Sports games get more and more flack from fans as time goes on, and FC 25 is no exception. This year's flagship title from EA Sports is sitting on a 2.7 user score on Metacritic and a 1.4-star rating on Google.
Everything from pack weighting in Ultimate Team to AI movement in the gameplay has come under criticism, but there are a few tweaks that EA could make in future Title Updates to turn the ship around.
Nerf Offside Trap Efficiency
Playing the offside trap in football is risky. When your backline times its movement right it is wonderful, but time it wrong and you are giving up a clear path to goal.
FC 25's offside trap is far too good. It feels like the AI defenders are reading the opponent's button inputs to know just when to step up. The timing is that perfect. It allows players to play a high defensive line without risking too much so long as they leave the back four (or five) positioning to the computer.
Improve Dribbling
Dribbling is very loose in FC 25. It's like you don't have full control of your player and they slide across the field, rather than biting into the surface. This is the opposite of last year's game, where dribbling was too tight and created gameplay with little need to pass.
A middle ground is needed here, where players have a touch more control in their dribbles, but not so much that we get back to FC 24 levels of OP control.
Inertia Movement
This is linked to the dribbling issue, as players feel like they glide over the pitch rather than interact with it. However, it's a problem only on the new gen version of the game. Back on PS4 and Xbox One movement feels much more realistic.
Bringing this aspect to FC 25 on PS5 and Xbox Seris X|S would improve the feel of the gameplay dramatically and mitigate some of the issues players have with the instant recovery speed that plagues the game right now.