It's that time of the year when fans of football simulation games band together in anticipation and the subsequent celebration of the release of another edition of Electronic Arts' legendary offering. The newest game has so far been worth the hype, storming up the Twitch charts and showing once again why the franchise remains beloved even without the involvement of FIFA after the two companies decided to part ways in 2023.
EA Sports FC 25 saw its official release on September 27 for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. However, those fans who paid extra for the Ultimate Edition got early access to the title on September 20.
When looking at its release day stats, the second installment in the series after FIFA and EA Sports decided to end their partnership has done 574.3K Hours Watched and 79.8K Peak Viewers at the time of publishing. What has got many people talking is its intriguing new feature, FC IQ, which helps players enhance the strategic side of the game by handing them thorough control over team and player mentalities.
Using this option, players can modify their build-up styles and defensive approaches by changing the priorities of individual players. This means that despite having the option of the team playing in a certain way and style, they can make particular footballers play a certain way if that suits their playstyle.
However, for many, the most intriguing aspect of EA Sports FC 25 is the new futsal-inspired mode, Rush. Players can battle in five-a-side games (technically, at least) where they can control the four outfield players while the goalkeeper is controlled by the AI. It's available to play across all the four main segments of the title — Kick Off, Career, Ultimate Team, and Clubs.
Switching to the Twitch viewership statistics, during the week that players had early access to the game (September 20 to 26), the game hit 16.84M HW and 340K PV. Interestingly, EA Sports FC 24 also had one week of early access via the purchase of the Ultimate Edition.
Compared to last year’s first-week viewership stats, these numbers are a bit lower. One reason is that this year’s release has clashed with prominent esports events like the League of Legends World Championship 2024, meaning audience attention has been divided.
Moreover, the anticipation for the first edition of the refurbished game under the sole EA banner was pretty high. With features like HyperMotion V, PlayStyles, and tweaks to the Ultimate Team mode, including the addition of female players for the first time, lots of fans were eager to see what the new franchise would provide, leading to a higher audience reach.
Many content creators were also allowed to access and live-stream the inaugural game even before, and the hype they created also played a part in creating high anticipation and eventual success for the title. However, the difference between the early access viewership statistics is not that stark, and Streams Charts will keep track of its weekly and monthly numbers, with such in-depth data available to readers via our PRO subscription.
Nevertheless, FC 24 notched some exceptional numbers and put the game in fourth and third positions, respectively, among games on the platform during this time frame. That means it has done better than much-loved titles like Counter-Strike, Valorant, Fortnite, and Dota 2. Leading the charge for the game doing this well were streamers like eliasn97, DjMaRiiO, Castro_1021, and Eldos, with many of these names known for their love of the game and genre.
Coming back to the first week numbers of FC 25, German online personalities have especially been busy trying out the title and sharing their playthroughs and opinions with fans. This was backed by the fact that it was the most-watched and second-most-popular language over the past week. It also averaged the highest number of online viewers than any other language during this early access phase.
Driven by content creators and a legacy few other series can match, EA Sports FC 25 has gotten off to a great start. Whether it can maintain this momentum and become even more successful than the first iteration, thus establishing the franchise as the top one in the football simulation genre, remains to be seen.
