EA SPORTS FC™ 25 Pitch Notes - Community Update

Hey everyone, welcome to another season of the Pitch Notes. This is a space built to share EA SPORTS FC updates directly from our development and community teams with you, from pre-launch to live services. We’re excited to reveal everything coming to EA SPORTS FC 25 in our upcoming Deep Dives soon, but before we do that, we wanted to share some details on a few features you’ve been asking about.

As your EA SPORTS FC Community and Development teams, we’re continuously looking for ways to build and improve features based on feedback directly from you, our players. In this article, we’ll give you a sneak peak at some of our top community-requested features coming to FC 25, and outline some of the ways we’re collecting feedback, so we can continue building the future of football with you.

Stay tuned for our upcoming FC 25 Deep Dives, which will include all details across all new updates for specific areas of the game:

Keep an eye out for additional feature reveal content across the EA SPORTS FC social media channels prior to FC 25 launch, including Instagram, TikTok, and X.

Let’s dive in!

FOOTBALL ULTIMATE TEAM™

Division Rivals Checkpoints

Let’s kick things off with Rivals.

To better ensure you are facing opponents of similar skill and not getting stuck in a Division that isn’t suited to your current level, we're reducing the overall number of checkpoints. We’re also bringing back relegation when competing in the highest divisions.

Division Rivals Rewards

Qualifying for rewards in Rivals will now be done by earning points rather than wins. Points will be earned for both wins and draws, 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw, meaning hard earned draws will now help you progress towards your weekly rewards in FC 25. 

Rivals legacy division placement

Don’t think your progress in FC 24 has gone unnoticed. In FC 25, your starting Division in Rivals will take into account your highest Division achieved from FC 24.This adjustment will help you get to a well-suited Division faster, earn higher tier rewards quicker and help ensure our new players aren’t playing against our highly skilled veterans at the start of the game.

Live Football Ultimate Team Friendlies

We’re aiming for Friendlies to be a space where you can build new squads, evolve your players, complete objectives and have a more casual matchmaking experience. 

That’s why we’ve changed matchmaking in Friendlies to be based on your win form. You will now be matched against opponents who have won or lost as many games as you have in Friendlies, creating a more level playing field where you can experiment with new players, Evo your favorites, explore new tactics, or just enjoy a one-off match.

SBC Storage

In FC 25, we're introducing a storage system for Untradable Duplicate Players. You can send and keep up to 100 items in your SBC storage, and easily recall these players from a new tab in every SBC.

Evolution Requirements

We’ve heard your feedback and are looking to make Evolution requirements less restrictive in FC 25, enabling you to use a bigger variety of Player Items in Evolutions more often. We’ll also be adding more Evolutions so there are more opportunities to upgrade your Player Items.

Contracts

Player Items and Managers will no longer need contracts, we’re looking to enable you to get back to the on-pitch action quicker than before. 

Football Ultimate Team Deep Dive

This is just the beginning. We’re excited to share more details on everything coming to Football Ultimate Team in FC 25 with next month’s Deep Dive. See you there!

GAMEPLAY

Goalkeeper movement

We’ve received a lot of feedback in this area, and as a result, we’re making changes to manual goalkeeper movement. In FC 25, keepers 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 repeatedly.

During set pieces like corner kicks and free kicks, GK manual movement will function as it has previously. Once a corner kick is taken, GK manual movement will be limited to 1-2 steps in any direction like showcased in the video above.

Corner Kick Support assignments*

*This may not be available in all modes

Three new assignments related to Corner Kick support have been added to FC 25, with the previous Roles screen in Team Management being renamed to Assignments.

Target Player - The assigned player (Núñez) will be the focus of the Corner Kick (Only available for  Attacking Corners).

Near Post - The assigned player (van Dijk) will be positioned on the first post, or near it during a Corner

Back Post - Assigned player (Konate) will be positioned on the back post, or near it during a Corner

The players in the Corner Kick Support assignments are unique and cannot be repeated. The Corner Kick Taker also cannot be part of the support. 

Gameplay Deep Dive

Our full Deep Dive into Gameplay features will be released later this month, covering our brand new tactics system, updates to PlayStyles, HyperMotionV*, and more!

CLUBS

Relegation

FC 25 sees the return of relegation to the Clubs League, raising the stakes as you move through the League pyramid. Losing matches will decrease your number of chances per division, lose them all and you’ll take part in a Relegation Battle – a one-off, do-or-die match that will determine whether your club will beat the drop, or be sent down a division. You can expect more details to come in the Clubs Pitch Notes later this month.

Store

Players will now earn Clubs Coins via gameplay to spend in the new Clubs Store where you’ll find a host of new cosmetic items for your Virtual Pro, including new item types such as gloves and sleeves, allowing for deeper customization and personal expression on the pitch.

Post-Match Timer

We've listened to your feedback and made changes to the post-match experience. You’ll now be able to stay in the post-match menu much longer without being forced to return to the lobby. This gives you more time to review highlights, match stats, strategize for future games, or simply bask in the glory of a well-earned victory. Be careful not to stay too long though, or your teammates might leave you on the bench for the next match.

Max Height

In response to community feedback around gameplay balance, we’ve adjusted max height for all player positions. Player height of all Virtual Pros in FC 25 will be capped at 6’5” or 195 cm.

Clubs League Matchmaking

In an effort to ensure we are creating balanced matches, matchmaking for Clubs League matches will now prioritize finding clubs of a similar Skill Rating. Clubs Playoffs will continue to prioritize your division when matchmaking, ensuring the Playoffs remain a place for you to take on your divisional rivals.

Clubs Deep Dive

These are just a few of the exciting new features coming to Clubs in FC 25. Stay tuned for the full Clubs Deep Dive dropping later this month, with details on all features across the mode.

CAREER MODES

Match Intros

Based on player feedback, we are bringing back full authentic pre-match intros to FC 25, including cinematic sizzles, player walk-ins, and line-ups.

You’re in full control of your pre-match build up, with an option to opt-in for a full intro, or an option to skip straight to kickoff if you’re ready to jump into the action.

Youth Academy

We’re introducing new updates to Youth Academy based on your feedback, particularly in the scouting department. Now, players have access to over 160 countries, allowing for a broader search for future stars.

Additionally, up to four positions can now be scouted simultaneously with the ability to look for different types of players within the selected position. This upgrade expands your scouting reach allowing you to focus on who you're looking for, based on the way you set up your team and the tactical preset you are using.

We’ll share more on what this means for Youth Academy in our upcoming Career Deep Dive.

Customization

At the start of your career setup, you'll notice enhanced customization options. These changes give you additional control over your gameplay experience.

The level of detail you can modify is extensive, like how weather will impact play, or how opposing CPU AI behaves on a moment-to-moment basis.

Some options are set at the beginning of your career, guiding your gameplay path, while others can be adjusted as you progress, allowing for a dynamic playthrough. This flexibility helps each save offer a unique experience, tailored to your preferences and skill level.

Morale

The morale system has been refined to focus on finding the "sweet spot" for player happiness. Gone are the days when higher morale always meant better performance. Now, if a player's morale exceeds a certain threshold, they become complacent, affecting their mental Attributes negatively. This change introduces a strategic layer to managing player morale, requiring a balanced approach to keep your squad in top mental shape.

Career Deep Dive

As mentioned, these are just some of our top requested community features coming to FC 25. We’ll be revealing our full FC 25 Career feature set in next month’s Deep Dive.

FEEDBACK

As always, we look to improve and expand how we collect your feedback. Over the years, we’ve regularly spoken directly with players and content creators, including hosting regular play sessions and meetings during the development of our titles. Of course, we also take into account feedback we see across social media platforms, videos, and live streams, as well as which parts of the game players like to interact with. Recently, we excitedly launched the Player Feedback Portal Beta for EA SPORTS FC 24, giving you the ability to give us direct feedback about very specific areas of that game. The amount of feedback we’ve received through the Portal has been fantastic, and we’ll be looking to expand on this kind of approach throughout EA SPORTS FC 25.

LIVE UPDATES

Acknowledging and addressing your feedback post-FC 25 launch is just as important to us as the updates we’re introducing above at launch.

In FC 24, you may have noticed 3 special Title Updates: Holiday Update, Spring Update and Festival of Football Update. These updates brought new features and changes across all modes - new ways to play, new star heads, gameplay changes and new animations, and of course, new features based on the feedback you provided. These updates were intended to bring a fresh feeling to the game from the moment you log in.

We’ll be looking to bring these Title Updates to FC 25, refreshing and tuning features and content across the game, with the first update coming before the Holiday period.

From the moment you get your hands on FC 25, we’ll be looking at your feedback to inform changes for these special updates listed above, and other Title Updates.

FC 25 DEEP DIVES

As a reminder, we’ll be releasing more details, including updates about many modes in our upcoming EA SPORTS FC 25 Deep Dives:

Here are the full  EA SPORTS FC™ 25 release date details:

• EA Play Early Access Trial: September 20, 2024
• EA Play Pro Ultimate Edition Access (PC): September 20, 2024
• EA SPORTS FC™ 25 Ultimate Edition: September 20, 2024
• EA SPORTS FC™ 25 Standard Edition: September 27, 2024

Thanks for checking out our Community Update Pitch Notes! We look forward to you experiencing all the new changes and additions coming to FC 25.

• The EA SPORTS FC Community and Development Team

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.

Stay in the conversation on all things EA SPORTS FC™  by following us on our official X channel, Instagram, and YouTube, our Dev X channel @EASFCDIRECT, on the EA SPORTS FC Tracker and participating in the official EA SPORTS FC Forums.