J Smudger

**Game Review: PS5, 40 hours played** As expected, the game mechanics in this latest installment of EAFC are as tight as ever, delivering the fluid and responsive gameplay fans have come to expect. However, it's impossible to ignore the fact that the mechanics have largely remained unchanged for the past 10 iterations. There's an undeniable lack of innovation here, and the same stale experience from previous years is recycled once again, without any fresh ideas to invigorate the gameplay. One of the most glaring issues continues to be the in-game celebrations. Players still appear out of thin air during goal celebrations, often glitching into the stands or through advertising boards. To make matters worse, some players on your team seem to not care about the celebrations at all, standing idly while others react to the goal—creating a disjointed, immersion-breaking experience. Additionally, EA has removed the ability to manually adjust a player’s position in the tactical setup, a baffling decision. If you want to have a CDM, CM, and CAM, you're restricted to using one or two specific formations. This limitation greatly reduces tactical flexibility and forces you into formations you may not want to use, making squad management more frustrating than ever. Also, the ability to change music by pressing the touchpad is gone, a minor but annoying quality-of-life downgrade. **Career Mode:** Career Mode remains riddled with issues. The new features, like every year, are broken. Navigational options in Manager Career mode often disappear, forcing you to exit and re-enter to continue. The Youth Team management is a mess; you can't adjust your squad during a tournament, and simulating games isn’t an option. If you've disabled the first transfer window, accessing the transfer hub can become impossible, and you can't add players to your list—making planning future transfers difficult. Another year and still no trophy room to display your hard-earned silverware is another glaring omission. It strips away a rewarding element of progression that should have been a core feature. Furthermore, the morale system is largely irrelevant and only serves to flood your inbox with repetitive, annoying messages from players about their happiness, despite no actual effect on gameplay. The game's transfer system remains highly unrealistic, and pre/post-match press conferences are laughably shallow, with repetitive dialogue that barely scratches the surface of what could have been a more dynamic, engaging system. The training for fitness and sharpness is tedious (thankfully, it can be turned off), and the commentary feels stuck in the past, adding little excitement to the matches. There's also a noticeable lack of records to break—no acknowledgment of highest goal scorers in the league or club-level achievements, which makes the experience feel less meaningful. **In Conclusion:** This latest EA FC25 instalment is more of the same—a lackluster, uninspired rehash of previous versions. It's a complete ripoff, and the absence of meaningful innovation only serves to highlight how out of touch EA has become with its player base. It’s high time we stop giving them our money for this repetitive, broken mess of a game.