EA FC 25 review: ol’ familiar football, even if it does encourage a different style

Something feels off. I’ve brought an utterly improbable Champions League title to Aston Villa, built an enviable Ultimate Team and developed a formation that keeps at least outright humiliation at bay in online matches… And yet, my heart isn’t bursting with the joy of joga bonito. This must be how Guardiola feels, popping onto the pitch to celebrate his annual Prem title with the latest batch of ruthlessly efficient, lab-grown wonderkids and pushing down the feeling that this one doesn’t feel quite as special as the first.

That is to say, EA Sports FC25 is a bit like FC24. Which was quite a lot like FIFAs 21-23, which had a lot in common with the FIFAs our ancient ancestors used to play by the fireside in their primitive tribal dwellings. There are noticeable additions – particularly new tactics controls and a 5v5 Rush mode – and I’m glad they’re here. But as much as they contribute towards a continuously compelling suite of foot-to-ball, they can’t quite dislodge the nagging feeling that this shouldn’t be an annual, full-price release anymore.

Here’s something cheery, though: PC performance is a lot better from the off this year. FC 25 feels like it’s spent more time lavishing love and attention to its PC port, and frame rate in particular is the beneficiary. I had an awful time with frame pacing and bizarre mid-match slowdowns in the last game, but on the exact same specs I’ve enjoyed countless Ollie Watkins goals and replays of PvP match slide tackles that should be a police matter rather than one for the refs, all at a consistent locked 60fps.

That’s not a reason to buy the game, of course, but the very first time you load up FC 25 you’re introduced to an element that just might be: Zinedine Zidane, inviting you into his office to tell you that tactics are important.

I did briefly entertain hopes that Zizu’s expensive-looking cameo might announce some Football Manager-grade depth, and that I might arrange Raumdauters and Segundo Volantes to my heart’s content. Inevitably FC25’s take on tactical depth doesn’t run as luxuriously, obsessively deep as Sports Interactive’s, but it does give you some new elements to fiddle with.

Mid-game you’ve now got the option to switch up your style of play with a few D-pad taps, transitioning from a possession-based Tiki-Take style to counterattacking, and so on. Those options live separately to the standard defense-standard-attack strategies, so when you spend a while fiddling with some tactical changes and then actually claw a decent result back, the victory feels all the sweeter because you feel like that big brain of yours masterminded it.

Of course, in online matches where everyone just picks the eleven fastest players on the planet and stepovers their way to goal after mirthless, artless goal, tactical nuances like these are largely lost. But it’s not FC 25’s fault if mcfc_haaland420 isn’t interested in making use of the systems it’s added.

Off the pitch, in Ultimate Team and Manager Career, the newfound tactical fiddling extends to setting player roles. There’s definitely a smug smile to be found when you arrive at the combination of roles that suits both your formation and the individuals in your squad, and the way it plays out on the pitch is both logical and, at times, quite impressive.

Last year in FC24, the ‘PlayStyles’ AI mechanic gave players certain tendencies: Grealish loves to cut inside, Rodri holds up the ball, Haaland finishes like a surface-to-air missile, etc etc. FC 25 formalises that, giving you more of a say over how and where those AI tendencies trigger. It’s still nothing close to the complexity of Football Manager and its terrifying heat maps, but it’s good for giving you something else to tinker with once you’ve opened the nine billion packs required to assemble a decent gold squad in Ultimate Team.

And look, this is neither here nor there, but you can paste in a custom tactic code now and apply someone else’s thoughtful tactical setup to your team in one tap. It’s handy and it’ll help you win more matches. But it does rather undermine the whole endeavour, doesn’t it? The online multiplayer in this series is as ruthless as a reality TV contestant’s sponsored Instagram posts, which means the community will arrive at ‘the’ meta tactic pretty quickly, and everyone will inevitably just use it. Once again, not FC25’s fault. It’s yours, mcfc_haaland420.

Let’s touch on Rush mode too, because FC25’s obviously rather proud of it. Rush’s endearingly quick and simple 5v5 matches crop up across all the longform modes, as a training exercise in Career and as another way to grind for the bajillion currencies and ever-filling bars of Ultimate Team. Oddly enough it’s the antithesis of the tactically minded football that the game’s trying to get you to play elsewhere – just four of you pelting heavy passes at each other, darting in between the lines and trying to engineer that one perfect passing sequence that undoes the defence.

Here’s what’s nice about it: you feel the differences between players much more in a five-a-side setting. In Career mode you get to know your youth prospects in a Rush tournament, test-driving them and considering how and where they might fit into your first team. In Ultimate Team, it’s a welcome chance to feel how lithe and silky Jamal Musiala is, and how much weight and momentum Haaland puts behind his runs.

I’m pleased to see contracts removed from Ultimate Team, which was too menu-heavy for my liking in its recent outings, and seemed to nickel-and-dime you with its resource management. Player evolutions are a bit more involved now to include customisable visual elements to your favourite players’ cards, which… fine. It’ll make some players happy. Much more useful is the ability to store up to 100 untradeable player cards though, so that you can use them for squad building challenges at a later date. This is housekeeping, really. A quick sweep and polish round UT’s endless menus. The experience is largely unchanged, except for the effects of the new tactics and Rush mode’s cameos.

My favourite thing about FC25 isn’t the tactics, or the Rush matches, or even the fact it actually runs at a consistent 60fps on my PC for the first time in living memory. It’s the fact that the game’s played slower.

You watch an AI vs AI game of NBA 2K and go say to yourself: that looks like basketball. Then you watch 22 aliens sprinting around at 40mph in modern day FIFA/FC and are reminded that this enjoyable but absurd style of constant counterattacking bears very little resemblance to what happens on a football pitch.

That effect is lessened in FC25. Not so dramatically that anyone’s likely to sharpen a pitchfork or sellotape their caps lock key down in retaliation, but enough that you can employ something other than pace to build an attack. You might even use one of the game’s suggested tactical or personnel changes (not always useful, but the suggested subs are a nice way to bypass a few menus) to engineer a goal. Or build up the play patiently, waiting for a midfielder to make the right run. These were always possibilities before, but they were vastly inferior routes to goal than blasting by with a permanently held right trigger. Now it just feels that there’s an extra quarter-second to look around and spot an opportunity to do something clever.

It’s a bit like Serie A in that way then, is FC25. And while I remain privately furious that the move away from the FIFA licence seems to have left EA without the adequate rights for some of Serie A’s best teams (honestly, you should see the ‘We have AC Milan at home’ travesties in place of the licensed teams), I am pleased to say I’ve had more raw, honest enjoyment with FC25 than I have any of its recent predecessors. Partly because it feels like the PC port got the required amount of love this year, and partly because I feel just slightly more empowered to play a different style of football this year. In my heart of hearts, I know that this inch-by-inch progress doesn’t justify £50 on a ‘new’ game every year. But here I am, playing it anyway and enjoying it like a comfy old favourite jumper that’s just had the elbows repaired.