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While Ultimate Team and Clubs will likely be the main draw for many players, it’s FC 25’s Career Mode that appears to be the mode with the biggest changes. Earlier this month, I flew over to Bucharest to visit EA Romania, the home of Career Mode, where I sat down with Line Producer Andreas Wilsdorf and Principal Game Designer Alex Constantinescu to discuss all things Career Mode.
A new player in the game
It’s been years since the heyday of Pro Evolution Soccer, and stretching back to the FIFA days, FC hasn’t had any real competition in over a decade. But with murmurings of a revival of the FIFA brand under another developer like 2K, EA aren’t worried. In fact, they’re relishing the opportunity.
“It’s still just rumours, but even if the rumours are true, we welcome competition. I think competition is always interesting to see, you know, how other people approach the sport.” begins Wilsdorf. “We know how tough it is to make a football game and it will be interesting to see how they would challenge us, but again, we’re welcoming competition.”
Constantinescu agrees, remarking that the challenge that PES previously provided is something they feel they are lacking. “I remember it was pure coincidence that a couple of years ago when we added press conferences to the game, PES did as well. And when we saw the announcement from PES, I remember I got like ‘Okay, this is interesting. Now I really need to pick it up a notch and work a bit more on the content’.”
Fittingly, Wilsdorf likens it to football. “The Bundesliga season this year will be really interesting with Leverkusen beating Bayern last year. If you just look at the transfers that have happened, you know Bayern is going for it. Competition brings out the best of everyone in sports.”
“Thinking back years when I was still a fan, I would always compare the games”, Wilsdorf remarks, looking back to before he joined EA. As a developer, however, Wilsdorf remains bullish about FC’s ability to take on any challengers. “We’re not worried because we know how good the game is, especially with Career Mode this year”.
Why FC 25 is the Year of Career Mode
Career Mode’s overhaul has been at the forefront of FC 25’s marketing, but the team hadn’t set out to make changes to this extent. Instead, this year’s Career Mode is the product of years of effort in various areas coming to fruition all at the right time.
“I think it was just different puzzle pieces falling into place”, Wilsdorf remarks. “The women’s licences, Rush coming in, FC IQ being something we wanted throughout the game, it felt more and more like ‘Okay, we have so many puzzle pieces falling together that we can really deeply go into it’.”
He expands on the example of Rush, and how its inclusion led them to change more and more aspects of the game. “Rush unlocked us to really do something special with youth again. It was a really big puzzle piece because it started with ‘We want to do more countries for scouting’, ‘We want more ways to interact with the Youth Academy’, then we were like ‘What can we do with Rush?’. It very quickly went to ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to play with your youth players?’, and that’s how the pieces fell together.”
It’s not just the big changes either. “We knew that players were asking for more from Career Mode, and we felt like this is a year where we can really implement a lot of the feedback we’ve seen from the community over the years.”, he adds. “We were all really pushing each other to see what else we can do. ‘What else can we bring in? Can we redo press conferences? Can we change how morale works?’
“Consider it the perfect storm”, Constantinescu gleefully chimes in.
On Football Manager
One of the largest changes to Career Mode this year is on the tactical side, and how the new FQ IQ system has been integrated. While this has led plenty of players to draw comparisons with Football Manager, the developers are more focused on what sets the two apart than what brings them together.
“Even though we’re in the same space, which is football, we have very different experiences just from the gameplay itself. Like we are hands-on gameplay, and while there might be similarities when you think of management of football clubs – there are always similarities in transfers, and so on.”, explains Wilsdorf.
Constantinescu adds to this, explaining that while both are football games, they are made for very different types of people. “We look at our audiences and I think there are some differences there in terms of how much time commitment you want to spend to master the game. We cater towards a, let’s say broader range of people, and the football fans that want to play a football game and be a part of it, while Football Manager offers a deeper experience in some other ways.”
“We always tend to be very careful not to go down the route of ‘let’s just do what they did’ because we don’t want to turn our game into a niche.”, he adds, joking that “We look at Football Manager as more of a, let’s say, estranged cousin”.
Who to manage?
Being such a big year for Career Mode, I wanted to see if Wilsdorf and Constantinescu had any recommendations on teams to manage. “Try the Spanish women’s league and try to beat Barcelona. That will definitely be an interesting challenge” begins Wilsdorf, before letting out his true feelings. “As a Frankfurt fan, I always want people to try out Frankfurt. For the last four years, we have signed some of the most exciting young talent in Europe.”
He goes on to tease a certain wonderkid in the Frankfurt squad. “We have a player with a lot of potential in the team. I’m not going to tell you who, but if you know your football he scored 15 goals in the 2. Bundesliga and he’s 18 years old so he will be really exciting for your Career Mode”.
Constantinescu chooses not to go for a particular team but instead recommends players to try out the new Live Starting Points feature, which lets you take control of teams mid-season. “Live Starting Points are going to change the way we recommend teams to play. The last couple of years never ceased to amaze in terms of how twists and turns in the fates of clubs have happened and I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a similar year”.
Who knows? Knowing the Premier League, we might even have some sackings before the game even releases to give you a Live Start Point to try out from the get-go (I’m looking at you, Todd Boehly).
EA Sports FC 25 releases on September 27, 2024 for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.
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