EA Sports College Football 25 Revives the Franchise with Impressive Gameplay and Features

'EA Sports College Football 25' review: Why it puts 'Madden' to shame

It's cliche to say but college football is back. And it only feels trite to say, because at this point, despite all the hype, the memes, the teasers, and the trailers -- none of this feels real. For the first time in 11 years, there is a college football game and it's called EA Sports College Football 25. All 128 NCAA Division-1 FBS teams are in the game, and for an unprecedented first, this year's version of college football also features current players. It's a massive grab and statement for EA Orlando, which has been diligently working on the long-awaited successor to NCAA Football 14 since the 2021 announcement. With the game launching across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on July 19, two of Mashable's biggest CFB fans took cracks at the game to find out if it was worth the wait. The biggest takeaway from our time playing is that CFB 25 gets the vibe of college football just right, even if the entire package could use some work. After all, it's still an EA game. Section written by Chance Townsend Playing CFB 25 is a smooth and crisp experience. Of course, it's gonna play better than its 11-year-old predecessor, but there's a level of fluidity in here that even puts Madden to shame. This shines within the running game, which is ultra-fun, crisp, and doesn't feel too animation-heavy. Although there were times when hitting the open hole I felt like the animation was sucking me into a tackle. Running is the bread and butter of the CFB 25 experience, and honestly, it shows. That doesn't mean the passing game didn't get some love, though. New to this version of the game is "revamped passing," which shows a meter above the receiver's head during a throw. This meter determines the accuracy, power and placement of a pass. Hit the golden spot in the meter, and make the catch, but if you misjudge it, you'll end up putting your receiver in a bad spot. It's very satisfying to use compared to Madden's placement and accuracy, though it lacks the precision of that option. However, if you like Madden's interpretation of passing or love to stick to the classics, both options are available to choose from. The passing game in general is harder than in years past. There's a frustrating amount of dropped passes by receivers at the slightest bit on contact, which makes for a troublesome gaming experience -- while probably true to life, its not fun to play with. So if you thought you could spam 4 Verts like you could in NCAA 14 for easy gains, well tough noogies buddy, get ready to learn how to RPO. Speaking of the run-pass option, it's busted as hell. If you can't immediately make a decision when passing, you'll get an illegal man downfield penalty 90 percent of the time. On top of that, the new two-part kick meter may also cause some yelling. Which, again, in real life, these things are difficult, but it doesn't make for a fun video game experience. Defense, however, is not fun. On higher difficulties like All-American and Heisman, stopping anything felt impossible. To be fair, the last Frostbite Engine-era football game I played was Madden 18, so maybe I just suck ass, but I don't think Troy should realistically be dropping 35 on the Longhorns. Section written by Alex Perry College football holds a special place in my heart, probably unreasonably so. America's second-favorite version of its most popular sport is unlike any other. The games are often sloppy to the point of hilarity, intensely weird things happen all the time, and one time, a guy got so mad about a game that he poisoned historic trees on the opposing team's campus and called into a talk radio show to admit his guilt. This colorful menagerie of nonsense, naturally, produces fantastic vibes. Every school has various ancient rituals the players or fans do before, during, and after games. Notre Dame players tap a sign that says "PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY" in the pregame tunnel. Nebraska fans unleash red balloons after the first scoring play of every home game. Everyone, no matter who they're rooting for, turns and waves at a children's hospital that overlooks the stadium during every Iowa home game. Without meandering even more, I'll get straight to the point. Pretty much all of those things are present and accounted for in College Football 25. Nearly all that makes college football a compelling TV product, from boisterous marching bands and drumlines to nuclear-powered crowd noise, are represented in the game. The latter point actually affects gameplay, as receiver routes and icons will become misleading or confusing to read while an opposing crowd is bearing down on you. That's not new to football games, per se, but it's still very cool to feel the pressure of driving for a touchdown as the away team at Ohio State. Sure, there are some typical jerky or unnatural-looking animations (as there have been in every 3D football game ever), but on the whole, College Football 25 nails the look of college football, too. Every in-game stadium, from Michigan's Big House to North Texas's DATCU Stadium, is stunningly rendered. Crowds look voluminous and energetic, too. The game gets big points from me for also altering the colors and theming of the main menu depending on which school you choose as your favorite team. In particular, I love that every school's main menu screen features a ticket stub to a legendary real-life game from that program's history. Remember the time in 2011 when Iowa State upset Oklahoma State in overtime? No? Well, I do, and so did the developers of this game -- and that's what matters. There are really only a couple of minor criticisms I have of College Football 25's presentation. First up is the commentary, which is made up of various big names in the world of college football broadcasting like Chris Fowler, Rece Davis, and Kirk Herbstreit. Those guys are all pretty much fine, if a little flat at times. The play-by-play guys like Fowler and Davis will occasionally throw in school-specific references, which is cute. I enjoyed hearing some "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" while playing a game at Kansas, for example. Unfortunately, the game also includes David Pollack on color commentary. I don't like David Pollack very much, for reasons that are not entirely relevant to this review. I also just find his commentary annoying and inane most of the time. Beyond that, any stadium rituals that involve licensed music are touch-and-go at best. Virginia Tech can potentially lay claim to the greatest pregame intro in all of sports, but since it uses Metallica's "Enter Sandman," it's not accurately presented in this game. Bummer. Still, you'll occasionally hear "Sandstorm" blaring over stadium speakers between plays in any given game, so it still feels enough like college football to me. Section written by Alex Perry College Football 25 has two primary modes that dominate most of the attention outside of online exhibitions and microtransaction trading card nonsense. The first is Dynasty, a returning mode from the NCAA games of eld that casts the player as a made up head coach or coordinator for the school of their choosing. I have to admit, I was never the biggest Dynasty guy back in the day -- and I still may not be. But the version of the mode that's present in College Football 25 seems to have nearly everything you could want. Your coach or coordinator can have as many or as few responsibilities as you want. If you want to be meticulous about recruiting talent, you can do that. If you want to focus on gameday tactics and actually playing football (which is really more of a fun treat you get to occasionally do in this mode), you can do that, too. Speaking of recruiting, that particular side of College Football 25's Dynasty mode is funny. It more or less works the same as it always did, as you have limited resources for player recruiting and the players' decisions are not entirely in your hands. It's been updated for modern times, though, as one of the resource-consuming activities you can do to court a player is to DM him on social media. Yes, there is a button that just says "DM player" in the Dynasty menu. I laughed a lot when I saw that. Aside from that, though, Dynasty is impressively flexible and accommodates many different styles of play for something that, from the outside, would seem to be the most hardcore mode in the game. I pretty much only like playing offense in football games, so I made an offensive coordinator and only call offensive plays now. Easy! That's what I like to see. If I'm good enough at it, maybe I'll get a mediocre head coaching job, flame out in three years, and cause an entire community in Tennessee or whatever to hate me for eternity. That's what college football is all about. Section written by Chance Townsend Gone are the glory days of playing in high school with this year's version of CFB 25. In previous games, players could simulate high school games to garner interest from potential schools and commit to them. However, that feature got cut in favor of a more limited, streamlined Road to Glory (RTG) experience. Instead, players can pick from one of four options, starting as an elite five-star talent to a lowly two-star underdog. Your decision will determine your player overall, your choice of schools, and your place on that program's depth chart. For example, a five-star will have their top of top-level programs like UT-Austin or Michigan. But a two or three-star will have their pick of fighting for starting spots at lowly programs like Air Force or Eastern Michigan. You can walk on to any school in the game, but you'll be starting from the bench and it's hard to get rise up the depth chart. I started my RTG at Memphis, which promised my created QB the second-string position. Once the creation and recruitment process is done, you'll be taken to the main hub where you can play or sim that week's game, participate in practice drills, and spend energy points on your weekly agenda. You have the choice to put your energy into academics, leadership skills, recovery, training, or brand building. These each come with pros and cons that affect each other. For example, putting points into brand building will drop your academic bar; training causes increased injury risk; and low leadership skills create a passive loss of coach trust points until you've invested a certain amount of energy into that agenda. Additionally, there are fun choose-your-adventure style scenarios that pop up throughout the season. You'll occasionally get messages from your academic advisor, your coaches, teammates, and even classmates that'll put you in scenarios that could increase your brand, GPA, and coach trust, or vice versa. In one instance, a classmate asked me to party the night before a game, and when I said yes, my coach caught me and I lost trust points. You can gain a coach's trust through practice and playing games, but if you're sitting on the bench, you'll have a hard time getting points cause the drills you can play are really short and your success depends on how well the AI is at giving you plays you can work with. Limitation is pretty much the theme of playing RTG. Since you're not really in control, while playing games, you're at the mercy of the AI from everything like playcalling to the actions of your teammates on the field. Playcalling is repetitive and conservative. Going 3 and Out will cause an unskippable cutscene as you fade back into the super sim screen and the AI will only allow you to call hurry up on 4th down during the last few minutes of each half -- when the situation determines that going for it "makes sense." Receivers drop open balls like they have grease on their hands and handing the ball off to the running back is like watching an AI programmer teach their LLM how to navigate a maze. So when I finally got to start at Memphis in my second season, I started 0-4 before finishing the season with a conference championship and a 7-6 record. That conference championship, by the way, did not have a special trophy presentation. Instead, I got the same victory cutscene that you get after every other game during the regular season. If you're surprised my 7-6 Memphis Tigers even made the conference championship, that's because the sim engine is busted. This is partially due to the overall of the teams in the game being so evenly rated despite the huge gaps between teams like Akron and Alabama. Despite going 2-10 in 2023, the Akron Zips are a 73 overall team. Kennesaw State, a team that is about to have its first season in Division 1 Football (D-1 FBS), is a 73 overall team. Mid-level Power 4 schools like Texas Tech, Miami, A&M, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Utah, and Florida State are all within the 85-88 OVR range. Thus, what's been created is a level of college football parity that has never existed in real life. There are no haves and have-nots because even the fake cupcake FCS teams can beat a Power 4 school with ease. This creates weird situations that see 6-6 Memphis play 7-6 Rice in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) championship because #4 ranked Tulane dropped its last two conference games to UTSA and Charlotte. In the first season, my alma mater, the University of North Texas, made the 12-team College Football Playoff despite only having three winning seasons since 2010. That season also saw Texas A&M win the National Championship -- a true immersion breaker because the real-life A&M has yet to make an appearance in the SEC Championship. Unlike Dynasty, the happenings of the world around you don't have much to do with you since you don't have to deal with things like recruiting and roster management. Plus, historically, RTG has been a rather shallow experience. However, thanks to the addition of the transfer portal, you can change your team at the end of every season to create some interesting scenarios in your career. Section written by Chance Townsend What's left to cover in this review is the Ultimate Team mode or CUT (College Ultimate Team). While I've never cared for Ultimate Team in any game, this version of EA's favorite money collector isn't as in your face as its other offerings like EAFC or Madden. We didn't play around much with CUT during our play testing, so our review is limited, however, it must be said that for those new to the Frostbite Engine era of EA sports games, CUT is the perfect place to start. Not because that's where EA wants you to spend money, but because the offering of solo challenges is an excellent way to get used to the different playbooks and schemes that can be used in other modes like Dynasty. It's the perfect training ground to get a feel of what kind of style you'd want to play for whenever you decide to take the reigns at a bottom-barrel MAC program. Each playbook offers different challenges, like the Air Raid that asks you to use a hurry-up offense and pass for five straight plays. To keep things brief, if you love college football, this game you're waiting for. As a pure gameplay experience, CFB 25 is both challenging and rewarding in ways that Madden and 2K aren't. However, it's not the game we've waited 11 years for. Dynasty lacks a lot of depth and quality-of-life changes that were present in NCAA 14, alongside a mind-numbingly inane UI and drumline menu songs. EA Orlando promised fans that this is the college football game they deserve, and considering it has all the trappings of an EA sports game, they weren't lying. But if you can look past that and just focus on what's in the game, you'll have a fun time.

'EA Sports College Football 25' review: Why it puts 'Madden' to shame

The sim engine is busted Flat commentary Frostbite engine-related bugs/glitches Lack of depth in marquee modes It's cliche to say but college football is back. And it only feels trite to say, because at this point, despite all the hype, the memes, the teasers, and the trailers -- none of this feels real. For the first time in 11 years, there is a college football game and it's called EA Sports College Football 25. All 128 NCAA Division-1 FBS teams are in the game, and for an unprecedented first, this year's version of college football also features current players. It's a massive grab and statement for EA Orlando, which has been diligently working on the long-awaited successor to NCAA Football 14 since the 2021 announcement. With the game launching across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on July 19, two of Mashable's biggest CFB fans took cracks at the game to find out if it was worth the wait. The biggest takeaway from our time playing is that CFB 25 gets the vibe of college football just right, even if the entire package could use some work. After all, it's still an EA game. College Football 25 gameplay Section written by Chance Townsend Playing CFB 25 is a smooth and crisp experience. Of course, it's gonna play better than its 11-year-old predecessor, but there's a level of fluidity in here that even puts Madden to shame. This shines within the running game, which is ultra-fun, crisp, and doesn't feel too animation-heavy. Although there were times when hitting the open hole I felt like the animation was sucking me into a tackle. Running is the bread and butter of the CFB 25 experience, and honestly, it shows. That doesn't mean the passing game didn't get some love, though. New to this version of the game is "revamped passing," which shows a meter above the receiver's head during a throw. This meter determines the accuracy, power and placement of a pass. Hit the golden spot in the meter, and make the catch, but if you misjudge it, you'll end up putting your receiver in a bad spot. It's very satisfying to use compared to Madden's placement and accuracy, though it lacks the precision of that option. However, if you like Madden's interpretation of passing or love to stick to the classics, both options are available to choose from. The passing game in general is harder than in years past. There's a frustrating amount of dropped passes by receivers at the slightest bit on contact, which makes for a troublesome gaming experience -- while probably true to life, its not fun to play with. So if you thought you could spam 4 Verts like you could in NCAA 14 for easy gains, well tough noogies buddy, get ready to learn how to RPO. Speaking of the run-pass option, it's busted as hell. If you can't immediately make a decision when passing, you'll get an illegal man downfield penalty 90 percent of the time. On top of that, the new two-part kick meter may also cause some yelling. Which, again, in real life, these things are difficult, but it doesn't make for a fun video game experience. Defense, however, is not fun. On higher difficulties like All-American and Heisman, stopping anything felt impossible. To be fair, the last Frostbite Engine-era football game I played was Madden 18, so maybe I just suck ass, but I don't think Troy should realistically be dropping 35 on the Longhorns. College Football 25 presentation and vibes Section written by Alex Perry College football holds a special place in my heart, probably unreasonably so. America's second-favorite version of its most popular sport is unlike any other. The games are often sloppy to the point of hilarity, intensely weird things happen all the time, and one time, a guy got so mad about a game that he poisoned historic trees on the opposing team's campus and called into a talk radio show to admit his guilt. This colorful menagerie of nonsense, naturally, produces fantastic vibes. Every school has various ancient rituals the players or fans do before, during, and after games. Notre Dame players tap a sign that says "PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY" in the pregame tunnel. Nebraska fans unleash red balloons after the first scoring play of every home game. Everyone, no matter who they're rooting for, turns and waves at a children's hospital that overlooks the stadium during every Iowa home game. Without meandering even more, I'll get straight to the point. Pretty much all of those things are present and accounted for in College Football 25. Nearly all that makes college football a compelling TV product, from boisterous marching bands and drumlines to nuclear-powered crowd noise, are represented in the game. The latter point actually affects gameplay, as receiver routes and icons will become misleading or confusing to read while an opposing crowd is bearing down on you. That's not new to football games, per se, but it's still very cool to feel the pressure of driving for a touchdown as the away team at Ohio State. Sure, there are some typical jerky or unnatural-looking animations (as there have been in every 3D football game ever), but on the whole, College Football 25 nails the look of college football, too. Every in-game stadium, from Michigan's Big House to North Texas's DATCU Stadium, is stunningly rendered. Crowds look voluminous and energetic, too. The game gets big points from me for also altering the colors and theming of the main menu depending on which school you choose as your favorite team. In particular, I love that every school's main menu screen features a ticket stub to a legendary real-life game from that program's history. Remember the time in 2011 when Iowa State upset Oklahoma State in overtime? No? Well, I do, and so did the developers of this game -- and that's what matters. There are really only a couple of minor criticisms I have of College Football 25's presentation. First up is the commentary, which is made up of various big names in the world of college football broadcasting like Chris Fowler, Rece Davis, and Kirk Herbstreit. Those guys are all pretty much fine, if a little flat at times. The play-by-play guys like Fowler and Davis will occasionally throw in school-specific references, which is cute. I enjoyed hearing some "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" while playing a game at Kansas, for example. Unfortunately, the game also includes David Pollack on color commentary. I don't like David Pollack very much, for reasons that are not entirely relevant to this review. I also just find his commentary annoying and inane most of the time. Beyond that, any stadium rituals that involve licensed music are touch-and-go at best. Virginia Tech can potentially lay claim to the greatest pregame intro in all of sports, but since it uses Metallica's "Enter Sandman," it's not accurately presented in this game. Bummer. Still, you'll occasionally hear "Sandstorm" blaring over stadium speakers between plays in any given game, so it still feels enough like college football to me. College Football 25 Dynasty Mode Section written by Alex Perry College Football 25 has two primary modes that dominate most of the attention outside of online exhibitions and microtransaction trading card nonsense. The first is Dynasty, a returning mode from the NCAA games of eld that casts the player as a made up head coach or coordinator for the school of their choosing. I have to admit, I was never the biggest Dynasty guy back in the day -- and I still may not be. But the version of the mode that's present in College Football 25 seems to have nearly everything you could want. Your coach or coordinator can have as many or as few responsibilities as you want. If you want to be meticulous about recruiting talent, you can do that. If you want to focus on gameday tactics and actually playing football (which is really more of a fun treat you get to occasionally do in this mode), you can do that, too. Speaking of recruiting, that particular side of College Football 25's Dynasty mode is funny. It more or less works the same as it always did, as you have limited resources for player recruiting and the players' decisions are not entirely in your hands. It's been updated for modern times, though, as one of the resource-consuming activities you can do to court a player is to DM him on social media. Yes, there is a button that just says "DM player" in the Dynasty menu. I laughed a lot when I saw that. Aside from that, though, Dynasty is impressively flexible and accommodates many different styles of play for something that, from the outside, would seem to be the most hardcore mode in the game. I pretty much only like playing offense in football games, so I made an offensive coordinator and only call offensive plays now. Easy! That's what I like to see. If I'm good enough at it, maybe I'll get a mediocre head coaching job, flame out in three years, and cause an entire community in Tennessee or whatever to hate me for eternity. That's what college football is all about. College Football 25 Road to Glory Section written by Chance Townsend Gone are the glory days of playing in high school with this year's version of CFB 25. In previous games, players could simulate high school games to garner interest from potential schools and commit to them. However, that feature got cut in favor of a more limited, streamlined Road to Glory (RTG) experience. Instead, players can pick from one of four options, starting as an elite five-star talent to a lowly two-star underdog. Your decision will determine your player overall, your choice of schools, and your place on that program's depth chart. For example, a five-star will have their top of top-level programs like UT-Austin or Michigan. But a two or three-star will have their pick of fighting for starting spots at lowly programs like Air Force or Eastern Michigan. You can walk on to any school in the game, but you'll be starting from the bench and it's hard to get rise up the depth chart. I started my RTG at Memphis, which promised my created QB the second-string position. Once the creation and recruitment process is done, you'll be taken to the main hub where you can play or sim that week's game, participate in practice drills, and spend energy points on your weekly agenda. You have the choice to put your energy into academics, leadership skills, recovery, training, or brand building. These each come with pros and cons that affect each other. For example, putting points into brand building will drop your academic bar; training causes increased injury risk; and low leadership skills create a passive loss of coach trust points until you've invested a certain amount of energy into that agenda. Additionally, there are fun choose-your-adventure style scenarios that pop up throughout the season. You'll occasionally get messages from your academic advisor, your coaches, teammates, and even classmates that'll put you in scenarios that could increase your brand, GPA, and coach trust, or vice versa. In one instance, a classmate asked me to party the night before a game, and when I said yes, my coach caught me and I lost trust points. You can gain a coach's trust through practice and playing games, but if you're sitting on the bench, you'll have a hard time getting points cause the drills you can play are really short and your success depends on how well the AI is at giving you plays you can work with. Limitation is pretty much the theme of playing RTG. Since you're not really in control, while playing games, you're at the mercy of the AI from everything like playcalling to the actions of your teammates on the field. Playcalling is repetitive and conservative. Going 3 and Out will cause an unskippable cutscene as you fade back into the super sim screen and the AI will only allow you to call hurry up on 4th down during the last few minutes of each half -- when the situation determines that going for it "makes sense." Receivers drop open balls like they have grease on their hands and handing the ball off to the running back is like watching an AI programmer teach their LLM how to navigate a maze. So when I finally got to start at Memphis in my second season, I started 0-4 before finishing the season with a conference championship and a 7-6 record. That conference championship, by the way, did not have a special trophy presentation. Instead, I got the same victory cutscene that you get after every other game during the regular season. If you're surprised my 7-6 Memphis Tigers even made the conference championship, that's because the sim engine is busted. This is partially due to the overall of the teams in the game being so evenly rated despite the huge gaps between teams like Akron and Alabama. Despite going 2-10 in 2023, the Akron Zips are a 73 overall team. Kennesaw State, a team that is about to have its first season in Division 1 Football (D-1 FBS), is a 73 overall team. Mid-level Power 4 schools like Texas Tech, Miami, A&M, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Utah, and Florida State are all within the 85-88 OVR range. Thus, what's been created is a level of college football parity that has never existed in real life. There are no haves and have-nots because even the fake cupcake FCS teams can beat a Power 4 school with ease. This creates weird situations that see 6-6 Memphis play 7-6 Rice in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) championship because #4 ranked Tulane dropped its last two conference games to UTSA and Charlotte. In the first season, my alma mater, the University of North Texas, made the 12-team College Football Playoff despite only having three winning seasons since 2010. That season also saw Texas A&M win the National Championship -- a true real immersion breaker because the real-life A&M has yet to make an appearance in the SEC Championship. Unlike Dynasty, the happenings of the world around you don't have much to do with you since you don't have to deal with things like recruiting and roster management. Plus, historically, RTG has been a rather shallow experience. However, thanks to the addition of the transfer portal, you can change your team at the end of every season to create some interesting scenarios in your career. CUT and best of the rest Section written by Chance Townsend What's left to cover in this review is the Ultimate Team mode or CUT (College Ultimate Team). While I've never cared for Ultimate Team in any game, this version of EA's favorite money collector isn't as in your face as its other offerings like EAFC or Madden. We didn't play around much with CUT during our play testing, so our review is limited, however, it must be said that for those new to the Frostbite Engine era of EA sports games, CUT is the perfect place to start. Not because that's where EA wants you to spend money, but because the offering of solo challenges is an excellent way to get used to the different playbooks and schemes that can be used in other modes like Dynasty. It's the perfect training ground to get a feel of what kind of style you'd want to play for whenever you decide to take the reigns at a bottom-barrel MAC program. Each playbook offers different challenges, like the Air Raid that asks you to use a hurry-up offense and pass for five straight plays. Is College Football 25 Worth It? To keep things brief, if you love college football, this game you're waiting for. As a pure gameplay experience, CFB 25 is both challenging and rewarding in ways that Madden and 2K aren't. However, it's not the game we've waited 11 years for. Dynasty lacks a lot of depth and quality-of-life changes that were present in NCAA 14, alongside a mind-numbingly inane UI and drumline menu songs. EA Orlando promised fans that this is the college football game they deserve, and considering it has all the trappings of an EA sports game, they weren't lying. But if you can look past that and just focus on what's in the game, you'll have a fun time.

EA Sports College Football 25 is the long-awaited payoff

There's about 45 seconds left in the first half, and I'm trying to find a way to extend my four-point lead against the Wyoming Cowboys. I'm playing a night game with the East Carolina Pirates, and it appears that the crowd at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium is jam-packed and has been pregaming all afternoon. Although I've logged around 20 hours of playtime these past few days, I still find myself occasionally pausing -- even during dramatic moments like this, when I'd normally be locked in and focused on my playcalling. Holy cow, this is real. After a decadelong wait between college football video games, I think I can be forgiven for occasionally needing to take a moment and pinch myself. But yes, EA Sports College Football 25 is real. Perhaps the most real it's ever been, now that the game not only includes real schools, real stadiums, real broadcasters, and the real College Football Playoff... but, for the first time ever, real players. And EA didn't just include household names like Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, Ohio State safety Caleb Downs, or Missouri wideout Luther Burden III -- nearly everybody is here. My digital ECU quarterback is the real Jake Garcia, handing off to the real Rahjai Harris. They're both trying to evade digital Wyoming defensive tackles Ben Florentine and Jordan Bertagnole, who are real dudes who play for the Cowboys. All in all, Electronic Arts paid for the real licenses to over 11,000 college athletes, in what EA Tiburon developers claim is the largest depiction of real people in a video game... maybe ever. Certainly in a sports video game. For years, EA couldn't pay the athletes, which is why older editions of NCAA Football had rosters full of players with names like QB #15 and RB #3 -- players who just so happened to closely resemble the real, and uncompensated, athletes. Eventually, the athletes sued, EA paid back damages, schools pulled their licenses, and the franchise was shelved. But now, the NCAA has finally thrown out its outdated notions of amateurism, and athletes can be compensated not just for their digital likenesses in video games, but for all manner of other commercial activities, paving the way for EA's college football video game franchise to return. Is it a perfect college football video game? No. But it's one that was clearly made by college football fans, for college football fans. It's a game that was worth the wait. So much of what makes college football, college football, is the environment in which it's played: the stadiums, the crowd chants, the uniforms, mascots, and everything else that goes into making game day a little bit different at each of the 134 FBS schools in the game. Thanks to open records requests and regular ol' phone calls, I've reported extensively over the last several years on how EA, and the individual schools, have sought to digitally re-create those experiences. Schools submitted dozens of audio files, from what they play on third downs to what non-R-rated chants their students yell to what riffs their marching bands play. EA asked for hundreds of stadium photographs from every conceivable angle, as well as locker room shots and seating charts, so the game's developers could more accurately render everything from the exact location in which the opposing band sits to what the tunnel walk into each team's stadium looks like. EA didn't nail this every single time. There are a few stadiums whose recent renovations were missed; most mascots outside the biggest brands aren't included; and some uniforms and logos are imperfectly rendered. It doesn't appear that EA opened its wallet to license very many songs, so iconic college football traditions like Wisconsin's "Jump Around," or "Enter Sandman" at Virginia Tech, aren't included. The lack of a robust music library means that you're going to hear "Mo Bamba" a lot during games, and the drumline-only soundtrack during menus even more than a lot. (I'm a former band geek drummer myself. I love me some cowbell and marching snares. But even I had to mute the music sometimes.) But on the whole, I think EA did an excellent job. Team-specific turnover stunts, like a turnover throne? In the game. Teams singing the alma mater to the crowd after the 4th quarter ends? In the game. Minnesota's mascot rotating his head in a complete 360, like out of some horror movie? In the game. The list goes on. The attention to detail isn't just about the school-specific stuff, but about College Football 25's presentation of the game of football itself. If you look down the sidelines before you snap the ball, you can see assistants holding up massive play call placards, just like they do during real games. You'll see your quarterback glance toward the sideline if you change the play call at the line of scrimmage. If you rip the heart out of the home crowd, you'll see fans doing the surrender cobra. The game includes two different broadcast teams who recorded tens of thousands of lines of commentary, as well as studio cut-ins, which adds to the immersion. It's very easy to feel like you're playing in a major broadcast window, even if you're playing Wyoming at East Carolina. The common concern I heard from other fans for months, if not years, leading up to this game's release was the worry that EA would simply make College Football 25 a "Madden reskin" -- essentially, a rerelease of its NFL game, only with Nebraska and Alabama uniforms. Are there similarities? Of course. It's still football, and both games are made by the same studio and have shared staffers. But I can conclusively state that the games play and feel very different. This game also feels very different from NCAA Football 14, and anybody expecting to simply import all of that built-up muscle memory and dominate from the first snap is in for a rude awakening. In my experience, this year's college football game is a lot harder than NCAA 14. For one, the passing system has been completely revamped, with the game putting a huge emphasis on properly "layering" the ball in coverage. Each pass has a blue/yellow/red meter, depending on the QB rating, the pressure, and the angle and type of pass thrown. If you hold the button down too long, trying to throw a bullet pass, your accuracy will take a major dive. The pass you end up throwing might still be catchable, but the wideout might need to break stride to grab it, turning what should be a walk-in touchdown into merely a big gain. Consider the following example that I experienced numerous times over my first 20 hours. A quarterback drops back to pass to a wideout running a post route. In a perfect world, the QB throws the ball over any lurking linebackers and hits the receiver juuuust in front of him, so he can catch the ball in stride. Even if my receiver was open, if I pushed the button too lightly, the ball might "float" too much, allowing the defender to catch up to his man and break up the play. Throw the ball too low, and the linebacker could pick off the pass. If I didn't hit the meter perfectly, maybe my guy would catch the ball and immediately trip over himself and falls down. It takes a lot of practice. You can make the right decision, get your guy open, and still easily mess up the pass. It can be frustrating if you're expecting to instantly run a competent Air Raid offense, but I mostly appreciated the challenge. It makes completed big plays feel even more like an accomplishment. Running the ball has also changed. The AI around blocking schemes has improved, and new animations and physics make it easier to fight through arm tackles or poor pursuit angles. The option system has also been revamped. The good news is that players now have multiple types of pitches they can throw, which can open up the playbook beyond the commonly used Read Option. The bad news is that the button scheme to hand the ball off or keep it has flipped from the last few years, meaning that I spent hours handing off the ball when I meant to hold on to it. The new mechanics on offense take time to practice, but they're not totally inaccessible. Defense, however, feels much harder. In my very first game, I played my beloved alma mater, Ohio State (one of the very best teams in the game), and took them on the road to play a middling BYU squad, my wife's alma mater. I gave up 49 points with five-minute quarters, as the Cougars ripped off multiple 50-plus-yard touchdown bombs. Figuring out how to switch to the right defender, how to take the proper pursuit angle, and that I shouldn't Hit Stick on every opportunity was not easy. I've gotten a little better at playing against the AI, but online, I still haven't cracked the code on playing effective defense, and I'll give up 250-plus rushing yards to virtually any competent opponent. I've found that if I'm not forcing a turnover, getting consistent stops takes practice, a good eye... and probably a little luck. College Football 25 offers five main game modes: Play Now, Dynasty, Road to Glory, Ultimate Team, and Road to the College Football Playoff. Road to the CFP is the game's ranked online play system, and is the mode that I've played the least. I've spent the bulk of my time in Dynasty, RTG, and Ultimate Team. Dynasty has been the bread and butter of EA's college football series for years. Here, players can create their own coach, hire a coaching staff, set their schedule, recruit players, and take over a college football program. One area where EA clearly tried to add complexity and depth is with coaching skills. Just like in previous years, coaches can level up and add new skills by completing certain recruiting or in-game goals. But in previous editions, just about everybody would beeline to trying to max out their coach recruiting tree. In practice, there was really only one way to build your coach, and after a few seasons, you could fill out the entire skill tree. Now players can pick between different coach archetypes, like a master recruiter, tactician, or motivator, while blending skills from different trees. You can also hire coordinators, who have their own skill trees, leaving you to decide if you want to double (or triple) down on your strengths, or build out a more balanced staff. I actually found the nonrecruiting buffs like tactician to be very helpful when turning around underdog programs, and I love that there are now multiple ways to approach running a program. Recruiting is substantially deeper than in previous years. Users will need to allocate time to not just scout individual recruits, but also to determine what sorts of things the athletes are interested in, like playing time, campus environment, and coach prestige. The process makes it much easier to become attached to certain recruits, and winning a tough battle feels more rewarding. But it's also way harder to recruit athletes to lower-profile schools than it was in previous years. It doesn't matter if you go 9-3 and win the Who Gives a Crap Bowl with your MAC program in year one; you aren't signing more than maybe one four-star recruit out of high school right off the bat. Just like in real life. The recruiting system grapples with a critically important question in college video game design: Where is the line between realism and fun? In real life, if users had to manage a roster exactly the same way coaches at Power Four institutions do, they'd absolutely hate it. They'd hate the shady payroll management via outside collectives, hate the babysitting of 19-year-olds, hate needing to send a gazillion texts to teenagers, the whole thing. This game simplifies some systems in a nod to preserving the fun, even if some die-hards would probably wish for a more Football Manager-like simulator. If I had one early critique of my time in Dynasty, it's that the computer doesn't do a great job simulating other results. In my most recent Dynasty (where I created a coach named Dallan McRomneyson to take over Utah State), Notre Dame, Florida State, and Clemson all started out 0-2. High-profile teams probably lose a little too often right now, which I've seen lead to some pretty funny College Football Playoff scenarios. UMass Minutemen, you are a College Football Playoff participant! Georgia Bulldogs, get ready for the Autozone Liberty Bowl! Road to Glory is a faster-paced mode, allowing the user to take over the career of a college athlete, as you balance academic, social, and athletic pursuits. I know many fans were sad to learn that EA removed the high school football component of the mode, but I actually enjoy the change. You can complete an entire career in under 20 hours, and the resource management mode (which requires everybody to make some trade-offs), plus a large library of scenarios (complete with weighted-dice-roll randomized answers), means that no two playthroughs are the same. I started with a five-star running back out of Rhode Island who I named Chuck Steak. I decided to send him to Stanford, where he'd have a chance to start right away, but would also need to spend a legitimate amount of time focusing on school to stay academically eligible. The pacing of the player progression system doesn't allow you to make some 99-overall mutant by week 7 of your freshman year, but you can put up some huge numbers as an upperclassman if you can stay healthy. The gameplay can be frustrating if you're not on a great team (good luck throwing the ball without an offensive line!), or if you don't have great coach trust (good luck being a quarterback if your coach calls nothing but handoffs!), but that's also realistic. It turns out, you generally can't play like Broken Leg Greg Jennings very often in real life. I've actually been pleasantly surprised with Ultimate Team, although I completely understand if other people are decidedly uninterested in the mode. I found it was an excellent introduction to the new playbooks and game mechanics, giving users a chance to run quick challenges to familiarize themselves with the differences between the Air Raid and the Veer and Shoot. With a large selection of single-player options and a massive base of potential cards -- the mode includes not just current college football stars, but NFL players and historic college legends as well -- there's a lot of potential. I did not feel any immediate need to buy cards or points in order to complete any single-player objectives, but I also have no designs on being a competitive online player. Like with any other AAA sports title's Ultimate Team mode, I imagine it will be very difficult, over the course of the year, to be a competitive online No Money Spent player. College Football 25 isn't perfect. But neither is real-life college football. I don't love college football because I think it's a perfectly well-oiled, efficient machine. It isn't! The sport is terribly governed, faces a multitude of existential challenges, and sometimes produces glitchy, even unwatchable, results. But it's beautiful and fun in spite of the warts and glitches -- because it's ours. I didn't go to the Chicago Bears; I went to Ohio State. I rang the victory bell. I sat in that press box. I feel a tiny stirring within myself whenever I see the Dotting of the I, because of the deep connection that institution has to my own personal history. Fans haven't just wanted to play a football simulation with a team that wears Scarlet and Gray uniforms instead of Orange and Brown ones. They've wanted to replicate that connection. And here, I think EA Sports College Football 25 delivers the goods. Again, it isn't a perfect video game. I imagine some of its shortcomings, like the missing uniforms, assorted display bugs -- all the players in Ultimate Team, for example, show up as being from Alabama, even though they get the player's hometown correct (which is kinda funny, if immersion-breaking) -- and other stuff will get patched relatively quickly. Other quirks, like the simulation logic or defensive AI, might take longer to fix. It isn't hard to think of plenty of new stuff the dev team could add to next year's game. But this game is also very clearly a labor of love from developers who deeply care about college football and college football culture. It's a testament to what is possible with sports games when teams have longer than a few months to crank out AAA titles. And if this is the foundation for future college football games, then the series is in a very, very good place. Would I have liked to have college football video games over the last decade? Of course. But this edition? This was worth the wait.