EA Vancouver·Released Sep 27, 2024·Single player
EA SPORTS FC 25 gives you more ways to win for the club. Team up with friends in your favourite modes with the new 5v5 Rush, and manage your club to victory as FC IQ delivers more tactical control than ever before.
FC 25 is a new FC, with some genuine differences on- and off-pitch. It's also the exact same FC it's always been.
EA Sports FC 25 is the best playing version of the annual soccer sim in quite some time, with more intelligent artificial intelligence and weather physics adding a layer of density and dynamism to the experience – albeit largely offline. To us, Ultimate Team feels like it's getting a bit stale, but we like the addition of Rush across the entire release, which offers something a little different for when you fancy a change of pace. And while the commentary and menus are below par, the overall quality of the presentation continues to be underappreciated.
EA finally treated Switch owners to a feature-parity football game last year and EA Sports FC 25 continues this by adding the new modes also available on other systems. Rush, in particular, is a great new way to play a tighter, more action-packed version of football, and the expanded season rewards system means the game is less reliant on Ultimate Team – which is typically under-populated on Switch – to give players new tasks throughout the year. Performance is still underwhelming but this is otherwise the second solid entry in a row from EA.
An annual update to a polished, occasionally spectacular, and slightly overfamiliar suite of football and card collecting.
With an overhauled tactics system and a thrilling new mode, EA FC 25 makes some positive steps forward that are unfortunately tempered by long-standing issues and a lack of improvements elsewhere.
Apart from Rush mode, welcome but largely incremental improvements play it a bit too safe.
FC 25's gameplay familiarity may trigger initial disappointment, but career mode tweaks and the brilliant Rush mode soon pull you back in for another year. Ultimate Team, meanwhile, remains divisive as ever – but fans of that mode will love its myriad fan-service additions.
