• Real-world ads have begun to appear in the faux social media feed of EA Sports FC 25’s Career Mode.
• A number of players have spotted the ads appear, which is a first for the long-running football franchise.
• For now, most of the ads appear to be for Beats by Dre products.

While putting in some hours playing EA Sports FC 25 this week, we noticed something rather peculiar.

Namely that advertisements for real world products were being featured in the game’s Career Mode.

For those unfamiliar with the mode, one of the cosmetic changes is the introduction of a faux social media feed on the main screen, which populates with football news and posts related to the club you’re either managing or playing for.

It is a fairly innocuous addition, but yesterday we spotted an oddity in the form of an advert for Beats by Dre products. Namely an ad for the Beats Fit Pro, a pair of wireless earphones that retail in South Africa for ~R3 900.

“Beats Fit Pro are engineered for active lifestyles. The innovative wingtip design guarantees they stay in your ear when you need them most.” the faux social media post reads. There are even some fake reactions to the post too, with one even asking “How do I like this post?”

You can see the number of likes and comments too, all fake of course, which begs the question why EA Sports would go through all this effort to add such a feature and not include some native way to find out more information about the product being advertised or a way to actually purchase it.

Perhaps that is a plan for down the line, but right now it looks like the feature is being sold to advertisers as a way to surface new products to EA FC players in a relatively unobtrusive way.

While it has not prompted us to go out an buy a pair of Beats Fit Pro, it is an interesting in-game idea that may be expanded down the line, or surface in other EA titles.

Either way, since FIFA ended its relationship with EA Sports, it looks like no ideas are off limits to try.

Case in point cancer, which is now an “injury” that a player can suffer, according to screenshots spotted by VICE.

While it is good to see EA Sports acknowledge the fact that real-life players do indeed get cancer, with the latest high-profile instance being Sebastian Haller who recovered and is playing once more, it is odd to see match readiness for an illness like cancer on-screen, especially when the recovery time is listed at two months for example.

Hopefully this is something that it handled with more tact moving forward, but as mentioned, nothing is off the table at EA Sports at the moment.

You can read our review of EA Sports FC 25 by clicking on the post embedded below.