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Finally, it’s back. 11 years after the demise of NCAA Football, EA’s amateur favorite is returning as College Football 25. This week saw Quinn Ewers, Travis Hunter, and Donovan Edwards revealed as cover athletes, along with the first trailer, which you can watch below. While EA is still keeping tight-lipped about the finer details, this new batch of intel tells us plenty about what to expect from the college giant’s return.
First – yep – we’re getting Ultimate Team in a college sports game. All three pre-order variants contain something called the Alma Mater Pack, giving you a choice of one player from 134 potential cards. Indeed, all bonuses from the three different editions are centered on what will quickly enter social media lexicon as ‘CUT'. Lock up the deluxe edition and you get to choose one of Ewers, Hunter or Edwards to build your fantasy team around from the outset.
For long-standing fans, this focus on Ultimate Team is likely to raise alarm bells. NCAA's magic was never about building a dream team – instead, it endured on the basis of multiple strengths that deliberately eschewed the gloss of Madden. Plus Ultimate Team as a whole has never worked as well in that big bro franchise as it does in FIFA/FC, largely because building a team of 50+ players feels more bloated and less personal than one of eleven. But hey: let’s see how the final mode shapes up before bludgeoning it into the turf.
Especially as there is plenty of tantalizing news. For instance, College Football 25 is current-gen only. It’s a revelation bound to excruciate those who still enjoy Madden on PS4 and Xbox One, but should mean a unique football experience. At its heart is a feature called CampusIQ. This sees player ratings change in-game based on their live performance – cool! – along with a dynamic wear and tear system. Leave your stars in too long without rest and you risk fatigue, injury and key mistakes. That last one could be a groundbreaking move for the entire sports genre. Imagine a striker in FC missing a late chance through exhaustion. It might nark weekend league die-hards, but such things do happen in real life.
Leave it to Beaver
Visually, the PS5 and Xbox Series X focus is going to mean arenas such as the 106,000 capacity Beaver Stadium looking the part, and buzzing with atmosphere. This is another area where CampusIQ comes into play. NCAA was the first game to create home-team advantage by replacing away team play art with wiggly lines, and that element returns, along with screen-shaking effects and missing pre-play icons. Pair those tangible gameplay aspects with class-leading visuals and this could be truly special.
If the chosen formats weren’t enough of an advantage over its pro-football playmate, College Football also dwarfs Madden in terms of variety. The latter’s attachment to the NFL means it is, by necessity, limited to a line-up of 32 teams. College Football’s comeback features a colossal list of 134, from heavyweights such as Michigan, Texas and Alabama to minnows like University of Louisiana Monroe. They won exactly two games in 2023. It’s exactly the type of challenge Dynasty mode players love.
Ah yes, Dynasty mode. This is where NCAA outperformed all other EA Sports games in its heyday, because trades are effectively non-existent. Instead you had to spend hours recruiting high school prospects, then enjoy their talents for a limited time before they disappeared to the NFL – or local Walmart counter– after four years. It meant committing to a long-term plan in a way that’s never been necessary in Madden, where the template is: blow your salary cap on the best free agents, win the Super Bowl, repeat to fade.
Magnificently, Dynasty mode is back, with an eye on the past while implementing some tantalizing tweaks. “There's new ways to recruit, there's transfer portals… there's a lot of things to think about,” EA Sports' senior vice president Daryl Holt teased to ESPN. In the old model, you’d make a list of potential signings then unlock information about their abilities – and try to convince them to join your programme – using weekly phone calls. But you only had a certain number of calls each week, providing tricky choices: do you focus on, say, three prospects and then build your roster around them? Or risk spreading your net wider, only to leave that elite trio feeling unwanted and looking elsewhere?
It’s a conundrum we can’t wait to resuscitate, particularly with College Football 25 offering a massive player database. The original series was shut down due to an infamous legal dispute over image rights. To prevent that reoccurring, EA has offered college players on all 134 teams $600 and a copy of the game in order to appear. Exceptions are notable, such as Texas quarterback Archie Manning, but 10,000 talented teens and early 20-somethings have said ‘yes’. Across Ultimate Team or Dynasty, you’re going to have loads of fun roster decisions to make.
Coaches broken down
Sadly, you won’t be able to go up against real coaches. EA says this is because each one needs to affect their team in a bespoke, personal manner, and that this is tough to implement from a design perspective. ”We believe there's a real impact to gameplay or to product differentiation that you could be a coach, have a different type of schedule, have a different type of recruiting philosophy, have a different type of gameplay and play style,” EA Sports vice president of business development Sean O’Brien tells ESPN. “So there's an interesting way of doing that in a similar way to the athletes. No real way of doing that very easily."
Even so, there’s plenty to look forward to, with details on solo career mode Road To Glory and online tournament Road to the College Football Playoff still to come. There will be cynicism around Ultimate Team until College Football 25 lands on July 19. But if EA can nail Dynasty along with those additional treats, any concerns around its focus on ‘CUT’ are likely to be immediately quelled. In the meantime we can but hope – and prepare to start recruiting.
