After an 11-year wait, EA Sports College Football 25 launches in July, but Ultimate Team-laden pre-orders have fans worried this'll be a Madden clone

11 years after the last NCAA Football game, EA Sports College Football 25 is finally set to bring collegiate gridiron action back to the digital stage this July. But after a reveal laden with pre-order bonuses implying a microtransaction-heavy future, fans are already growing worried that this might just be a college-themed Madden clone.

Today marked the cover reveal for EA Sports College Football 25, alongside confirmation that the game is due to launch on July 19. While we won't get the "full reveal" of the game until tomorrow, May 17, pre-orders went live today, including the promise of various "Ultimate Team packs" alongside a pile of "College Football points" if you pick up the Deluxe Edition. You can also pick up a double pack of College Football and Madden 25 in one package.

Given the wild success of Ultimate Team in other EA Sports titles, you won't get a prize if you guessed the microtransaction-heavy mode would make an appearance here. But this confirmation has fans worried that the game is going to fall into the same traps Madden has been accused of for years - namely, putting a big emphasis on Ultimate Team at the expense of other modes in order to funnel players toward in-game purchases.

You can trawl the comments on the announcement for yourself for the general tone of things, but this message from MrBrownCat is a pretty level-headed summation of the community's mood: "The real worry is that they’ll neglect the other modes for Ultimate Team. For this edition I’m confident they’re putting a lot into Dynasty and whatever other modes they’ll have but going forward in future additions I worry it’ll be like Madden and they’ll do less and less as Ultimate Team is what pays the bills."

The comments on Twitter are a lot less patient. 

It's worth noting that NCAA Football 14 - the last entry in EA's college football series - also included an Ultimate Team mode. But much of the series came before the advent of microtransactions, and nostalgia for those games goes back to the PS2 and GameCube days. It remains to be seen how well College Football 25 can live up to that nostalgia, but it's certainly leaning toward the modern age when it comes to in-game purchases.

Looking for a different kind of football? Check out our EA Sports FC 24 guide.