FC 25 Career Mode – all new features for Manager Career and Player Career

Career Mode in FC 25 has some of the biggest changes the mode has seen in years, adding plenty of new mechanics and tweaks that long time fans of the mode have been clamouring for. Across both Manager Career and Player Career, there are some incredibly exciting additions that players of either mode are sure to enjoy.

New features in FC 25 Career Mode

This year’s Career Mode is one of the biggest yet, and comes with plenty of new mechanics to freshen up the gameplay for long-term fans of the mode. 

FC IQ

The game’s entire tactical system has been overhauled with the FC IQ update, and that has big ramifications for Career Mode. Players now have player roles that determine the way they play, similar to Football Manager, letting you create a more realistic and flexible tactical system, more similar to how things work in real life. Players also develop tactical familiarity over time, requiring you to build your team smartly to create a squad that’s able to enact your plans to the highest possible level – having the best players won’t mean anything if they don’t understand your tactics.

Youth development

Gone are the boring drills you used to use to develop youth players. You now have the chance to play regular 5v5 tournaments in the game’s Rush mode to develop your players, with how well they perform determining how quickly they develop, giving you a more active role in their development and a chance to get to know your players before you add them to your senior team.

The scouting system has also been updated, and there are now over 160 countries from which you can scout. So if you’re interested in scouting Africa, Asia or Oceania on the hunt for the next Aubameyang, you’re now able to do exactly that.

Save customisation

You now have more control over your save than ever before, letting you make it as easy or as difficult as you like. Multiple sliders let you adjust how realistic the gameplay is, giving you the chance to go for the full FC experience or something more realistic. Outside of matches, you can also make transfer negotiations harder, quicken or slow down recovery rates for your players, create transfer embargoes and more. If you’re someone who likes a challenge, there’s plenty to play around with here that you should be checking out.

Women’s management

Women’s football has been part of FC for years now, but this is the first year it’s been added to Career Mode. In our interview with the Career Mode devs, it was confirmed that EA have finally managed to acquire the licenses to enough women’s leagues to include them in Career Mode. This means we can finally manage teams from the top women’s divisions in the USA, England, Spain, Germany and France.

Live Start Points and Snapshots

In previous years, you would start every save from the beginning of the game’s first season. This year, FC has introduced Live Start Points. Throughout the year, EA will record the position of teams after every match so that you can jump in at any point in the season and create your own story.

This is expanded upon with Snapshots, which capture certain important points for every club during the season. If Chelsea sack Enzo Maresca in real life, you can take over the club in FC 25 at that point and attempt to save Chelsea’s season – a nice touch to help you write your own stories.

Simulation

Simulation gameplay makes the football in Career Mode far more realistic. Play is slower and more methodical, and your opponents will adapt to how you play, with each team playing in a different way to every other one. This means every single match is a challenge for you to overcome, stopping you from simply running through on autopilot. There are also changes to the weather. Strong winds will now blow long passes off course, while wet or snowy pitches will bog the ball down, preventing your players from sprinting as effectively with the ball.

ICONs in Player Career

As well as being able to take over any current players in Player Career, you’re now able to control certain ICONs that have been added to the game. You can relive the career of players like David Beckham, or you could start him at a completely different team and see how he would have fared if he had begun his career at Peterborough United instead. Throughout the year, more ICONs will be added, giving players even more opportunities to relive the careers of their favourite legends.

Origin Story

If you like creating your own storylines for your Player Career saves, the Origin Story feature lets you give your players a particular reputation from the get-go. They could be a player from a famous footballing family or a nobody with exceptional talent. You can even start later on in your career, perhaps as a player returning from a long-term injury, or a former world-class star that needs to regain their place in the spotlight.

Additional improvements

As well as these major features, a few smaller improvements made include:

• Development plans show you how well players are developing in a certain role, and let you change what role they are developing in if you want them to play in a certain way
• Players can now become complacent if their morale gets too high, requiring you to balance out praise and criticism to maintain a sweet spot
• A whole new UI makes things look cleaner than before, and much easier to navigate than in previous years
• A social media feed will update with posts reacting to what’s going on in your save, including posts from Fabrizio Romano about transfers
• Player customisation has been massively improved, making faces and hair more realistic, and adding tattoos, new accessories and more