It’s been a lonely 11 years for college football fans without the old NCAA Football series, an enormously deep sports simulation that EA Sports had to cancel in 2013 under a hail of lawsuits over player compensation. Now that the NCAA has gotten its legal issues sorted out, College Football 25 is cleared for takeoff — and the sport it represents has seen even more changes in the intervening decade.
The return was publicly announced in February 2021, but development on a new college football game had begun before that. This is not the usual one-year iteration (although many sports video games’ features take longer than that to finish). There’s plenty inside College Football 25, which means there’s plenty to know before taking the field with your alma mater.
College Football 25 launches July 19, although those who preorder its Deluxe Edition will get three days of early access to the game. This also goes for pre-ordering the MVP bundle that combines the Madden NFL 25 Deluxe Edition with the College Football 25 Deluxe Edition.
The standard version is $69.99, and the Deluxe Edition is $99.99. The aforementioned MVP bundle with Madden is $134.99, technically a $65 savings versus buying those two separately. But it is one of the pricier special editions we’ve seen, unless you’re already committed to buying both with all the bells and whistles.
In addition to the three-day early access window, the deluxe edition includes extra content for Ultimate Team, plus 4,600 College Football Points, which is a currency used in that game’s version of Ultimate Team. Players get to choose two highly-rated players to start their teams, and they get a uniform cosmetic.
College Football 25 is launching only on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. There is no PC or Nintendo Switch version of the game.
College Football 25 will have complete rosters for all 134 Football Bowl Subdivision teams. EA Sports announced in February that 13,000 athletes had opted in to a $600 per-player agreement to use their name, image, and likeness in the game. That also means rosters in the game will expand to 85 (covering the number of scholarship athletes a team may have), up about 30 from the old NCAA Football 14.
College Football 25’s standard edition is fronted by three stars: quarterback Quinn Evers, of Texas; wide receiver and defensive back Travis Hunter of Colorado, and Michigan running back Donovan Edwards. The deluxe edition cover features the same three, seen from behind with their names and uniform numbers, following several other stars from different schools onto the field.
EA Sports has revealed the 100 best players, by overall rating, the day the game launches (ratings will change to reflect real-life performance, the same as in Madden). Among all positions, the top 5 are Will Johnson, the Michigan cornerback; Will Campbell, LSU’s left tackle; halfback Ollie Gordon of Ohio State, and Tennessee defensive end James Pearce. Among the cover stars, Hunter is rated a 95 (sixth overall); Evers is a 92, and Edwards is a 91.
This is the first college football game — of any kind — since EA Sports cancelled its old NCAA Football series in 2013. Fans can expect a comprehensively new game, not just something that mimics the feature set of a title from two console generations ago. (Although the “toughest places to play” rankings, and gameplay details differentiating the bigger venues, does make a return).
In one respect, this means new real-world developments in the sport itself will be included in its career modes. Coaches in Dynasty mode will find themselves managing the new Transfer Portal, which allows players to change teams year-to-year. That also goes for Road to Glory, where players create a single star and take him through a four-year career.
College Football 25 is making a big push on gameday experience, with visuals, traditions, cinematics, and other nods to what a big game is like at each of the 134 schools in major college football. This video shows the kind of work that went into recreating the many signature runouts, good-luck gestures, stadium seat patterns, and other traditions each school has. This is supplemented by two announcing teams: ESPN’s real-life No. 1 pairing of Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, with ESPN announcers Rece Davis, Jesse Palmer, and David Pollack taking the mike for more regional-type broadcasts.
Unrelated, but also of note, TeamBuilder, the web-based tool that allowed players to create and customize schools to their heart’s content, and bring them into the game on their console, will return for College Football 25. While all 134 Football Bowl Subdivision teams are, if you want to fictionally promote a Football Championship Subdivision team to the big time, this tool will let you do that, with a little work on the uniform design and the rosters.
EA Sports released a deep-dive blog post about the mode just yesterday (July 11). It appears to be a rather standard approach to the mode, with a lot of the experience similar to the current Madden NFL Ultimate Team.
One notable difference is the Stories of the Week set of challenges, which in the month before schools open their season will relive some of 2023’s bigger performances, then update with live content from there to capture the doings of the current season.
There will also be something called ICYMI, which goes further back into college football history (though it sounds like recent, not ancient, history) to spotlight notable performances, record-setters, and championship runs. A Field Pass that is free to all players functions as a kind of Battle Pass, with unlockable tiers of content items, currency, and other bonuses as players progress through its set of goals.
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