EA FC 25 has a setting that turns Career Mode into every football fan’s dream

Career Mode has long been the destination for FIFA and EA SPORTS FC players looking for an authentic football experience, and EA FC 25 finally delivers the realistic matches I’ve been craving thanks to a brand-new setting.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: You get inspired to start a fresh Career Mode save with a new team, spend hours creating your manager, making savvy signings, only to quickly abandon it after a few matches. We’ve all been there.

As a long-time football fan and series veteran, the idea of starting a Career Mode is often more fun than the act itself. While wheeling and dealing on the transfer market and signing future stars is always a joy, the actual matches themselves quickly snap me out of the fantasy.

FIFA and EA FC have always felt like a much faster version of the beautiful game than what we see every weekend. Goals fly into the top corner very often, and the world’s fastest players can blitz past a defender with a flick of the right stick. There’s no doubt this makes for thrilling matches in Ultimate Team, but low-rated midfielders rainbow-flicking over tackles and constant 5-4 scorelines are a far cry from the sport I know and love.

EA FC 25 solves all these issues with the new “Simulation” setting that is a must-use for football purists. This can be enabled when first starting a Career Mode save, or by heading into the Game Settings at any time once it’s underway.

EA SPORTS / Dexerto

What it does is adjust many of the in-game settings to make games play out much more like the real-life sport. Sprint speeds are turned down, so you can’t just pace your way to victory, players are more likely to fumble their touch, and your CPU teammates are more thoughtful about when to make a bombing run.

The result is matches that are much slower, more methodical, and, in many cases, uneventful. While there are still the occasional high-scoring games, most are much tamer affairs with fewer goals and only a handful of huge chances.

But this raises the stakes and adds to the jeopardy of every moment. Whereas before, coming from two goals behind felt like a tough but achievable challenge, with Simulation turned on, it’s a mountain to climb and can effectively kill the game if you don’t strike back soon enough.

All of this has brought something back to EA FC 25 that I’ve not really felt in Career Mode for many years – the joy of scoring a goal. Finally making the breakthrough against a tight defense, or scoring on the counterattack after being passed to death for 90 minutes, has led to some of the most memorable moments I’ve had in the series for years, and makes every win feel like a hard-fought three points.

I realize this setting won’t be for everyone. If you’re a player who likes the end-to-end action of Ultimate Team and prefers to feel like you’re up against another real person, then Simulation will likely bore you to tears.

But, if you’re like me and want to recreate the real, and often mundane, way that actual football matches go, then this option could completely change your EA FC 25 Career Modes for the better.