Creating dedicated places to compete with unique squads and improving incentives to play with them is a focus of ours as we head into FC 25. In FC 24 we heard your feedback that the Football Ultimate Team experience over the course of the year can begin to feel stale, particularly if you are coming up against the same line up, game-in game-out.
In FC 25, we’re introducing a brand new concept: the World Tour. Starting in Spain, home of the UEFA European 2024 Men’s Champions, we’ll deliver a unique regional experience each and every Season. Each Season we’ll look to deliver a range of Nation or League-themed content to help you build your World Tour Squad.
In Season 1, you’ll be able to take your Spanish Squad into the One Nation Live Friendly. In addition, keep an eye out for weekly objectives themed around LaLiga, Liga F & Spanish Players. Throughout the Season you’ll be able to add even more Spanish, La Liga & Liga F Superstars to your Club, in addition to Squad Foundations, special Evolutions & SBCs.
This year, Squad Foundation Players will provide +2 League Chemistry points instead of the standard +1, giving you greater flexibility when building new squads. Look out for weekly Squad Foundation releases throughout Season 1.
Mode & Reward Changes
In addition to new look Seasons, we’re focused on delivering some major changes to the core modes within Football Ultimate Team.
There’s four themes that are driving our decision making behind these changes:
Unique Mode Identities: In recent years the purpose behind some of our modes was beginning to converge. We think the changes we are making to how you play and how you’ll be rewarded will help re-establish a unique identity for each mode.
Play at your level: We want to ensure that players are more consistently finding matches that provide the right level of competition.
Reward elite play: This is one that was top of mind for FC 24 too. On reflection, we think we got to a good spot with this one over the course of the year but missed the mark for launch. We’re making changes to improve this for the launch of FC 25.
Connected Rewards: It’s important that Rewards feel connected to what’s happening in Ultimate Team, so we’ll be focussed on delivering frequent updates to keep mode rewards relevant throughout the cycle.
Champions
In FC 25, we're positioning Champions as the pinnacle of high stakes competitive matchups and we want the rewards in and accessibility to Champions to reflect that. Last year, we think we made the Champions Finals too accessible, particularly to lower skill players. As a result, many players went on extended losing streaks and Champions Rewards didn’t reach their full potential.
This year, Champions will not only be more challenging, but it will be more rewarding for higher skilled players.
Champions Play-offs
Purpose: Your gateway into Champions Finals
As a gateway into Champions Finals, we’re looking to reduce the role that Play-offs play each week. In FC 25 we’re lowering the number of games needed to qualify for Finals to 3 out 5 wins, down from 4 out of 10 for FC 24. Reducing the number of games will make each Play-offs match feel competitive with more on the line, helping in 2 key ways:
For players of a higher skill level, it’ll make the process of qualifying for Finals faster.
For players of a lower skill level, it’ll make Play-offs a better reflection of your Finals experience, ensuring that you’ll only qualify for Champions Finals once you are ready to be competitive.
To help facilitate the above we’re making first-time Play-Off Qualification more challenging vs FC 24. For players in lower Rivals Divisions, Play-Off Qualification will feel like a major milestone, whereas players in higher Divisions will consistently be able to jump into the Play-offs each week. In addition, with Play-offs being harder compared to last year, you’ll have 10 additional attempts each season to enter into Play-offs, bringing the total seasonal entries to 18.
https://www.u4gm.com/fc-25-boosting
For some players, Play-offs was a popular arena each week to experiment with new teams and players. As we reflect on all of our modes, we think that the matchmaking changes announced for Live Friendlies will better meet this need in FC 25 (more on this below).
Finals
Purpose: The pinnacle of high-stakes competition
https://www.u4gm.com/fc-25-packs
The changes to Play-offs will mean that the average skill of Champions Finals players will increase year on year. With this increased level of competition, top finishes in Champions Finals will earn you significantly improved rewards compared to FC 24.
We’ll also be looking to better differentiate the types of rewards you see in Champions & Rivals to help the modes feel unique. As an example of the changes you can expect, below you can see the Season 1 rewards for players who achieve Rank 1 in Champions Finals:
https://www.u4gm.com/fc-25-sbcs
200,000 Ultimate Team Coins
Tradeable 85+ x10 Players Pack
Tradeable 84+ x10 Players Pack
Untradable Base Icon Pack
Untradable 89+ x2 Players Pack
Untradable 82+ x30 Players Pack
Three Tradeable TOTW x3 Players Pack