EA Sports FC 25 is introducing its first paid battle pass, after previously experimenting with a free version of the feature.
Timed ahead of the game’s Team of the Season (TOTS) event, EA will roll out a premium version of the Season 7 pass priced at 500k in-game UT Coins, or which you can buy for 1000 FC Points (around £9).
Access to this 40-tier pass begins today, 24th April, and will reward tradeable packs, Season Point boosters, TOTS items, evolution consumables and retro cosmetic evolutions. Its centrepiece is an exclusive 96-rated Immortal Icon Franck Ribery, the former French winger who spent most of his career at Bayern Munich.
Announcing the Premium Pass, EA said that while this iteration of the battle pass wouldn’t change, it would be “monitoring your feedback to make sure we deliver the best experience possible in whatever mode you play in FC moving forward”.
Anyone with feedback is invited to provide it via the EA Sports Discord, or EA’s own direct feedback portal.
On social media, however, the opinions are somewhat mixed. While some players have pointed to the items within the pass making up for its costs – and Ribery alone being worth the coins – others have said that Ultimate Team is already a money-sucking experience, without another additional thing to buy.
“Having Players EXCLUSIVE to the Paid Season pass is extremely greedy and is not the path to go down,” wrote social media user Wildcat. “If its packs/cosmetics/SP/kits im sure 99 percent of the community won’t mind. But locking a card like that ribery behind a paywall??? Even if its only 500k coins its just greedy as hell.”
“Don’t get the outrage,” wrote Norwich City supporter Callum, however. “I ain’t sticking up for EA but if that Ribery was an SBC everyone would be happy spending 500k on it 😂 Let alone the other rewards (you even get coins back from tradable packs).”
We awarded EA Sports FC 25 three stars on its release last year.
“This is a new FC, with some genuine differences on- and off-pitch,” our Chris Tapsell wrote in Eurogamer’s EA Sports FC 25 review. “It’s also the exact same FC it’s always been.”