It’s here. After 11 years, it’s finally here. EA’s college football video game is back with EA College Football 25 and yes, the hype is real! The game may not be perfect, but it’s a great video game that surpasses anything they have done with Madden in the last 10 years. And this is the perfect football game for the next generation of consoles! So let’s dive in and talk about EA College Football 25 and why it’s worth playing. Obviously if you’re a big fan of this franchise and you’ve been missing it for a decade, then you’re anxious to dive right in, but it’s more than nostalgia in the yearning to play a college football video game. This game was due to be released in 2023, but EA took One more year to iron out the bugs and really make a wonderful presentation… to get the feel exactly right when it comes to playing college football in a video game. Probably the best thing about this game is the presentation. It plays great and it looks fantastic write down to hearing every college’s marching band while you play. And let’s face it if you’re a huge college football fan, the school band really creates the atmosphere. I absolutely love all the details that they put in to each school and their home stadium. It’s more than just having cheerleaders and a “yell” team…you have to have the nuances of each team from the mascots to the sideline entertainment. I started out playing this game with Notre Dame so the dancing leprechaun on the sideline is a great touch. But as I’m playing Notre Dame’s 2024 season, we start off in College station when they will face off against Texas A&M. Getting to see the Texas A&M collie, Revelry trot up and down the sidelines is awesome! The atmosphere in every stadium immediately makes you feel at home when playing a college football video game and I have to say that it’s a lot more exciting than playing with any team in Madden. I think we can all agree that Madden doesn’t always have the best presentation and it’s not like he a really updates the presentation from year to year, the last 5 years pretty much feel like the same game. There’s just so much more when you’re playing with college football teams. And for me, like many of my friends who are veterans getting to play with Army or Navy and seeing the cadets fill the stands is an extra level of pride and it shows the detail and the love that EA put into this game. I know that this franchise will get better from year to year, but this is a good start especially with it being a decade since we last played EA College Football.
The gameplay is fast. I’ve been telling people do not play this game like you play Madden – you do not get to stand in the pocket very long at quarterback and expected to be able to throw bombs down the field. The strategy is very different, you have to be quick and you have to choose your playbook carefully. The pass rush is a lot more lively than what you will find in Madden. All the strategies that I use in Madden are thrown out the window and I have to completely change how I play a football game which makes EA College Football 25 more challenging. That’s one of the things I love about this game. Madden for me gets very boring because I can win any game with about 8 to 10 different plays, I constantly have to change up my playbook and it’s very different from each college. The strategies change and there’s a lot to clock management more than we have ever seen in a college football video game. I implore anybody who picks up this game to spend an hour and two going through practice and getting your timing down. Figure out which plays are going to work best for you and develop a strategy so that you won’t immediately get your ass handed to you the first time you play a game and especially the first time you play online. EA did a great job making this game more challenging. Now you can be more precise with the passing or if you’re like me you can go back to classic passing which still offers a lot of thrills in the game but will give you an easier time. For the hardcore football players, the new passing meters offer quite a challenge and more than we have ever seen in a football video game… this does literally change how we play football video games. Needless to say, you won’t get bored with this game and while you may have a blowout, here and there, games will be a lot tighter especially when you’re playing some of the top NCAA teams. And that holds true when you’re playing online. But the gameplay does make for a better experience and honestly I do not see myself playing Madden this year because I know it won’t compare to how EA has built College Football 25.
Now some old MODES are back from the original game. You can do dynasty mode and make a career as a coach with strategies during a game and going through the recruiting process. If that is your thing then it is a great mode, but if you’re like me and you just want to play the game, you’ll probably never touch the Dynasty Mode. Road to Glory is your career mode. This is where you are going to be a highly recruited player and start out as a freshman where you may not get much playing time, but you will have to learn to be a better football player and be a better student and also navigate NIL deals. It can get a little boring during your freshman year until you finally get into the game, but once you become a starter then the next few years competing for a National Championship made this an exciting mode. I love what they have done with this mode where you do have to keep your grades up -you have to apply skill points to studying and becoming a leader. You have to do practice for week to week to keep up your experience points and to build trust with your coach. It’s a story mode and you can’t skip certain things. Like other sports games that have a career mode, especially EA’s soccer franchise, you have to work on your skills, but that can be a lot of fun. My biggest complaint is the viewpoint in Road to Glory. Whatever position you choose you are going to be at eye level. You will see the field as if you are an actual player. It takes some getting used to. I was very annoyed the first few games that I played and then I got to play a full game as a quarterback for Notre Dame and using a lot of the plays that I like having to see it from actual eye level really made it more challenging. So there’s a love and hate relationship with it, but I also think it adds to the strength of Road to Glory mode. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the same kind of gameplay as if you’re just playing a regular game. Having an eye level viewpoint of the feel does make it more fun after you get used to it.
So this is my biggest complaint about EA College Football 25 and where is a really screwed up. The Road to the CFP mode where you will play 10 games in rank up and get into the college playoffs is a great idea, the problem is it’s strictly an online mode so you’re going to be playing against other players. I’m not against having a mode where you play against other players and having played about 10 games, I’ve had some really terrible games where I got beat really bad and some games that went down to the final seconds. But if you want to play a season mode where you get into the bracket and fight for the National Championship, there should be a way to do that offline. There should be a season mode that is just like the franchise mode in Madden. Most players aren’t going to want to play online unless they’re playing their friends. I agree that we need that online mode, but we need to be able to play road to the college playoffs offline. If Call of Duty can have their zombie mode or their multiplayer mode be offline where you have your own private parties or if Madden can have a season mode that doesn’t require you to be online then EA College Football 25 should definitely have it. Right now if you want to play your favorite schools season, you pretty much have to do it in the regular “Play Now” mode and pretty much make up your own season and college football bracket. Yeah it’s great that you don’t have to just play expedition games, you can play any bowl game you want between two teams or even the national championship… just like in Madden when you play a regular game you can choose the Super bowl so an EA college football you can choose the National Championship or a bowl game, but EA college Football 25 needs a season mode for every school we’re based on your record you will end up in the college playoffs. There was a season mode in NCAA 14, unfortunately it didn’t have the college playoffs because that wouldn’t come about until the next year, but you could still take your team to the National Championship through the old BCS system.
I remember playing that a lot and I would take Army to the national championship where I would pretty much have to beat Alabama every time. Anyway, it just makes me wonder why there isn’t a season mode that’s offline. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to put together that kind of thing for 134 schools, but there should also be a way to create a custom season where you put all the schools that you’re going to face and have a way where you’re going to go to the college playoffs. The FIFA franchise had the custom tournament mode where you could do something very similar. Maybe we’ll get that next year or maybe there’ll be a huge update that drops when the real college football season starts at the end of August. But right now it’s fairly lacking. I’ve created my own manual season for Notre Dame and for Army, but it’s not the same as if there was already a built-in season mode. Now the one thing that we all wished EA College Football 25 would have had compared to the old NCAA games is create your own school. There was something magical about being able to create your own college and take them to the top. Whether it’s your own university with the backstory or have fictitious School for the movies like the Texas State Armadillos and Necessary Roughness or Eastern University like in The Program. EA College Football missed a golden opportunity to have this in the game. Maybe it was just something they couldn’t put in since they needed to release the game and it will be back next year or they’ll bring it back during the season through an update. But right now while I’m playing Road to Glory or my own made up season for Notre Dame, I really wish I could be playing a season with my made up university. And you better believe I would literally play one season with the Texas State Armadillos and create a quarterback that look very similar to Scott Bakula.
Overall, this is an amazing game. EA obviously put a lot of love into it by taking an extra year to really polish a great college football video game. The gameplay is still amazing and the presentation is fantastic. It plays and it looks like college football. If nothing else EA got that right. But sadly this game doesn’t have everything it could have and I would certainly expect more with the MVP deluxe edition which I happily bought so I could play this game 3 days early. But truth be told I didn’t need to spend the extra $30 because it’s still plays like the regular standard version and all the extra stuff I got for $30 isn’t really that big of a deal. I essentially spent $30 to play the game early and yes it was worth it, but I will probably never do that again. One thing is certain, the college football franchise with EA is back and having it on the next gen consoles is wonderful. After 4 years of having the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X, it’s great to have a fantastic looking football game on these consoles. But this game could have also been put on the Xbox One in PlayStation 4 and play just fine. EA did build this came on the backbone of the Madden game by using the frostbite engine so I definitely wish this game were still available on the PS4 in the Xbox One Just like Madden. I always get the Xbox One version of Madden and I’ve never seen any difference between that game and the Xbox series X version, maybe that has to do with the fact that they never make any major improvements to Madden, but I feel like EA College Football 25 could still be played on the last generation consoles.
The reason I bring this up is there’s still a lot of players that have an upgraded and if you are a gaming company where you’re trying to put on tournaments and have it fully upgraded all of your consoles, would be nice to have this game available on the last generation, but I know that that’s a minor complaint. It doesn’t take away from how good EA college football 25 really is and how exciting it is to have a college football video game again. There’s still a lot of improvements that EA can do to this franchise and I’m sure that will happen over the next few years but they’re starting off in the right direction with the look and the feel of the game write down to the mascots and hearing your favorite college band. I’ve loved every moment I’ve played so far and I know like many gamers I will put a ton of hours into this game and Madden 25 will be largely ignored. So what’s the final verdict! Yes, if you’re a fan of college football video games then you must buy this… There’s no debate, get this game and you will not be disappointed. Despite a few things lacking and EA college Football 25, it’s still a fantastic game in worth the money! And in case you’re wondering and you’re following certain recruits who are in the game, yes you can go and change the depth chart on your team because I know there’s a lot of Texas Fans that are going to be playing their season with Arch Manning. I’m sure there will be a big debate among all schools on which quarterback should start and you can play your favorite college team your way with your roster so that’s another bright spot to EA College Football 25!
