Sports games are an ever-changing landscape that can be hit or miss depending on the year. Games like FIFA 22, FIFA 16, NBA2K 17, and Madden 2004 are some of the best games in their franchise, even if they are a little dated. Some of these games are older but are the best in the year, with difficulty and expectations rising every year. 

With the past success of EAFC 24 and its popularity amongst fans of the FIFA franchise, they decided to keep the title of EAFC instead of renewing the FIFA title. EA FC25 is the newest and next game in the FIFA franchise. Although the game is no longer under the FIFA name, it still holds the same standards as if it were. With a new game come more ideas and bigger changes that will surely affect the ways people play the new game. One of the biggest changes was a huge overhaul to the old EAFC24 graphics system, making them a lot better. This year’s game also introduces updates to existing game modes and a whole new game mode.

Mechanics and Game modes    

There are several new additions for different game modes in EAFC 25. A new mode has been added called Rush in place of last year’s Volta game mode. 

In Rush, five players are going against another five players on a small field. The purpose of the mode is to focus on fast-paced gameplay and score as many goals as you can against your opponent while also defending your own goal. This mode was added for the Ultimate Team and Clubs. 

A new mechanic for Ultimate Team, Rush, Clubs, and almost every other mode in the game is goalkeeper Rush. With this new mechanic, the old goalkeeper rush, which would be a 50/50 on whether you get scored on or your keeper blocks the shot, has been improved, giving the goalkeeper a much bigger chance of blocking the opponent’s shot instead of letting it in like it used to. Most of the modes are the same. 

The Ultimate team mechanics work the same, but they didn’t really need much improvement other than the improvement of the goalkeeper. Rush is a mode that is fun but is more fun with a group of people rather than just by yourself. 

Manager and Player Career

The newest changes have come in the form of new options in the career modes. In a player career, you can play as icons of the game (Ronaldo Nazario, Zinedine Zidane, and David Beckham, to name a few), a child prodigy, or an old player coming back from an injury when making your new character. 

A new addition to a manager’s career is the introduction of a coach from a women’s team, allowing you to coach and play in the women’s leagues of the biggest leagues in the world. In the manager career, you now have new things to take care of. The new complacency meter means that your character can become too happy, so you have to keep a closer eye on your players. 

Another is the new press conferences, which let bots ask questions about your team and question your coaching style. 

Youth academy tournaments also let you play as young academy players in a rush-style tournament format. 

A new way to receive transfer information has been added in the form of Fabrizio Romano, a famous Italian sports journalist who is famous because he is one of the most credible sources when it comes to news of players transferring or being in talks with other clubs. I like these changes, which add a new layer of things that you have to take care of. It is pretty easy to do even on the hardest difficulty, and some of it can add a challenge from time to time. It can be kind of annoying to keep track of each player’s happiness level, but it’s not very difficult. All in all, I like all the new changes to the ultimate team. 

Clubs

There haven’t been many changes to one of the most popular game modes, clubs, or as most people call it, pro clubs. This game mode allows you and another person to create custom characters that go up against other players. The main goal is winning games and climbing the divisions. This game mode can be 11v11 if you have eleven people to play with. But since not many do, the required number of people to play the game is 2. 

The missing players in the squad of 11 are replaced by AI bots who play alongside you. The game mode feels the same with a few changes to the AI. 

The biggest change is the introduction of facilities, which you can buy to improve how your bots play. It can make them better at scoring goals, making tackles, or outpacing their opponents. When you start, you have a 1 million dollar budget to work with to improve your bots, but through progressing through the divisions, you can gain a bigger budget for better upgrades. The bots now seem more aggressive when both attacking and defending. Before, the bots would let players push through to the goal so they wouldn’t risk getting a foul, but now, with the new changes, the bots make more risky tackles, which is a lot better. While it is risking a foul, I respect the passion of an AI without emotions. In short, I like all the new changes that are happening with pro clubs, and they will be important when the game begins to become as competitive as it’s known for. 

 Overall, I think this year’s game is mostly the same as last year’s, but with some much-needed changes. The difference is that the changes that were made this year helped a lot in gameplay, and adding new things to the game will help keep it from feeling repetitive. I rate the game an 8/10, and I believe it is worth getting this year.