some Love, Ultimate Team Is.. Well, Ultimate Team

Ultimate Team is inevitably very important to EA Sports. It's hugely popular, no matter how you feel about it personally, and succeeds despite the immutable truth that it is pay to win. It might sound pessimistic, but the addition of relegation to Division Rivals is huge, given it avoids the massive dearth in player level that quickly develops. It's also character building, or so it's claimed.

Career Mode's changes feel more substantial: there's new customization options, as well as the ability to select a real-life manager for your team. To his presumable delight, Fabrizio Romano has been included, which means anyone who loves him can enjoy his updates, and anyone who doesn't can take advantage of the new customization options and turn off transfer windows to minimize his source of income. There's also the option to turn off sacking to avoid any over-eagerness to change things radically backfiring catastrophically.

FC 25's Tactical Changes & FC IQ Work Well (Until They Don't)

FC 25 has made a commendable effort to change the tactical system in a way that feels tangible. Flexibility has clearly been the mantra: training plans and match tactics have been changed comparatively radically, with more focus on individual roles. One of the headlines (especially for Liverpool fans), is the addition of the falseback role (inverted full-back by another name), but there's more to the changes.

Tactics can be imported and exported, but it's not as simple as copy and pasting, because players have to be suited to the roles. They have four levels of familiarity with roles, and it's not just a case of putting great players into a role they can't play and expecting class to show. You can also choose how hard to train your players, and in combination with the role proficiency, there's better control of development. EA Sports are heading in the right direction - towards Football Manager, specifically - but it's still some way away from optimal levels of control for fans of more complex simulations.

For more than 30 years of soccer simulators, screaming Arteta-like at the useless CPU teammates who were both ill-equipped and unwilling to adopt your footballing philosophy. It's got better over the years, but FC 25's new AI is a further step towards the positive. Teammates are more intelligent, with some further refinement needed. They're still not world class readers of the game, let's say, and the longer you'll spend playing, the more you'll see the same old frustrations about movement off the ball.

Smart Tactics, however, have proven largely pointless or actively terrible. Presented as FC 25's answer to Football Manager's Assistant Manager tips (which have also always been hit-and-miss), it's something to mostly ignore. The advice is simply not intelligent in its current state, and is missing anything specific about how to beat your current opponent other than grand handwaves.

Final Thoughts On EA Sports FC 25 & Review Score

FC 25 is another solid and very playable soccer game, polished to a very high level after years of refinement, with just enough newness to delight, even if only in the short term. There's a nagging suspicion that EA Sports could and should switch to a less frequent release schedule - even every two years - with seasonal updates between.

That said, Rush is a great addition, and hopefully the broader adoption of it across game modes will avoid another sorry Volta situation. Tactics feel more substantial, and there is an obvious move here to hand players more control to feel more like real life managers, particularly in player development.

If what you want from FC 25 is wholesale change, you will find yourself disappointed. The graphics look the same, the menus are the same (and still have bugs), and the gameplay is largely the same, despite the already mentioned tweaks. But that's part of being an annual FC or FIFA buyer, and until EA Sports has a real contender in the soccer simulator marketplace, it's going to stay that way. There is currently no incentive to change things up, after all.

The cash cow of Ultimate Team will always override everything else with FC 25, sadly. In an ideal world, EA Sports would develop Clubs into a major eSport, which would do extremely well. Real world soccer clubs around the world could have their own teams, and most importantly, the gameplay would then take priority with Ultimate Team being in the background generating income. Plainly, the game would be much better for it.

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