EA SPORTS FC 25 | Pitch Notes - Career Mode Deep Dive

Welcome to the EA SPORTS FC™ 25 Career Mode Deep Dive, we’re excited to share everything that’s coming to Manager and Player Career.

With FC 25, we set out to add more authenticity and player control to Manager and Player Careers, and we’re thrilled to announce the addition of Live Start Points and Snapshots*, women’s football in Career Mode, while further customizing your tactical setups with FC IQ. On top of that, we’re looking to give you new Avatar customization options, quality of life improvements, improved scouting and player development, and lots more.

*To be released with a post-launch update. For more details & availability, visit https://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-fc/fc-25/disclaimers 

So let’s jump right into the details of FC 25’s Career Mode.

Live Start Points

All-new to both Manager and Player Career modes, Live Start Points bring you closer to your favourite clubs and leagues, allowing you to live out the biggest storylines from the real-world during the 2024/2025 football season.

Women’s Manager Career

In a first for any football game, players now have the option to play Manager Career in five of the top leagues in women's football. Women’s Manager Career has all of the Men’s Manager Career features, plus unique challenges that exist solely within the women’s game.

FC IQ in Career

From creating a squad that fits your selected Team Playstyle, to pre-match analysis of your opponent’s style defined by their manager’s real-world tactics, FC IQ influences core Career Mode features for a more comprehensive matchday and tactical experience.

Manager Career

Live Start Points & Snapshots

In FC 25, you’ll be able to manage some of the top men’s and women’s teams from any gameweek across the 2024/2025 season. On the men's side, you can take control of teams in the Premier League, EFL Championship, LALIGA EA SPORTS, Ligue 1 McDonald’s, Serie A Enilive, and Bundesliga. And in women's football, you can play as teams from the Barclays Women’s Super League, Arkema Première Ligue, the Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga, and Liga F. In all, we have Live Start Points for 10 leagues and 12 cup competitions, enabling you to follow along with real results and jump in during any gameweek of the season.

Each Live Start Point will reflect the current points totals, goals scored, transfers, cup progress, player form, injuries, suspensions, and even any potential points deductions. Our aim is to release new gameweeks regularly, giving you the option to play alongside authentic competitions and potentially change their outcomes depending on your own goals and performance.

Additionally, Snapshots capture some of the most pivotal moments of the season, enabling you to easily jump in and take a team over across a selection of European leagues. While no one can be sure what stories The World’s Game will conjure up this year, you can expect Snapshots to reflect events like manager sackings, big player transfers, surprise unbeaten streaks, and underperforming clubs turning things around. Our goal with Snapshots is to provide you with real-world scenarios to challenge yourself with and enjoy.

We’ll be kicking off Live Start Points and Snapshots later in 2024 and you can keep checking in through the season for new Snapshots and game weeks right up to the end of the season. Stay tuned for an announcement soon on when this is coming.

Live Start Points and Snapshots will also be available in Player Career, where players will be able to take over real-world situations, either as real-world players or as Avatars they have created themselves, and see how they can affect the future.

FC IQ in Career Mode

While you may have heard about FC IQ in our other FC 25 Deep Dives, today we’re talking about Tactical Presets, an expansion of our previous Tactical vision system.

Each Tactical Preset is defined by a set of Key Roles covering the pitch, alongside a specific build-up and defensive approach combination. All Tactical Presets are compatible with all formations available, with the formation slightly impacting the Presets requirement. For example, Tiki Taka requires a Central Midfielder to take the Deep Lying Playmaker Role, but if your formation does not have a Central Midfielder, that role can be taken by a Central Defensive Midfielder.

The refresh of Tactical Presets and introduction of Player Roles helps give new meaning to coaching staff. On top of what they were already doing (Attribute increases), staff now also possess the ability to raise the Role Familiarity of players that are set to the key roles on the pitch by one level. For this to happen, the coach’s Tactical Knowledge must be higher than the natural Role Rating of said player and the player must be able to play the position in the first place. 

Most formations require one key Player Role per department but allow more, which opens up new opportunities and dilemmas for managers. For instance, as explained above, only one Deep Lying Playmaker is needed in midfield to apply Tiki Taka. Hiring an expert Tiki Taka coach in the midfield department means you can improve any Central Midfielder that’s not already a natural Deep Lying Playmaker++.  So each manager can decide, depending on the squad’s natural abilities and opposition, whether to play with extra freedom and more effective playmakers in midfield, or with more safety by also assigning a Holding role. 

With this new system we want to offer players more flexibility and more possible combinations between formation, Tactical Preset, Roles, and coaching staff choices.

Additionally, scouting for players now also includes the option to look for players with specific Roles and/or fit for specific Presets, enabling you to find the perfect players for your tactical approaches.

Additionally, the Squad Hub and Transfer Hub are also updated to surface Role information on players.

Development Plans 2.0

Development plans are now fueled by Player Roles and include Role Growth potential, with each Role having its own Development Plan that focuses on a set of Attributes and abilities. The Role Rating of each player determines the potential of Key Attributes for that Role.

Over time, if a player is growing consistently on the Attributes that are Key to a Role, there's a chance to trigger a Role Rating level up. When that happens, it increases the potential of those Attributes, unlocking a new stage of growth.

Moreover, Development Plans now surface useful contextual information such as factors that influence growth or development stage each player is in, Growth, Peak, or Retiring.

Press Conferences & Morale Sweet Spot

In FC 25 we are evolving the morale system from an approach of “the more, the better” to a “sweet spot” system. That means that if players' morale gets over a certain level, players are no longer very happy, they become complacent instead. In this state, their mental Attributes are reduced instead of increased. The ideal interval for morale aka " the sweet spot" to keep the player very happy varies, with some players being more calm and professional than others. 

We’ve also revised Press Conferences so that questions asked by the press are now fueled by Tactical choices, opponent setup, and match statistics.

Youth Academy

The Youth Academy’s scouting capabilities have been upgraded in FC 25, providing an expansive selection of over 160 countries to explore for emerging talent. Whether you’re looking for the best of the best or to uncover the next great hidden gem, this extensive range of scouting locations opens the door to discovering diverse players with unique playing styles and backgrounds, with the goal of enriching your team's potential.

You can now scout up to four specific positions, allowing you to focus on areas that need reinforcement now or in the future. Whether you're looking for a commanding center-back, a creative attacking midfielder, a prolific striker, or a solid goalkeeper, the Youth Academy's scouting options let you zero-in on the exact positions you’re looking for.

With the introduction of FC IQ, players now also have the ability to scout for three distinct Roles within the selected positions. Regardless of what your strategy calls for, we want you to have the ability to better shape your team’s future.

We’re also excited to introduce a new way to interact with your Youth Academy through Rush matches in FC 25 Manager Career. Now you can engage in 5v5 matches with your youth players (with an AI-controlled goalkeeper), offering you additional control over the development of your future stars. You have the flexibility to play with these prospects using their current Overall Ratings or by using their full potential Rating to see how they might perform on the biggest stage in the future.

Rush matches in Manager Career are organized as bi-monthly tournaments, and winning these competitions can provide a significant increase to the development of your Youth Players, accelerating their growth and helping them reach their full potential faster.

And finally, youth players will now look younger and you will be able to see them physically grow during their development in the Youth Academy.

Women’s Football in Manager Career

We are delighted to share that, for the first time, players will be able to manage some of the top women’s teams from elite European leagues and the NWSL. Manager Career will feature 5 licensed leagues, Barclays Women’s Super League, Arkema Première Ligue, the National Women's Soccer League, the Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga, Liga F, and the prestigious Women’s Champions League competition will be playable as well.

Women’s Manager Career saves will feature all of the Manager Career features you’d expect, alongside authentic managers, financial models, contracts, and wage structures that reflect the rapidly growing women’s side of the sport. We can’t wait for players to jump into the world of women’s football in Manager Career in which you can expect to find new and exciting challenges previously unseen in EA SPORTS FC.

For added flexibility and player choice, you can move between men’s and women’s leagues within the same career to experience both sides of the beautiful game.

Customization

We’ve been listening to player feedback on in-game customization and have focused on delivering a series of settings that will enable you to better control the way you simulate your gameplay experience and AI behavior. For example, you can now select from a series of predetermined presets tuned for specific situations and gameplay moments. 

One of the most requested features around this area relates to giving players different choices with respect to gameplay balancing. Players can toggle between a Realistic setting which would lock the gameplay sliders to values closer to current life-like football, and a Classic setting which is meant to highlight the classic feeling of playing through the established EA SPORTS FC gameplay. Of course, a very detailed Custom setting is also available, where players can adjust the toggles and the values for both the CPU and their own side, letting you set your preferred experience. 

For players who want to really challenge themselves, they can raise the difficulty of their saves by making transfer negotiations stricter, setting the board expectations to be harsh, slowing the training plan recovery rates down, creating a transfer embargo, and playing with simulation-style gameplay.

For players who want a more relaxed experience, they could create a game where a huge financial takeover has just happened, where they can’t get sacked, there’s no Scouting, or where players develop faster.

Settings such as Match Settings and Gameplay Simulation Settings can still be modified mid-save and do not require you to start a new career, while other settings are locked in when a save is first created. Customization options are also available in Player Career, not just Manager Career. 

New Menu Visuals and Social Media

Our FC 25 UI is not just an aesthetic upgrade for the game, but more importantly a functional one, with the addition of the Task List. 

The Task List is a dynamic rundown of pending actions that players may want to engage with during their saves. From squad management to youth academy, and other activities, all issues and points of interest are brought up front for your convenience. We want to enable you to make immediate decisions and take quick actions, ensuring you’re on top of things in both Manager Career and Player Career. While we believe the introduction of the Task List will help players get to the most pressing items that need their managerial attention, players will still be able to use the menu to navigate as they wish. 

On the topic of being up to date, another change in FC 25 is the addition of Social Media. Social Media in FC 25 is a virtual platform where players can see the most important news regarding their achievements, match results, upcoming matches, transfer news, and much more. Clubs, Leagues, Players, Fans, and News Outlets are going to be posting, covering narratives from both on and off the pitch. Whether you're managing a top team in Manager Career or a player in Player Career, you're sure to be the subject of many stories, being a hero at times, and an anti-hero at others.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve secured some of the biggest names in sports media to deliver these social media stories. The likes of Fabrizio Romano will be helping you stay on top of all the transfer rumours and deals, while media outlets like The Athletic will keep you updated about the results and reactions across the world of FC.

Player Career

Player Career with ICONs

In FC 25 Player Career, you can now play with some of the greatest names in football history and bring them into the modern game. You can dive into the Player Career experience by selecting one of the available ICONs and see how they would thrive in modern day football. You can make your own history with ICONs presented at the peak of their ability, enabling you to jump straight into high level action.

The list of available ICONs will update and change over time to give players different experiences. Be sure to check in throughout the season to see which ICONs you can play with.

Origin Story

Our aim with the addition of the new Origin Stories is to bring in some fresh perspectives to Player Careers. Three paths, each with their own advantages and challenges, will guide you through the start of your Career, bringing in different opportunities and new approaches in Player Career.  

You can start off as a child prodigy, coming from a legendary football family, to prove that you can survive the pressures of the role and create your own legacy while taking your famous family name to the next level.

You can also play as someone coming from humble beginnings but with an unshakable dream and loads of talent. Show everyone that it’s not about where you come from, but how hard you work if you’re going to make your dreams come true.

And finally, you can begin your journey as a player who has known the glories of top-class football, but has sustained a career-threatening injury and is now making their comeback. Show everyone that you are stronger than ever and ready for any challenge.

If you have your own story idea for your Career, you can follow your own dreams and set up your starting conditions as part of a Custom Start. You will be able to set up your Age, Skill Level as well as Personality type. Whether you want to set up a young player with average skill but an undying love for your hometown club, an experienced player with all the skills who is a true maverick, or anything in between, Custom Start enables you to create your own story. If you’re happy starting from the traditional point of a young player that you can develop and mold, you can select the Clean Slate option and see where that takes you. Whichever way you start your career, just remember that once selected, the Origin will be fixed to that particular save file.

Player Customization

In FC 25 we are looking to enhance Avatar creation. You can now create a more realistic looking Avatar, with a large variety of new face customization options. Through the introduction of Cranium Technology, players are able to sculpt each element of their avatar’s face, down to every little detail. 

You can create male and female players and be as varied as you wish in their setup, with tattoos and accessories available for your Avatars to bring out their personality and reflect your preferences. Alongside a variety of hairstyles and skin tones for everyone, we want you to have more control over the unique looks of your Avatar. 

You’ll also be able to set new celebratory and set-piece animations, as well as a number of running styles that can complement your appearance.

Women’s Football in Player Career

In addition to managing the top women’s teams in Manager Career, you can start a Player Career in women’s football. Similarly to Manager career, player activities, authentic contract lengths, salary values, and our events system look to mimic the challenges of the real-world game. 

Thank you so much for checking out our Career Mode ** Deep Dive, we can’t wait to see how your Career journeys turn out in FC 25!

• The EA SPORTS FC Team

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