For the first time, EA Sports FC 25 will feature a paid season pass and a free season. The Premium Tier Pass will be available for Career Mode, Pro Clubs and Ultimate Team, and will offer packs, players and cosmetic customization items.
Premium tiers can be purchased using FC Points and Ultimate Team Coins, and will function similarly to the current free season tracks in FC 24’s Ultimate Team, where Ultimate Team players complete objectives to gain XP and unlock rewards such as Coin Boosts, Player Packs, and special players and icon items.
In the screenshots seen by iGamesNews, premium tiers appear as additional rewards when players reach certain reward tiers in the free season track. As players complete objectives and earn XP, they unlock both free and premium tier rewards.
“The free tier is essentially what players will see in the game today,” Ultimate Team producer Karthik Venkateshan told iGamesNews at an EA Sports FC 25 preview event.
“For example, you can go back into the game and see that the free tier is the same as it was in version 24 — and then we’ve added the Premium Pass on top of that. That will be something that’s shared across Club, Career and Ultimate Team. That’s a new feature in version 25.”
Richard Waltz, Ultimate Team game design director, explained: “From a high level, there’s nothing in the paid tier that you can’t get in the free tier. There are no exclusive rewards, which means you have to do it. We’re going to have players, packs, things like that in clubs, customisation options.
“It’s worth noting that it can be purchased with both coins and FC Points, so you can decide for yourself.”
The exact price of the premium season pass has not yet been announced.
EA Sports has also announced FC 25 Ultimate Team and a host of new features coming to the game with the new season. One long-awaited premium feature being added is duplicate storage for non-tradable items, which can then be used in SBCs.
You can now relegate from a Rivals division so you aren’t stuck playing games above your level, while friendly matchmaking has been decoupled from the Rivals ELO system to make casual game types less overly competitive.
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Weekly rewards will also be restructured to be unlocked via a points-based system, with three points awarded for a win and one point for a draw, so that players still feel like they’re making progress at the end of the game. The higher-tier rewards will also apparently be better than in the past.
Then for Evolutions, EA is also considering lowering the entry requirements so that you can use your favorite players more often and focus less on making meta players the “best” choice (who then immediately become extinct on the market).
EA Sports FC 25 also introduces a 5-player game type called Rush, which will be implemented in Career Mode, Pro Clubs, and Ultimate Team. Ultimate Team Rush replaces VOLTA and is a 4-player social space where everyone can bring an item from their UT collection to play a mini-game.
To find out more about what’s new, including more far-reaching updates like FC IQ, a complete overhaul of the underlying tactical engine that underpins EA Sports FC’s gameplay, check out our hands-on preview of EA Sports FC 25.
EA Sports FC 25 will be released on September 27th.
