July 25, 2024
Welcome to the EA SPORTS FC 25 Gameplay Deep Dive Pitch Notes my name is Keegan Sabatino, Gameplay Producer on EA FC, and helping me today I have my colleagues, Brae Thompson and Thomas Caleffi (with special thanks to everyone in the Gameplay Team). In this article, we'll break down each gameplay update coming to FC 25 in detail to get you set for launch on September 27.
We'll kick things off with a quick summary of the key features we're introducing, then dive into full feature breakdowns below.
Let's get started!
This overhaul of tactical foundations across the game delivers greater strategic control and more realistic team movement, while a new AI model powered by real-world data influences player tactics through all-new Player Roles.
An overhaul of Team Tactics upgrades positioning at both ends of the pitch and changes how every team plays based on their real-world style, making every match feel fresh and unique.
More than 50 new Player Roles will guide the way every player thinks and behaves on the pitch, resulting in more authentic tactical intelligence and movement off the ball.
New real-time suggestions and D-Pad functionalities make in-game tactical decision-making more accessible and intuitive than ever, and new broadcast features allow you to better experience the changes as they take effect.
FC IQ is the new core tactical and positional system for EA SPORTS FC™ 25.
FC IQ helps refresh our approach to tactics and positioning to create greater variety and authenticity in gameplay, while a new AI model, powered by real-world data, influences player tactics through all-new Player Roles
In EA SPORTS FC™ 25, FC IQ sits alongside HyperMotionV* and PlayStyles as a foundational pillar of our gameplay innovations. Thanks to real-world volumetric data from top teams and footballers, we built HyperMotionV, which helped us move forward with the visuals and authenticity of our players. Meanwhile, implementing PlayStyles allowed us to further showcase players' abilities and personalities on the ball. FC IQ is the latest fundamental pillar that brings greater variety and authenticity to our gameplay.
We’ve seen our community ask for new updates to Tactics, and our intent is for FC IQ to shake up how players choose to play across all modes.
FC IQ has three main components: Player Roles, Team Tactics, and Smart Tactics.
We will explore these components in even more detail with a later Deep Dive, but here’s what they’ll look like overall.
Player Roles are the main differentiation of FC IQ and guide how every player thinks, behaves, and moves off the ball. Each Role is distinct, with positive aspects and drawbacks.
A majority of Familiar Roles are assigned with help from a proprietary AI model that uses real-world Opta data. Each player will have a Role Familiarity that allows them to perform their duties at a higher capacity than other players.
Roles also determine how your players line up with and without the ball, and you can see that in the menus.
While a Role dictates the main responsibilities of the player, the Focus is a modifier upon the Role that enables players to slightly tweak one or two characteristics of it.
At launch, there are 31 Roles, each with 1-3 Focuses, totaling 52 unique combinations.
We will explore each of these Roles and Focuses in a future Deep Dive.
Position | Role - Focus
While the Roles are determined per position, Familiarity is connected to specific players and acts on the Role level.
Familiarity is position-based, meaning that if a player has that position as one of their preferred ones, they can play any role in that position. This applies to any position a player might have.
Our proprietary AI model helps determine the Role Familiarity of a majority of players in FC 25.
FC IQ Team Tactics introduces systems used by football’s top tacticians and upgrades the football IQ of every player on the pitch. As a result, your whole team will think and behave more like real-world pros.
These are the main components of team tactics:
Smart Tactics make in-game tactical decisions more accessible and intuitive, and allow players to better experience their changes as they take effect.
A new messaging system will suggest a range of tactical changes in-game based on the current flow of the match, and players will be able to easily perform changes using the directional buttons.
These are the main components of Smart Tactics:
We will explore more in-depth about FC IQ in a later Deep Dive.
HyperMotionV* technology uses volumetric data to create lifelike player movements. Meanwhile, GK Playstyles bring a new level of depth to the goalkeeper's role, affecting how they react to different situations on the pitch. This technology allows for our AI to better mimic real-life player behaviors, making each match feel fresh and unique.
HyperMotionV Technology continues to evolve towards achieving new levels of authenticity and helps us refresh what’s possible on the pitch, bringing to FC 25 new animations that are driven by real-world volumetric data with the goal of fuelling FC IQ while making players more unique.
As a reminder, AI Mimic takes footballers’ real-world volumetric data and uses advanced artificial intelligence to recreate unique body movements.
AI Mimic technology uses numerous frames of volumetric animation, providing an additional level of detail and fluidity for over 1800 players, including more than 200 new women, ensuring a more diverse and inclusive representation of the global football community. Compared to FC 24, where we had 1,373 players with upper body movement, we've expanded our library to include 1,847 athletes with full body movement, encompassing both upper and lower body actions. This expansion is intended to improve the overall gameplay visuals and bring a new level of realism to the virtual pitch.
A goalkeeper who is known for using their feet to make difficult saves.
Performs foot saves faster and with extended reach.
Performs foot saves more quickly with even greater reach.
A goalkeeper who is known to often challenge attackers head-on in 1v1 situations.
Rush speed is increased and has an improved reaction speed to shots in rushing situations.
Rush speed is greatly increased and has a faster reaction speed to shots in rushing situations.
A goalkeeper who is known for having great deflection control to safer spaces.
Performs deflection saves into safer areas with increased ball speed control.
Performs deflection saves into safer areas or towards free teammates with greater ball speed control.
A goalkeeper who is known to often come off the line to claim high balls from dangerous areas.
Comes out to claim crosses with increased pace, increased awareness of the ball trajectory, and further punch reach with increased power.
Comes out to claim crosses with greater pace, greater awareness of the ball trajectory, increased punch reach with greater power.
A goalkeeper who is known for the ability to cover the net and extend their reach to save challenging shots.
Performs diving saves with improved reach and has access to extended reach animations.
Performs diving saves with greater reach and has access to extended reach animations.
A goalkeeper who is known for starting counter attacks with long throws.
Able to perform throws with increased speed and distance.
Able to perform throws with greater speed and distance.
The attacking phase of the game has received a comprehensive overhaul with an Accuracy Revamp. This includes new Skill Moves, the ability to let the ball run to create space, and improvements to passing, shooting, and dribbling. Our changes here aim to give players more control and precision, making attacking plays more rewarding and exciting.
We're excited to share some significant updates to passing mechanics, which aim to make every pass more authentic and rewarding.
In FC 25 we have implemented a redesigned Accuracy system in order to bring more personality and authenticity to the virtual pitch. This new system is designed to reflect the real-world challenges of making accurate passes under pressure, different angles, and various difficult situations. Players will notice that passes now feel more personality-based, meaning the skills and Attributes of the player you're controlling will have a greater impact on the outcome of each pass. This change also ensures that good situations, where you make smart, tactical decisions, will yield better results, truly rewarding your football acumen.
In our continuous effort to refine the gameplay experience, we've implemented several key updates to passing mechanics;
Note: These animations only trigger in matches with Rain or Snow weather conditions non-competitive modes. These animations, when triggered, are only visual and do not affect end results of passes or shots.
There is no better feeling than putting the ball in the back of the net, and we hope to provide players with even more ways to do this in EA SPORTS FC™ 25.
Our goal with these changes is to create a more immersive and realistic football experience that rewards players for their knowledge, strategy, and skill. By making passing more nuanced and reflective of real-life football, we believe we can bring a new level of excitement and challenge to the game.
One of the significant updates we're introducing is to shooting accuracy, which now aligns with the changes we've made to passing accuracy. This means that the accuracy of shots will now more closely mirror the real-life abilities of players, their playstyles, and the specific situations they find themselves in during a match. Players can expect that taking shots in difficult situations will feel more challenging, with new animations added to showcase off-balance and tough-angle shots.
In addition to the accuracy changes, we’ve made several other improvements to shooting in EA SPORTS FC™ 25:
This year we've focused on refining the dribbling experience in EA SPORTS FC™ 25, allowing players to feel more grounded and in control when maneuvering on the ball. Additionally, we've cleaned up animations to eliminate some potentially awkward movements, ensuring that every dribble and turn looks and feels more lifelike.
In FC 25,our dribbling improvements include:
Note: The following abbreviations will be used for controls: LS = Left Stick, RS = Right Stick
The following command has been removed: Orbit Dribble L1 + L2 + LS Direction || LB + LT + LS Direction
New Skill Moves have been added along with some changes to existing ones.
Defending has also been enhanced with the introduction of professional fouls, with the aim of adding new strategic elements to gameplay. With improvements to goalkeeper movement and rushes, along with an increase in Player Switching speed, we want players to be able to defend more responsively.
We want you to be able to take more control over the pitch to shut down your opposition with revamped core mechanics, and a new mechanic, the Professional Foul.
This action can be a strategic choice to halt a counterattack or stop an opponent’s promising advance. However, while initially always resulting in a yellow card, excessive use of Professional Fouls in a match can lead to red cards.
To request a professional foul, you can press:
R1+X || RB+A
The goalkeeper position has received several improvements in EA SPORTS FC™ 25, from Goalkeeper Movement to the new Rush to Contain mechanic.
Goalkeepers can only be manually moved 1-2 steps in any direction, with a short cooldown period after use to prevent this move from being overused.
In summary:
During set pieces like corner kicks and free kicks, the Goalkeeper's manual movement will function as it has previously.
In EA SPORTS FC™ 25, we are adding a new type of Goalkeeper Rush to the player's toolkit. This new mechanic will have the goalkeeper rush out and close the distance to the attacking player but remain a distance away from them to close down the shooting angle.
To perform Goalkeeper Rush to Contain:
Visual enhancements across the pitch aim to bring a new level of authenticity to the game, from the lushness of the grass to the more lifelike player models. New set pieces roles add variety to the game, while the introduction of bench players' G5 rules and the Eval Engine's Pass Map offer deeper tactical analysis and strategic options.
*Might not be available in all modes
Players can now select players to fill 3 important locations during corner kicks;
Free Kicks
Penalty Kicks
Our updates in this part of FC 25 are designed to improve the overall gameplay experience, bringing it closer to real-world football. From the introduction of the Offside Advantage Overlay to adjustments in foul logic, we’re aiming to enhance the game for both serious and more casual EA SPORTS FC™ players.
Offside Advantage Overlay
User Color Advantage Overlay
Note: When playing local with multiple controllers, the Advantage overlay will appear in the corresponding color of the player that has committed foul.
Extra Substitutes* [NG]
*Might not be available in all modes
Players will now have (9) available bench slots depending on the competition, enabling more flexibility when it comes to mid-match tactical changes.
Aggressive Team and Player Foul Animations
Improvements to Foul Logic on GK Dives
Red Card Advantage
A newly introduced system adds an advantage call for potential second yellow or straight red card scenarios, allowing play to continue. Second yellows and red cards can be given later, during the next stoppage in play.
Note: The Red Card Advantage is only intended to occur during clear goal-scoring opportunities.
Added a new Pass Map in the stats screen to provide more in depth information for players.
We’ve made the following improvements to player movement:
Simulation Mode
For those who enjoy a more strategic and simulated approach, the Simulation Mode introduces enhanced CPU AI, wind effects, and player-controlled sliders for fine-tuning gameplay.
Simulation Mode will be available in the following modes:
The following are the preset slider settings that come into effect during Simulation Mode:
With Simulation Mode, customized preset sliders tune the CPU AI to better mimic the speed of authentic matches, giving offline players a slower, more authentic version of the world’s game.
Located in Game Settings > CPU Sliders, we are introducing two new presets for CPU sliders in EA SPORTS FC™ 25. These presets are:
New CPU Sliders added to FC25:
Wind is new to EA SPORTS FC™ 25, and will be available for all offline modes, toggleable via Settings > Match.
Wind effects impact various aspects of the match,such as ball trajectory, player hair, and jersey physics. Wind effects will be available in the following modes, toggleable via Settings:
Note: Players can choose between three different Wind Effects - Low, Medium or High. Wind will not change speed or direction during the course of a match.
We hope this Gameplay Deep Dive gives you a good sense of the exciting features and mechanics coming to EA SPORTS FC™ 25. Our team is dedicated to providing an immersive and realistic football experience, and we can’t wait to see you get your hands on our new features and changes. Thanks for taking the time to read our Pitch Notes!
Pre-Order EA SPORTS FC™ 25 now for PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
*HYPERMOTIONV TECHNOLOGY ONLY AVAILABLE ON PLAYSTATION 5, XBOX SERIES X|S AND PC VERSIONS.
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