EA SPORTS FC 25 is the second entry under EA's post-FIFA branding, and it plays the hits you already know: Ultimate Team, Career Mode, Volta Football, and online seasons across every major league license EA still holds. The headlining additions this year are 5v5 Rush, a smaller-sided mode you can play with friends across most major game modes, and FC IQ, a tactical layer that gives you finer control over player roles and off-ball movement instructions. If you have spent time with Football Manager or even just pored over real pressing shapes, FC IQ actually gives you levers worth pulling. Most casual players will set it to auto and forget it exists, which is a fine choice too. The simulation side is competent. Player individuality is better than it was a few iterations ago, and the physicality model means you cannot just sprint past every defender indefinitely. Rush is the genuinely fresh idea here: five-a-side with condensed pitches forces faster decision-making and rewards short passing combinations over individual dribble spam. It is a good couch co-op mode and a decent palette cleanser between ranked sessions. FC IQ, meanwhile, rewards the kind of player who wants to replicate a high press or a low-block counter system rather than just picking the highest-rated squad. Now for the honest accounting. Those Mixed Steam reviews at 53% positive across more than 100,000 ratings are not a rounding error. The recurring complaints cluster around Ultimate Team monetisation, match-to-match momentum swings that feel scripted rather than simulation-driven, and a Career Mode that has seen only cosmetic updates for several cycles. The gameplay floor is high, but the ceiling feels artificially padded by in-game economies designed around card packs. If Ultimate Team is your primary mode, budget for that reality going in. If you are here purely for local multiplayer, online seasons, or Career Mode, you will spend zero on packs and likely have a decent time. For a strategy-minded buyer the question is depth versus repetition. FC IQ is the most meaningful tactical addition in years and it does create genuine build-order style decisions at the squad management level: which roles complement each other, which press triggers to set, how to exploit specific opponent formations. That is real decision space. The problem is that AI opposition in Career Mode and offline modes does not always challenge those systems in ways that feel rewarding. The AI exploits the same two or three patterns repeatedly, which undercuts the tactical variety FC IQ promises. Multiplayer is where the depth actually gets tested, and online PvP with a well-built FC IQ setup is legitimately satisfying when it clicks. This is a PS4-to-PS5 digital upgrade listing, which is a slightly unusual purchase context for a PC storefront. Treat it as what it is: a version-gate transaction if you already own the base game on PS4 and want the PS5 feature set. On its own merits as a football game in 2024, FC 25 is a competent and occasionally creative entry that carries genuine baggage from years of incremental updates and a monetisation model that has never been shy about its priorities. Rush is worth your time. FC IQ is worth learning. Everything else is familiar in ways that will feel either comforting or stale depending entirely on how many hours you have already spent in this series. Diego, Scout Team