FIRST PLAY: EA Sports FC 25’s new 5-a-side mode is the best addition in years

It’s rare for an annualized sports game to have a genuinely new feature to boast about.

Even in this case, it’s possible to argue that EA Sports FC 25‘s new Rush mode is just a reskin of the interesting but ultimately abandoned Volta. But where Volta was hidden away as an afterthought in a section of the game that nobody played, Rush is being integrated across EA Sports FC 25’s biggest modes and has a real chance to change the game.

Rush is a 5v5 mode in which four human players on each side and one A.I. goalkeeper duke it out on a small pitch. Mechanically, Rush uses the exact same movement and physics as the traditional eleven-a-side game, simply on a shorter pitch and with half the players.

If a player commits a foul, they’ll be given a blue card, which will see them sent off the pitch for 60 seconds, before being able to return to the action. Offside is only in effect in the attacking third of the pitch, rather than the opponent’s entire half.

Penalties are in the style of the old MLS penalty kicks, wherein instead of a shot from 12 yards away, players face the keeper in a 1vs1 situation. During a penalty, the captain of the opposing side is able to control the goalkeeper.

The mode strikes a great balance between the frantic feeling of Volta and the mechanics of the main game. It feels like an authentic 5-a-side experience, complete with your entire team attacking while your defence is left completely exposed.

The fast-flowing gameplay brings to mind basketball, with transitions in play happening in the blink of an eye. We can already clearly envision getting into a Discord call with mates and screaming at each other when our greedy striker refuses to pass for an easy goal, and instead lands it in row Z.

It’s effectively taking what Pro Clubs does at its absolute best and applying it across every other mode in the game. It’s impossible to ignore the rise of Pro Clubs-related content on TikTok and YouTube, with even former professional players like Wayne Rooney streaming the game. It feels like EA has managed to harness the chaos of that mode, and made it more accessible.

Creating a fun mode is one thing, but the inclusion of the mode in Ultimate Team is what is going to really sell it to the majority of players, and make sure it remains a mainstay in future years. In the Ultimate Team version of Rush, players will bring one player item from their club to the lobby, as will three of their friends (or matchmade random people). Then, the four players will form their Rush squad, and take on others for Ultimate Team rewards.

As noted by EA, the Ultimate Team mode has become more and more competitive over the years, with very little in the way of casual or social gameplay options in the mode. Rush is supposed to fix that problem, while also making it worthwhile for players that want as many packs as they can get their hands on.

“As noted by EA, the Ultimate Team mode has become more and more competitive over the years, with very little in the way of casual or social gameplay options in the mode. Rush is supposed to fix that problem”

The other large change that we experienced during our hands-on session with EA FC 25 is the changes to how the game handles tactics. EA FC 24 largely adopted the same dated tactical set-up as previous FIFA titles, which meant that there was very little variation in the way the game was played from player to player.

More relevantly, it meant that it was incredibly easy for the community to discover the most overpowered tactic, and exploit it to the fullest, due to the low number of options afforded to players. This became such a problem that EA actually had to ban certain formations from its professional circuit, due to the nature of how they performed in-game.

The changes in tactics to EA FC 25 seem more focused on recreating the tactics used by real-life managers. Pep’s total control, Klopp’s swashbuckling attacking, and Southgate’s Melatonin-ball. This is always a difficult thing to recreate, especially when you’re effectively only ever controlling one player, but the glimpses of the on-the-fly tactical changes we got during our matches feels like a good step towards breaking the monotony of facing the exact same tactics every time.

This extends to the improved Player Roles system, which will attempt to make players feel closer to their real-life counterparts. While previous games have had different body types and running animations to make Nordic mountain Erling Haaland feel different from the new Galactico Kylian Mbappe, the new expansion of the Player Roles feature, in conjunction with the tactics, is meant to take that much further.

One of the curiosities about covering annualized franchises is that a large amount of the messaging goes into telling you how flawed the last game was. It’s difficult not to picture us sitting here a year from now telling you about how the Player Roles system was a disaster, but for EA FC 26, the development team has really nailed it.

As for Rush, there’s a tangible, exciting new mode there that we really want to stick our teeth into, something that EA hasn’t been able to say about its football games in a while. The inclusion of it in the world’s most popular live-service sports game will hopefully mean that it becomes a firm fixture for years, but for now, we’re looking forward to those late nights screaming into our headsets over a last-minute winner.