FC 25 launched with great expectations like polished graphics, high-quality gameplay mechanics, and a refined football/career mode experience. However, despite the polished graphics fans were able to spot major key areas that FC 25 was lacking from the unbalanced gameplay mechanics, player movements, and animations, and Pay-to-win challenges in Ultimate Team. With FC 26 launching this year, will EA Sports address the challenge or will history repeat itself? In this article, I will be breaking down FC 25’s Most Criticized Features that have been concerning fans’ issues and what is needed in FC 26.
FC 25’s Most Criticized Features
1. Pay-To-Win Culture in Ultimate Team
Ultimate Team has long been the benchmark of EA’s football franchise with its quick matchmaking, customized squad, and endless availability of special cards to build your team’s strength. Ultimate Team is more rewarding to those willing to open their wallets to gain a competitive edge by spending real money on player packs, points to unlock, or coins. You can always buy affordable FIFA coins at U7BUY FIFA Coins.
The challenge fans have is that spenders get the advantage of filling their dream squad quickly whereas, the casual players often have to rely on grinding heavily on squad battles or depend on low-reward objectives to stay relevant.
What Fans Are Expecting From FC 26:
- Better pack value transparency (EA could initiate clearer and more favourable odds for paid pack)
- Rewarding true gameplay performance (more value placed on performance and not on squad strength)
- Increase free-to-play rewards that make meaningful progress.
- Skill-Based Matchmaking in FUT (ensuring that players face an opponent of similar squad rating or skill level to improve the competition.
2. Player Movements & Animations
The most criticized feature in FC 25 is the player’s Movements and animations. These are the core components of controls and this has really been a big challenge for most controllers. Instead of experiencing a smooth feel and fluidity of players’ movements and responsive transitioning, players tend to get upset and lose or quit the game. Fans found out that the upgrades from FC 24 to 25 were either overstated or poorly implemented.
Common player movement and animation issues:
- Goalkeeping (delayed dive animation)
- Defending (wrong tackling)
- Attacking (slow first touches and finishing)
- Skill gameplay (poor dribbling technique)
- Players’ movements are slow and less effective which will lead to losing the ball to your opponent.
What Fans Are Expecting From FC 26
- Improved transition animations
- More player awareness
- Better physics for tackles
- More responsive movement for online and offline modes
3. Unbalanced gameplay mechanics
FC 25’s unbalanced gameplay mechanics have made the game difficult and unfavorable to players, instead of experiencing a true football simulation. The game now favors certain play styles, AI-assisted defense, and rewards mechanics over football IQ (Tactics)
Example of Unbalanced Gameplay Mechanics In FC 25
1. Overpowered Through Balls and Lobbed passes
- Defenders fail to track back to the defensive line, and AI often responds late to quick situations.
2. Manual Defending feels pointless
- Manual defense are less effective than AI defense
3. Finesse Shots and long-distance shots.
- It encourages players to rely on outside box goals instead of building a more effective attacking gameplay.
- Some long-distance shots are often irrelevant because if you don’t apply force by holding the shoot button, the ball might end up being a ground shot which could be blocked and lead to a quick counter.
4. Dribbling technique and skill moves
- Most dribbling techniques often lead players to injuries and then they are automatically substituted.
- Certain skill moves aren’t very accurate with most players and this might just lead to losing the ball to the opponent.
What Fans Are Expecting From FC 26
- Rebalancing Pace and passing mechanics
- Improve skill moves’ success rates
- Improve player positioning logic based on tactical instructions.
- Improve the goalkeeper’s ability to dominate in a 1v1 situation.
4. Career Mode still feels stagnant
This is an offline gameplay that focuses on realism and player’s progression, whether managing a club from the 2nd division to Champions League glory or growing a club into a world-class team.
Irrespective of the new features and well-polished visuals, FC 25’s career mode still felt like no improvements were actually made, yet it still continues to be left behind – running on outdated systems and low squad depth management. This stagnation has made fans look for alternatives or even abandon the career mode.
What Fans Are Expecting From FC 26
- Realistic long-term progress and experience
- A more effective AI team management to build squad strength and adapt tactics over time.
- Expanding the transfer option
- More immersive managerial roles
5. Online lag and Server Instability
In the history of online gaming, the core value of online modes is having a reliable, consistent, and uninterrupted connection that gives players a good gaming experience. But in the case of FC 25, lags and server instability remain one of the opposing defects in online mode like Ultimate Team, FUT Champions, Online Friendlies, and Co-Op Seasons. Despite the promises of improving the network and upgrading the server, the issue still worsens where players are not just investing time but real money which can be very frustrating.
What Fans Are Expecting From FC 26
- Expanded server network
- Smart match-making filters
- Loss protection for server-side disconnected.
- Real-time indicator before and during matches
- Stable Co-Op and online Friendlies without connection errors.
Until all these issues are put into consideration, FC’s online matches will continue to be terrible and uninteresting.
Final Thoughts
FC 25 showed good improvement from the previous FC 24 but still fell short in most meaningful key areas that could have given perfection to the game and made it a more competitive and video top-tier game. With the upcoming FC 26 launching later this year, EA is expected to listen to the community on making meaningful improvements, investing in server infrastructure, matchmaking, and fair compensation for connection-based losses that would make the game more interesting to keep playing.
