EA Sports FC 24 Ultimate Team Deep Dive Shows How Evolutions Work

Over the past few weeks, Electronic Arts has been rolling out new information about EA Sports FC 24 to prep players for its September 29 (September 22 with the Ultimate Edition) release date. Today, the team finally gave everyone their first look at the mode that most people spend the bulk of their time with: Ultimate Team. This year, EA is making some major changes to how Ultimate Team works, adding new Evolution players and letting men and women soccer stars play on the pitch at the same time. Of course, even that’s just the tip of the EA Sports FC 24 iceberg.

We’ve known that Evolutions would be a thing for a bit now, but EA finally gave us a full rundown on how it will work. Per the Pitch Notes blog, we learned that you won’t be able to just pick any player you want and upgrade them throughout the season. Instead, you’ll have to use players that fit specific criteria. Each season, EA FC 24 will add new players that can be evolved, with some being free and others having some kind of cost. From there, you’ll need to complete different objectives to get the upgrades, which can range from full overall boosts to something more specific like a weak foot upgrade. However, it should be noted that you can only work on a single player at a time. Unlike the similar system in the NBA 2K series, you can’t just load your team with Evos and run wild.

The next major change is the inclusion of female soccer players into Ultimate Team. Again, we’ve known this was happening for quite a while now, but EA did explain how chemistry will work with them. Essentially, it’s the same as previous games, but it’s key to note that club chemistry goes across every league. That means Sam Kerr will link to Reece James because they both play for Chelsea, even though Kerr stars for the women’s side while James plays for the men.

On top of those major changes, EA Sports FC 24 is also adding a “claim all” button for objectives, improving Icon chemistry to make them more powerful, incorporating PlayStyles into the mode, and, maybe most importantly depending on what mode you prefer, reducing AI Squad Battles to four-minute halves. In short, there are a ton of positive changes on the horizon for EA Sports FC 24‘s Ultimate Team mode and this deep dive is likely just the beginning.