EA SPORTS FC 25 | Gameplay Refresh Update

We’re excited to soon release the Gameplay Refresh Update for EA SPORTS FC 25, featuring the most significant mid-season gameplay overhaul we’ve ever made, based on your feedback.

With the Gameplay Refresh Update, you can expect to see:

• Major updates to core gameplay systems like passing, shooting, goalkeeping, and defending.
• More offensively fluid gameplay enabling you to move the ball easier.
• Reduced tacklebacks and AI interceptions.
• Addressed issues like defenders catching up to dribblers too often.
• Updated Rush Club Search in Football Ultimate Team.

Let’s jump straight into the changes we’re making to EA SPORTS FC 25.

Defenders Catching Up To Fast Ball Carriers Too Easily

Attackers controlling the ball are naturally slower than when they’re at full sprint without the ball, but we’ve seen that defenders can sometimes catch fast-moving ball carriers too quickly.

As a result, TU #8 addresses instances of players catching up to the ball carrier despite the ball carrier having much higher Pace Attributes. 

In practice, this means that it will now be harder for slower defenders to catch up to faster attackers in FC 25. Addressing this issue not only removes a pain point you’ve been telling us about, but it also helps us further focus on providing a more fluid offensive gameplay experience, as detailed throughout this Pitch Notes.

Here’s how a defender could have caught up to an attacker before TU #8.

And here’s how that same scenario can play out with TU #8, notice how the defender doesn’t catch up to the attacker easily.

More Fluid Offensive Positioning And Better Attacking Support

We’ve seen your feedback about the balance between how effective attacking and defending feels in EA SPORTS FC 25, so we’ve decided to make some changes to the attacking side of the game to make it more effective and fun:

• Improved AI teammate attacking run quality when trying to beat the offside line.
  • AI teammates can now better hold their runs when near the line and get back onside more quickly.
• Increased intelligence of attacking and supporting runs made by AI teammates.
• Improved effectiveness of Inside and Advance Forwards.
  • They can move farther up the pitch.
  • They can better evaluate when to run into space or occupy a position.
• Offensive players can now operate in attacking spaces near other attackers instead of stopping their runs.
• Players are now able to provide quicker support when they are familiar with their Role.

To clarify that last point, this does not mean that you will see someone like a CDM all of a sudden become a striker. It means that all Roles are simply faster at performing support tasks like making themselves more open to receive a pass or making a run into space.

Overall, these changes are intended to make your team more active when you’re attacking, giving you more options while making attacks feel more fluid and organic at the same time.

For example, here’s a situation before TU #8 in which attacking AI teammates did not make any particularly effective runs.

And here’s the same situation with TU #8, showing how attacking players can now make more intelligent decisions and runs, potentially leading to a goalscoring situation.

Reducing Tacklebacks (Losing The Ball After Your Tackle)

Sometimes what feels like a successful tackle results in a tackleback, meaning that the opposing player wins the ball back. It happens in real life on occasion, it happens in video games too, but we’ve seen it happen more often than it should in FC 25, causing unnecessary frustration.

As a result, we’re making two changes to reduce how often tacklebacks can occur:

• Defenders with the Anticipate PlayStyle are now more likely to tackle the ball towards a teammate with more space if stopping the ball in place would be disadvantageous.
• Improved the quality of touches defenders can make on tackles.

Here’s an example of a tackleback situation we’ve addressed. This footage is before TU #8—note how the attacker ends up winning the ball.

And here’s how the same situation can play out after TU #8, note that the attacker doesn’t end up winning the ball.

In addition, we’re also addressing two issues that could have resulted in tacklebacks:

• In some cases, the ball carrier could have unintentionally stumbled forward when being tackled, resulting in incorrectly winning the ball back. 
• In some cases, the defender could have stumbled when running towards the ball after a successful tackle rather than gaining possession.

As usual, we’ll continue to closely look at your feedback regarding tacklebacks.

Improved Goalkeepers For Near Post Shots

We’re looking to make goalkeepers more authentic when dealing with near post shots. To start, we’re addressing this issue:

• Goalkeepers could have sometimes incorrectly stepped away from the near post in tight angle shooting situations. 

Here’s how this issue looked before TU #8.

And here’s how goalkeepers react in the same scenario with the issue addressed in TU #8:

At the same time, we’re also making a more general behavior change intended to make goalkeepers more effective at covering near post shots.

• Goalkeepers will now position themselves slightly closer to the near post.

Faster Passing, Balance Changes, And Issues Addressed

We want FC 25 to reward intelligent and quick thinking passing plays, so to that end we’re introducing the following combination of changes:

• Slightly increased speed of normal Ground Passes.
• Slightly increased accuracy of short Ground Passes to open players.
• Significantly increased effectiveness of Semi Assisted Through Passes. 

While some of these changes might sound small in a vacuum, when combined with other passing changes they are designed to enable players to move the ball easier across the pitch.

Additionally, we’re tuning the effectiveness of certain passes based on your feedback and how you want the game to be played:

• Significantly reduced effectiveness of first-time Lofted Through Passes.
• Significantly increased effectiveness of Semi Assisted Through Passes.
• Moderately reduced accuracy of headed passes in contested situations. 

But that’s not all when it comes to Passing, we’re also addressing a number of issues you’ve let us know about:

• Low powered Ground Passes were sometimes being delivered to farther players than intended.
• Medium powered passes sometimes focused too much on the player’s aim input instead of the amount of power generated.
• Addressed some instances where first time passes were less responsive than intended when the input was performed late.
• Sometimes, free kick passes were not hit towards the intended receiver if the receiver was moving too quickly.

More Effective Shooting Inside The Box

With TU #8, we want players to feel empowered with their shooting and have the ability to score more goals. So we’re introducing changes aimed at rounding out goalscoring, particularly from inside the box:

• Increased accuracy and shot speed from inside the box for regular and Finesse shots.
• Slightly increased accuracy of low difficulty regular and Finesse shots in the box.

To clarify the second point, “low difficulty” shots refers to situations made up of many different factors, such as the shooter not being under pressure, the player’s input being accurate and well timed, the shooter having a good quality angle towards the goal like in real life, and so on.

You can think of low difficulty shots as the types of shots you would expect your favorite high skilled real world players to make.

Now, while we are generally looking to improve goalscoring from inside the box, we also wanted to adjust some tuning around Finesse shots in general. This is because we wanted to lessen the gap between players with high shooting Attributes but no Finesse Shot PlayStyle, and those with the PlayStyle or PlayStyle+. We know there has been some concern that we were planning a wholescale reduction in the Finesse Shot PlayStyle, but this is not the case:

• Slightly increased the impact of Attributes on the accuracy of Finesse shots taken by players without the Finesse Shot or Finesse Shot+ PlayStyles.

We’ve also addressed the following issue:

• Addressed some instances where first time shots were less responsive than intended when the input was performed late.

Defensive Positioning And Behavior

We’re also making changes to the defensive side of the game to further encourage players to take direct control of their defensive efforts rather than relying on AI positioning.

• In Competitive Football Ultimate Team and Online Seasons ruleset matches, AI defenders will mark dribblers less tightly and will be less likely to cover shooting lanes near the edge of the box.
• Further decreased how often AI players are able to make successful interceptions.

At the same time, we of course don’t want to neglect the defensive side of the game, so we’re looking to address a few areas based on your feedback:

• Defenders will focus more on man marking when defending counter attacks starting from corners.
  • The intent of this change is to provide more effective defensive positioning against counter attacks originating from corners.
• RM/LM players with the Winger Balanced Role can drop deeper when defending.
• Falsebacks could stay central for too long when the team lost possession.
  • They will now immediately look to return to their LB/RB positions. 

Updated Rush Club Search In Football Ultimate Team

We want to make it easier for players to search for the right Player Items when putting together their Rush Squad, and to make it easier to hit Rush Point Bonuses.

Following a near future Server Release, you’ll be able to search for Player Items simply by selecting the current Rush Point Bonus requirement. For example, if there is a minimum 75 DEF requirement, selecting that will give you 5 search results with applicable Player Items.

In cases where you don’t have 5 Player Items that meet such criteria, search results will list your top Player Items instead. For example, if you have 3 eligible Player Items, they’ll show up as search results, and the other 2 would be your top Player Items. Or if you have no eligible Player Items, you’ll just see your top 5 Player Items instead.

Of course, you can still do manual searching, and when you enter Rush squad building the default search will focus on the first Rush Point Bonus criteria.

Thanks everyone for checking out our Gameplay Refresh Update Pitch Notes. We can’t wait for you to experience all of the new changes in this update and look forward to hearing your feedback.

• The EA SPORTS FC Team