We've seen some fantastic changes made to EA FC 25 Ultimate Team in 2025, and rival football game UFL may be the reason why.
Backtrack a few months, and EA FC 25 was at an extremely low point, with a huge chunk of the Ultimate Team community starting to lose hope in the EA Sports FC series as a whole. Since EA Sports' rebranding from FIFA to EA Sports FC, the game seemed to lose its spark, with many players – including myself – unhappy with the EA FC 25 gameplay.
On top of the underwhelming gameplay was a lack of fresh and exciting in-game content and a powerful push towards pay-to-win, with new and expensive Ultimate Team packs being released in the Ultimate Team store each week. Ultimately, the game got boring, but with a new competitor called UFL entering the football gaming space, it may have been just the push that EA needed to get its game back on track.
UFL launched in December 2024, with the free-to-play football game priding itself on play-to-win over pay-to-win – a possible sly dig at EA and its practices. Instantly, UFL gained a following of players who were more interested in this gameplay-first way of making a football game, and as it started to steal headlines, EA started to feel the heat.
Earlier this year, the publisher admitted that EA FC 25 has 'underperformed' financially leading to a "mid-single-digit decline" in its live services net bookings. In simpler terms, EA hasn't been selling as many FC Points as usual – so something had to change, and fast. Over the last few weeks, it seems EA may have taken a page out of UFL's book, with the Evolutions feature in Ultimate Team spearheading a new way for players to build fantastic teams, play-to-win-style – and I'm loving it.
Keep your enemies closer
It doesn't matter how many new packs EA adds to EA FC 25 Ultimate Team – at the end of the day, the quality of the gameplay itself is what will get people playing the game. Well, we've seen massive improvement made to the gameplay over the last few updates, and with players starting to trickle back in, EA seems to be doing its best to keep their attention thanks to Evolutions.
As always, new promo squads are released weekly in Ultimate Team, with the players included receiving big stat and rating boosts. But getting the chance to use these players can be tough, with the chances of packing them slim, and their prices on the transfer market high.
EA has put a big focus on Evolutions recently, and I think it's changed the game for the better. Now, you can create Ultimate Team players who are on par – if not better – than the majority of promo cards being released; and you can do it either for free, or for a respectable amount of coins or FC Points.
For example, over the last few weeks, EA gifted every Ultimate Team player a free 90-rated Zinedine Zidane and a free Diego Maradona item, with players able to Evolve Zidane to 94 for free and Mardone to 89 for free, while there was also an option to upgrade the latter once more for coins or FC Points.
Evolutions also get players to play the game and complete tasks to earn the upgrades, which ultimately pushes the play-to-win loop – something which is rare for EA Sports FC. With UFL receiving plaudits for its play-to-win strategy, this could potentially have caught EA's eye and been the impetus to go heavy on the Evolutions.
We're also seeing some amazing free rewards on offer as Objectives in EA FC 25 right now. Take the Fantasy FC Cup for example; you can earn huge packs, player picks, and special player items for free, just by winning games, . Right now, it's easier to build an amazing Ultimate Team without spending a penny than ever before, and I'm all here for it.
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