EA SPORTS FC™ 25 | Football Ultimate Team Launch Update

Hi, Gordon Farquhar here, Product Manager at EA SPORTS FC™. Today I’m going to run through some key updates ahead of the launch of EA SPORTS FC 25. I’ll be largely talking about some changes around our Football Ultimate Team Content & Modes in FC 25. If you’re keen to know more about the new features coming to FC 25, I’d recommend you take a look at the mode specific Pitch Notes. Let’s get into it…

Early Access

As always, let’s kick this one off with the big question: When can I jump into EA SPORTS FC™ 25?

• Companion & Web App Launch: Starting from 18 September, you’ll be able to kick start your Football Ultimate Team Club on web, with a refreshed Companion App dropping on 19 September. Players  who are re-joining us from Football Ultimate Team 24 will also get a little something extra with returning user rewards, which I’m pleased to announce are back for Football Ultimate Team 25!
• Early Access Launch: If you’ve pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition of EA SPORTS FC™ 25, you’ll be able to jump into the game from midnight (local time) on 20 September on Console and from 5 AM BST on 20 September on PC. EA Play* members will be able to play up to 10 hours of FC 25 via the trial, while EA Play Pro (PC only) members will get unlimited access to EA SPORTS FC™ 25.
• Worldwide Launch: If you’ve pre-ordered the Standard Edition of EA SPORTS FC™ 25, you’ll be able to jump into the game from midnight (local time) on 27 September on Console and from 5 AM BST on 27 September on PC.

In FC 25, you’ll find a range of content to help you kick start your season during Early Access including: Team of the Week 1, Rush Objectives, Player of the Month SBCs, Special Evolutions, World Tour and Squad Foundations releases & much more. You’ll also have the opportunity to earn Season Points in the new FC Season.

FC Season 1: Total Rush

In FC 25 we want to bring Seasons to more players by expanding them beyond Football Ultimate Team and are extending them  to Career Mode and Clubs for players to be rewarded for their progress each and every season. 

For Football Ultimate Team players the FC Season will look and feel familiar—we’re focussed on delivering the same level of Football Ultimate Team rewards to players whilst at the same time introducing new reward types for Career Mode and Clubs fans. Before we jump into the details of what FC Seasons will look like, I want to spend some time walking you through our game design decisions. 

We know that we have a range of players within the game who all play in a variety of different ways. With the FC Seasons we want to reward you for playing FC 25 your way, whether that’s in a single mode or across multiple modes. It’s important for us that you don’t feel forced to jump into another mode that isn’t something you want to play. 

This means that we’ve tuned FC Seasons so that you’ll be able to earn all of a mode’s specific rewards by playing just in that mode. For example, if you love playing offline, taking your team to glory in Career Mode, you won’t be forced to jump online in Clubs or Football Ultimate Team to earn the high level Career rewards. Same goes for Clubs players, same goes for Football Ultimate Team players. 

We also see that the total number of games played per season in each mode differs quite substantially. So as you enter Season 1 Total Rush, you can expect to unlock Clubs and Career Rewards in earlier levels, with Football Ultimate Team Rewards available at all levels in addition to making up the vast majority of the later levels. We believe this decision will allow Football Ultimate Team players to enjoy a new experience consistent with FC 24 Seasons & rewards, while Clubs and Career players will be able to earn a range of brand new rewards types by playing only their preferred mode, without significantly increasing how much they play each Season. 

With the new Seasons, we also wanted to make it easier if you do choose to jump into another FC mode. Previously in FC 24, with an Football Ultimate Team exclusive Season, if you wanted to jump into another mode you might have felt that would come at the cost of building your Football Ultimate Team. Thanks to the new Seasons, in FC 25 if you’re loving Rush and want to check out how you and your friends would fare in a 11v11 arena, you can jump over and use any Clubs rewards you might have already earned. The progress you make in Clubs will contribute to your overall FC Season Progress, helping out your new Club and your Football Ultimate Team Club. 

Similar to XP previously, your progress through the FC Season will be tracked through “Season Points” (SP) which are awarded for completing objectives either in specific modes (Football Ultimate Team, Career & Clubs) or at a game wide level (any FC mode). 

As we reflect on FC 24, we feel that Seasonal Rewards felt extra special when they connected with Campaigns happening in Football Ultimate Team, in particular Team of the Season, Festival of Football, and FUTTIES. In FC 25, we’ll be focussed on bringing this connection earlier in the cycle, blurring the lines between Season and Campaign theming, as well as focusing on authentic football concepts that expand across multiple FC modes.

Now let’s discuss some of those new rewards in the FC Season as we look to Season 1: Total Rush…

Season 1: Total Rush is a brand new Season and Campaign concept that emphasizes social play and teamwork through Objectives across FC 25. In addition, we’ll provide new Player Items well suited to Rush. On 11 October, the Total Rush Campaign will celebrate dream picks from some famous faces who bring together their styles and skills, to unlock new combinations suited to the small-sided game. 

Throughout the 6 weeks of Season 1: Total Rush, players will be able to progress towards the first Total Rush Quartet. 

Creating dedicated places to compete with unique squads and improving incentives to play with them is a focus of ours as we head into FC 25. In FC 24 we heard your feedback that the Football Ultimate Team experience over the course of the year can begin to feel stale, particularly if you are coming up against the same line up, game-in game-out. 

In FC 25, we’re introducing a brand new concept: the World Tour. Starting in Spain, home of the UEFA European 2024 Men’s Champions, we’ll deliver a unique regional experience each and every Season. Each Season we’ll look to deliver a range of Nation or League-themed content to help you build your World Tour Squad. 

In Season 1, you’ll be able to take your Spanish Squad into the One Nation Live Friendly. In addition, keep an eye out for weekly objectives themed around LaLiga, Liga F & Spanish Players. Throughout the Season you’ll be able to add even more Spanish, La Liga & Liga F Superstars to your Club, in addition to Squad Foundations, special Evolutions & SBCs. 

This year, Squad Foundation Players will provide +2 League Chemistry points instead of the standard +1, giving you greater flexibility when building new squads. Look out for weekly Squad Foundation releases throughout Season 1.

Mode & Reward Changes

In addition to new look Seasons, we’re focused on delivering some major changes to the core modes within Football Ultimate Team. 

There’s four themes that are driving our decision making behind these changes: 

• Unique Mode Identities: In recent years the purpose behind some of our modes was beginning to converge. We think the changes we are making to how you play and how you’ll be rewarded will help re-establish a unique identity for each mode. 
• Play at your level: We want to ensure that players are more consistently finding matches that provide the right level of competition.
• Reward elite play: This is one that was top of mind for FC 24 too. On reflection, we think we got to a good spot with this one over the course of the year but missed the mark for launch. We’re making changes to improve this for the launch of FC 25. 
• Connected Rewards: It’s important that Rewards feel connected to what’s happening in Ultimate Team, so we’ll be focussed on delivering frequent updates to keep mode rewards relevant throughout the cycle. 

Champions

In FC 25, we’re positioning Champions as the pinnacle of high stakes competitive matchups and we want the rewards in and accessibility to Champions to reflect that. Last year, we think we made the Champions Finals too accessible, particularly to lower skill players. As a result, many players went on extended losing streaks and Champions Rewards didn’t reach their full potential. 

This year, Champions will not only be more challenging, but it will be more rewarding for higher skilled players.

Champions Play-offs

Purpose: Your gateway into Champions Finals

As a gateway into Champions Finals, we’re looking to reduce the role that Play-offs play each week. In FC 25 we’re lowering the number of games needed to qualify for Finals to 3 out 5 wins, down from 4 out of 10 for FC 24. Reducing the number of games will make each Play-offs match feel competitive with more on the line, helping in 2 key ways: 

• For players of a higher skill level, it’ll make the process of qualifying for Finals faster.
• For players of a lower skill level, it’ll make Play-offs a better reflection of your Finals experience, ensuring that you’ll only qualify for Champions Finals once you are ready to be competitive. 

To help facilitate the above we’re making first-time Play-Off Qualification more challenging vs FC 24. For players in lower Rivals Divisions, Play-Off Qualification will feel like a major milestone, whereas players in higher Divisions will consistently be able to jump into the Play-offs each week. In addition, with Play-offs being harder compared to last year, you’ll have 10 additional attempts each season to enter into Play-offs, bringing the total seasonal entries to 18. 

 For some players, Play-offs was a popular arena each week to experiment with new teams and players. As we reflect on all of our modes, we think that the matchmaking changes announced for Live Friendlies will better meet this need in FC 25 (more on this below).

Finals

Purpose: The pinnacle of high-stakes competition 

The changes to Play-offs will mean that the average skill of Champions Finals players will increase year on year. With this increased level of competition, top finishes in Champions Finals will earn you significantly improved rewards compared to FC 24. 

We’ll also be looking to better differentiate the types of rewards you see in Champions & Rivals to help the modes feel unique. As an example of the changes you can expect, below you can see the Season 1 rewards for players who achieve Rank 1 in Champions Finals:

• 200,000 Ultimate Team Coins
• Tradeable 85+ x10 Players Pack
• Tradeable 84+ x10 Players Pack
• Untradable Base Icon Pack
• Untradable 89+ x2 Players Pack
• Untradable 82+ x30 Players Pack
• Three Tradeable TOTW x3 Players Pack

In addition, we want to provide our best performing players with more ways to show off their achievements in-game. One way that players will be able to do this is through seasonally exclusive Club Customization options that are only available to players who finish in the highest Champions Finals ranks. In Season 1, those rewards will be:

• Club Nickname: “Invincibles” (Rank 1 Exclusive)
• Celebration: “Flex” (Ranks 1-3 Exclusive)

Similar to Play-Offs, we’ll be reducing the total number of matches by 5 which will help raise the stakes of each match and reduce the amount of time needed to finish a Champions run. 

We’ll also be simplifying the points system in Champions Finals to help you better track what you need to achieve each rank. Each win will earn you 1 point, with no points awarded for a loss. Rank tiers in Season 1 of FC 25 will require: 

• Rank 1: 15 wins | 15 Points 
• Rank 2: 13 wins | 13 Points
• Rank 3: 11 wins | 11 Points 
• Rank 4: 10 wins | 10 Points
• Rank 5: 9 wins | 9 Points 
• Rank 6: 8 wins | 8 Points
• Rank 7: 7 wins | 7 Points
• Rank 8: 6 wins | 6 Points
• Rank 9: 4 wins | 4 Points
• Rank 10: 2 wins | 2 Points

Division Rivals

Purpose: Your everyday destination for online competitive play

As you can see in the Champions section, your Division in Rivals will play a key role in helping you qualify. Back in August, Azlan covered a number of changes coming to Division Rivals in FC 25, including Draws, Checkpoints, Relegation & Legacy Placements. All of these changes are centered around helping you play at your level. Naturally, rewards are a big component of that equation too.

With such a large fanbase, it’s tricky to get the balance right for everyone as we think about the right number of matches for Weekly Rewards. As you can imagine there’s a vastly different number of average matches played in the Elite Division vs Division 8 each Season. In FC 25 we’re increasing the number of wins required for Weekly Rewards from 3 to 5 and for Upgraded Weekly Rewards from 7 to 15. 

(Quick Note: As mentioned in the Football Ultimate Team Dive, we’re also moving from a “Wins” system to a “Points” system to ensure draws count towards your progress each week. I’ve kept the above in “Wins” for an easier comparison to FC 24. 5 Wins = 15 Points, 15 Wins = 45 Points)

This change will allow us to substantially increase the value of Rewards in Rivals. As an example, below you can see the Upgrade Weekly Rewards for the Elite Division:

• 75,000 Ultimate Team Coins
• Two Tradeable 85+ Player Picks (Pick 1 of 4)
• Untradeable 75 Gold Rare Players Pack
• Tradeable 50 Gold Rare Players Pack
• Tradeable Mega Pack
• Two Untradeable 83+ TOTW Player Packs

At the same time as we are overhauling the Rank Requirements, we’re going to streamline Rivals Reward options into one single option per tier in each division that will feature a balance of Ultimate Team Coins, tradeable, and untradeable rewards. We want to focus our time on creating exciting rewards, not on trying to balance them across 33 different categories, which slowed down the number of Rivals Rewards refreshes we could deliver in the past.

Squad Battles

Purpose: Your everyday destination for offline competitive play

To help make each match in Squad Battles feel more meaningful, we’ll be reducing the number of matches that count towards your weekly rank from 32 to 14. Of course, like in previous years, you’ll have the ability to continue making progress on Objectives and Evolutions Challenges after the 14 matches with additional opponent refreshes that won’t count towards your weekly rank.

Live Friendlies

Purpose: Your shared playground for squad experimentation

In FC 24, many highly skilled players found that Champions Play-offs often created a low stake environment for them to play in. This has always been the intent of Live Friendlies, but previous matchmaking could have sometimes created overly competitive matches for top players. This also led to a lack of incentive for players to push to the highest possible rank in Division Rivals, as their Friendlies experience also got more competitive.  

In FC 25 we’re making changes to matchmaking based on form, similar to the system found in Champions. This new system will take into account your wins and losses across all Live Friendlies (excluding House Rules) to find you a suitable opponent. Put another way, this means your Live Friendlies matchmaking will no longer be linked to your Rivals Division.

It’s important for the long term health of the community that newer or lower skill players are finding good match ups as they play online for the first time. To reduce the potential for win form manipulation, only full match losses will count towards the way form is calculated. This means that if a match ends before the full time whistle is blown, the loss won’t count towards your win form. This will help ensure a level playing field and that the whole community is able to find an appropriate match up for their skill level. 

As a shared playground to experiment with different & unique squads, we’ll be moving more Objectives & Evolution requirements into Live Friendlies, to ensure you’re consistently facing players trying to achieve the same goals. 

Season Points (SP)

And finally, we’ll be removing SP (Season Points), previously referred to as XP in FC 24, from all weekly modes rewards, which we trialed in FC 24. In FC 25 we’ll be exploring more ways to frequently deliver SP through themed content that connects back to the Season theme. 

Evolutions

Evolutions are one of the biggest additions we’ve made to Ultimate Team. In last year’s pitch notes, I discussed that Evolutions at launch could look very different from how they’d look in the future as we better understood what was and wasn’t working for you. Early into FC 24, it was obvious that whilst Evolutions were helping you have greater say over who was in your Ultimate Team, there were a number of frustrations as some players just missed out on an Evolution’s eligibility because of entry requirements. Chaining upgrades from one Evolution to the next, or finding the perfect Evolution for your favorite player was harder than we would have liked it to be.

To help address this, in FC 25 we’re changing the way that Evolutions upgrade your players. In FC 24, Evolution upgrades were applied equally across all players. For example, if an Evolution provided a +10 upgrade to pace, it would always apply the same upgrade up to a maximum of 99. This created tuning challenges that resulted in entry requirements being quite strict.

In FC 25, select Evolutions boosts will have maximum limits. Applying this new system to the above example, you might see an Evolution that gives a +10 upgrade to pace up to a maximum of 90 pace. In the old system, this Evolution would have had an entry requirement of a maximum of 80 pace. But with this new system we could set the maximum to something much higher or might not have a maximum at all. For example, if we set the maximum entry pace to 92 in the new system, you could compare the Attribute upgrades in the following way.

We believe this change will help reduce the pressure of finding “the right Player Item” to put into an Evolution, with a greater range of players being able to maximize each Evolution, which in turn will lead to a much broader range of Evolutions seen in-game.

In addition, in FC 25 we’re changing where you’ll complete many of your Evolutions. To make sure we align with the purposes of each mode outlined above, we’ll be reducing the number of Evolution challenges that require Champions and Rivals engagement and shifting many of those online gameplay requirements to Live Friendlies and Rush.

There will also be regular opportunities to use your squad of Evolutions players in Live Friendlies with linked objectives providing rewards for doing so. 

ICONs

We’re excited to add Nadine Angerer, Gareth Bale, Gianluigi Buffon, Julie Foudy, Aya Miyama, Marinette Pichon, Lotta Schelin & Lilian Thuram to the Class of 25 ICONs. 

In FC 25 we’ll be expanding the way in which you’re able to play with ICONs. In Career Mode throughout the year you’ll be able to start your Player Career with a rotating selection of icons starting with: Thierry Henry, Andrea Pirlo, Van Nistelrooy, and Kelly Smith.

For those of you who pre-order* either the Standard or Ultimate Edition you’ll unlock Galácticos Beckham, Zidane, and Ronaldo Nazário too. 

Heroes

In FC 25, Jamie Carragher, Laura Georges, Guti, Marek Hamšík, Eden Hazard, Tim Howard, Maicon, Blaise Matuidi, Mohammed Noor, Célia Šašić, Jaap Stam, Fara Williams & Ze Roberto will be reimagined as Heroes. 

Anyone who pre-ordered* The EA SPORTS FC™ 25 Ultimate Edition before 20 August will receive a Origin Hero version of 1 of the 14 new or existing Heroes when you log in to FC 25. In Late November your Hero will be upgraded to the Prime Hero with new Attributes. 

Item View: Average Transfer Market Price

We know understanding the value of the players in your Club is important to you. Whether you’re planning a Squad overhaul on the Transfer Market, comparing the value of your Starting XI with your mates or assessing what you just packed, we want this information to be easily accessible to you. We’re introducing an Average Transfer Market Price value for Player Items in the 5th Player View. When you’re looking at a Player Item, simply flick the right stick to the left and you’ll find the price reference above the player’s Skill Moves and Weak Foot.

Traditionally fans have used a number of community sites to get up-to-date transfer prices. We still expect these sites to remain the home of the most in-the-moment prices for players who love trading on the Transfer Market. 

The aim of the Average Transfer Market Price is to provide a convenient reference point for a wider range of fans vs delivering an exact minimum value. As a new feature, we’ll look to review the tuning of the Average Transfer Market Price based on your feedback and our own internal findings throughout FC 25.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the Transfer Market is a highly volatile environment where the valuation of items can shift minute by minute, hour by hour, so you’ll likely want to double-check prices before making significant actions .

Multiple versions of Players in Packs

Since Ultimate Team 23, it has been possible to obtain multiple versions of the same Player Item in packs at the same time. Most commonly you might have seen us use this with ICONs & Heroes in Golazo or during Ultimate Team Birthday. More recently with the FUTTIES you might have also seen that in some batches a single player featured multiple times. 

We wanted to clear up any confusion in our approach to this feature. Our aim is to create more opportunities to obtain diverse versions of your favorite players. Although there might be multiple special versions of a single player in packs at once, when we add one (or multiple) special items we remove their base (Bronze/ Silver/ Gold) version from packs. This ensures that you’re always getting a special version of that player. 

There are obviously a number of ways to obtain Campaign versions of Player Items. If a Player item features as an Objective or SBC reward, their base version will remain in packs throughout the Campaign. 

Club Membership

In FC 25 we’re introducing a new program called Club Membership that will reward you for playing consecutive titles from launch. In FC 25 Club Members will get a series of exciting rewards throughout the course of FC 25 including: 

• Ultimate Team
  • Ultimate Team Role++ Evolution
  • 2 Club Member Kits
  • 2 Club Member XL TIFO
  • 3 Club Member TIFO
  • 3 Ultimate Team Crests 
• Clubs 
  • Clubs Members Gloves
  • Clubs Members Boots
  • Clubs Members Arm Sleeves (1 left, 1 right) 
• Clubs & Career
  • Clubs Members – Mask (Facial Accessory)
  • Clubs Members – Bandana (Hair/Headwear)

After launch, Club Members will continue to receive rewards over the course of FC 25.

To be eligible for Club Membership, you must have played FC 24 before 27 September, 2024 and played FC 25 before 1 November, 2024*.

FC Founders will also unlock customization rewards in Ultimate Team 25, so that your friends and opponents will know you’ve been part of the FC franchise from the start. Founders can join Club Membership reward track, in which case you’ll get rewards for both. As a reminder, Founders are those players who played FC 24 before 1 November, 2023. 

EA Play Membership

Starting from the launch of FC 25, EA Play members will receive a series of monthly rewards with a selection of Ultimate Team Loan Player Items and Draft Tokens.