EA Sports FC 25 vs. UFL: Which Is Better?

For a while now, EA Sports FC and FIFA before it, have led the football game genre with very little competition. As the franchise has regressed in some ways and tried to take as much money as possible from its players every year, fans have been vocal about their desire to at least try UFL, a free-to-play football game with “fun” being its primary focus.

With FIFA and FC being so ingrained in the minds of football fans all around the world, it’ll be hard for UFL to muscle its way in and take some of the market share. To take any at all, it needs to be a good experience, beating or matching FC 25 in as many ways as it can. The question is, at launch, how do UFL and EA Sports FC 25 compare? Which is the better soccer game? We’ll come to a conclusion by analyzing a few different key elements of both games.

Gameplay

Gameplay is where it really matters. Since UFL isn’t a game that’ll be released every year, instead getting regular updates, it needs to have a solid gameplay base to work from. We’ve seen eFootball struggle with this concept at times since its transition years back, and so this is no easy task.

Much like FC 25, UFL has strengths and weaknesses. It’s a little clunky, with players taking a while to control the ball and turn, and shooting animations don’t always look natural, but there’s a consistency and balance to gameplay that EA Sports FC hasn’t been able to match. 

Games are also quite open, with long balls and lobbed through balls always an option when you get time in central midfield. Whether that’s a strength of attacking or a weakness of defensive design, time will tell, but there’s an undeniable element of fun to UFL. If the developers can improve the general physics, there’s real promise in how the game plays.

Opinions on UFL may change over time too. FIFA and FC games have always seen their gameplay develop over the year as patches change things and the community learns what’s overpowered. Over time, the same will happen with UFL, and how impressive the gameplay remains will depend heavily on how the developers manage it over time.

Benefitting UFL, EA Sports FC 25’s gameplay is about as bad as it has ever been. While there are always overpowered mechanics, such as the finesse shot playstyle+ this year and cut backs in FC 24, the moment-to-moment gameplay consistency and reliability have never been worse.

Almost every match you play is plagued by strange player interactions, misplaced passes, and goalkeeper mistakes. Tackles from behind are overpowered, high-depth tactics trigger automatic offside traps, and the AI is ludicrously dumb.

It’s that last aspect that’s the most egregious. Whether it be in attack or defense, players you aren’t controlling are so often out of position, making patterns of play so difficult to put together. Attackers will run away from open goal opportunities, dawdle when in offside positions, or ignore the instructions tied to their roles.

While it’s impossible to confirm, I believe that the piling of new features on top of each other is seeing the game struggle under the weight. Playstyles, roles, and FC IQ have all been added in the last couple of years, yet the gameplay is going backwards. Something has gone wrong somewhere, and the watch is on now to see how EA Sports tries to fix it.

While UFL is far from perfect, it’s showing the potential to be something great, and more importantly, fun to play.

Graphics And Presentation

This is where UFL is at a disadvantage. FC 25 is developed and published by a multi-billion dollar company and has almost 30 years of entries behind it, while UFL is a debut free-to-play game. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that FC 25 is the better-looking game. The difference isn’t as significant as you might imagine, though.

When viewing the whole pitch at the same time, you’ll struggle to tell the difference. Where UFL lags behind is in the general match day presentation. Crowds are less lively, celebration options are limited, and there’s simply a little less fanfare going on at all times.

UFL also has a lot less than EA Sports FC 25 in terms of player animations. While FC 25 is full of physics issues, players do move more smoothly and interact more seamlessly.

It’ll be interesting to see how UFL evolves in its presentation over the coming years, trying to catch up with what EA Sports has mastered. For now, EA Sports FC 25 wins in the graphics and presentation department, but it’s a closer competition than you might imagine.

Modes

Analyzing which game has the better offering when it comes to modes is a little unfair. EA Sports FC has had a lot longer to design and introduce new modes for players. However, more isn’t always better.

UFL is essentially an Ultimate Team equivalent. You get players to build your own team and take that team into matches online. There’s a weekend mode that’s similar to Champions in FC, and a ranked mode that’s similar to traditional ranked modes in shooters. Otherwise, the modes offering is pretty insignificant, albeit by design. 

FC 25 has career mode, Clubs, kick-off, online friendlies, and the various modes in Ultimate Team. Yes, the likes of Draft, Moments, and Squad Battles range from uninteresting to abandoned, but there’s certainly something for everyone. UFL has been designed to be Ultimate Team competition, so that’s where the comparison should be. We’d obviously love to have a career mode in UFL if they did get into anything else, but the idea here is clearly to focus on competitive online gameplay.

Monetization

This is the most interesting debate. No matter what I say, you have to keep in mind that UFL is a free game and EA Sports FC 25 cost $60 at launch if you bought the standard edition. Also, UFL has been designed to have a long life, lasting far beyond the annual cycle of EA’s series.

EA Sports has started to go mad with the number of promo packs you can buy at any one time. Usually, you can find hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of packs available for purchase in the store, and buying them doesn’t guarantee you any individual players. You’re opening packs with the slim hopes of getting something good, when in reality you probably won’t. 

In contrast, UFL’s monetization is a little more straightforward. You buy CP to purchase packs that contain skins that can boost the stats of players on your team. Alternatively, you can use any CP you buy to get any player in the game. Every player has a specific CP price, so you can spend any currency you buy on them if you have enough.

While there’s an element of pay-to-win to both games, with the amount of money you spend directly correlating to the quality of your team, FC 25 is by far the worse culprit. The fact that you know exactly what player you’re spending your hard-earned cash on puts UFL ahead in the monetization stakes. Also, it’s a free game after all.

The Bottom Line

There are two things UFL really has on its side: price and time. Since it is going to be a service title, rather than an annual premium release, the developers can work to ensure it’ll improve over time, with the player base not having to fork out $60 for those improvements. When it comes to presentation and the modes on offer, FC 25 is ahead, but it’s had almost 30 years to hone its craft.

More importantly, however, UFL excitingly places fun and consistency at the forefront of its gameplay. Since EA Sports FC 25 is the worst the series has been gameplay wise for a long time, now is the perfect time to take advantage by improving its own gameplay as quickly as possible.