EA Sports FC 25 has been out for over two weeks but is it a success?-Kenneth Andersen-Entertainment – Metro

EA Sports FC 25 – a mixed bag (Steam)

A divided fan base, weaker sales, but stronger player numbers paint a murky picture for the launch of EA Sports FC 25.

EA Sports FC 25 certainly aimed to impress, when it came out on September 27, introducing a new 5v5 game mode called Rush and adding a new AI system to make teammates smarter.

It also completely revamped how you use tactics, with new ways to set your team up with and without the ball.

Change isn’t always welcome though, and the game’s reception, from both critics and fans, can be summarised as mixed, but better than EA Sports FC 24.

When it comes to how many fans have bought EA Sports FC 25, launch sales for this year’s title dropped by 4.6% compared to EA Sports FC 24.

Despite this, EA Sports FC 25 was still the best-selling video game of September, according to Gamesindustry.biz’s Christopher Dring.

In one of the episodes on the site’s podcast, however, it is revealed that the Ultimate Edition of the game, which let you play it before the official release date, saw sales increase by 6% in the UK, compared to EA Sports FC 24.

EA Sports FC 25 is set to be the year’s biggest seller (Electronic Arts)

While Xbox and PlayStation don’t release data for how many fans are playing their games, SteamDB does reveal the number of active PC players.

According to the site, 110,000 people played EA Sports FC 25 on the first Sunday after launch, compared to the 82,000 who played EA Sports FC 24 on the same day last year.

However, player numbers for EA Sports FC 25 on PC dropped by 12,000 in the following two weeks, from Sunday to Sunday, which is more than the 4,000 decrease last year’s release saw in the same period.

What is trending up, however, is critic reviews, as EA Sports FC 25 has scored a rating of 77 out of 100 on Metacritic, compared to EA Sports FC 24’s 75.

The score is much more generous over at OpenCritic, where this year’s release has a 76% critics recommended rating, compared to EA Sports FC 24’s 59%.

Fan opinion is far worse reading, however, with a user review score of 2.8 out of 10 on Metacritic for EA Sports FC 25, even if that’s more than EA Sports FC 24’s 2.4.

The overall score on Steam is ‘Mixed’, with 7,600 out of the total 14,500 reviews being labelled negative, with comments equally polarising.

‘Initial thoughts: I gotta say, movement is much more fluid and more responsive. Is it worth the price? H*** no. It’s more like a good update for previous the FC,’ says Pero.

‘It’s an improvement over the last couple of years that much is clear,’ UK Craigie says.

‘Instant uninstall, what a terrible game. Played FIFA my whole life and it seems to be getting worse and worse,’ Wooblay says.

EA Sports FC 25’s Rush mode (Electronic Arts)

Over decades of yearly releases, FIFA/EA Sports FC has become the most popular football simulator in the world and satisfying all of the millions of fans will always be an impossible task.

Despite this, senior producer Sam Rivera told GameCentral, ahead of the release of EA Sports FC 25, that they’re always looking at what the fans want.

‘With a franchise such as FC, ensuring we’re staying true to what our players know and love, and being authentic to the beautiful game itself, is incredibly important,’ he said.

‘However, we’re also acutely aware that we have to constantly innovate with each new entry to the series. Throughout the whole planning and development process for FC 25, we’ve been constantly listening to player feedback.’

You can’t dribble past those fan comments (Electronic Arts)

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