On Friday, EA Sports released FC 25, the latest edition of the company’s best-selling soccer video game — now with increased playability and storytelling on the women’s side.
For the first time in history, EAFC — formerly known as FIFA — is throwing Women’s Manager and Player Career Mode into the mix. In Career Mode, players now have full access to 2024/25 rosters across the world’s top women’s leagues: NWSL, WSL, Première Ligue, Frauen-Bundesliga, and Liga F plus UEFA Women’s Champions League.
“It’s been a few years since they’ve been implementing women into the game and I’ve had a presence in this community,” Gotham forward Midge Purce told JWS at Thursday night’s FC 25 launch party in New York City. “It’s been fun to see that presence grow in a really authentic way. For the first time ever, women have Career Mode and that’s a really sick addition that you wish came from the beginning, but it’s really nice that it’s being added now.”
According to EA Sports, Women’s Career Mode features all the same detailed capabilities as Men’s Manager Career Mode, but also incorporates “unique challenges that exist solely within the women’s game.”
FC 24’s Ultimate Teams paved the way for Women’s Career Mode
Last year, FC 24 introduced women’s football athletes into the brand’s popular Ultimate Team mode. This addition allowed users to create their dream squads with both current stars as well as titans of the game like Mia Hamm and Kelly Smith as well as comic book-inspired “Women’s Heroes,” or stylized versions of real-life legends like Sonia Bompastor.
This year’s upgrade represents a significant shift in programming for EA FC, which ended its 30-year partnership with international soccer’s governing body FIFA after the game’s 2023 release. The success of 2024’s Ultimate Team inclusion likely preempted EA Sports’ decision to expand women’s soccer offerings to Career Mode. In addition to the managerial track, FC 25 users can also start a career on the pitch, following a player from team to team as they build skills via training and gameplay.
“The key thing that we wanted to do was present the women’s career authentically, and make it feel like it really was, not just like men’s career with women players,” EAFC 25 design director Pete O’Donnell told reporters at a July 2024 preview event. “A lot of the systems behind the two mostly work the same, but it’s the financial models and other things that make a really big difference.”
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