College Football 25 review: Seamless gameplay, intricate Dynasty ...

Nostalgia is undefeated, right? We always think things were better in the past, when we were younger and with less responsibility. So when it was announced that EA Sports would bring back its college football video game franchise, it was easy to draw upon fun youthful memories to build excitement and look past our current life situations or the ups and downs of modern video games.

But I bring good news: Eleven years since the last college football video game, EA Sports College Football 25 has fully brought back the feel of the old days, with a modern update.

I spent the last three days playing the game, and it was difficult to put it down. I got in probably 20 hours and lost track of time. I felt like a kid again, now armed with the knowledge that comes with covering this sport for a living. EA Sports spent years building this new game from scratch, even pushing the release date back a year from what was originally planned, and it was worth the wait to get this right.

Some background: I fell out of gaming when NCAA Football went away. I bought an Xbox Series S just for this game, and I’ve heard from a lot of people in the same boat. (Note: The game is only available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.) I’m also aware of the gamer criticisms of EA Sports over microtransactions and gameplay issues on other titles in recent years, so I went into this knowing all of that. College Football 25 gets it right.

The game has fantastic graphics and a ridiculously realistic feel for every school. But more than anything else, it feels like the game we used to love. The old game wasn’t necessarily broken. It only went away because the NCAA wouldn’t allow players to be paid for the use of their name, image and likeness. The sport has changed dramatically since then, with NIL, unlimited transfers and more. This game has added all of that without taking away what we loved about it in the first place.

My biggest takeaway from playing: This is a game for everybody. If you’re a hardcore gamer, there’s a ton to dive into and customize. If you’re just a casual player, the game can be scaled down so as to not be overbearing. Everyone can get something out of it.

And at a time when college football feels like it’s losing its special touch, when conferences and fan bases are more divided than ever ahead of an uncertain future, this game is a celebration of the sport.

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Gameplay

When I tested the game for a few hours in May, I cycled through 15-20 teams and never played more than a quarter of one game because I was constantly taking notes, talking to people and trying to experience as much as I could for my first-look story. But after three days of nearly nonstop play through many full games, I’m blown away.

The gameplay is incredibly smooth and quick. It’s obviously light-years better than the old NCAA Football games, but it also feels different from Madden 24. Running the ball is more fun than it’s ever been, so much so that I hated getting into passing situations because it meant I couldn’t just try another RPO or read-option play. Jukes and spins can often look and feel seamless. If you hit the hole, you’re rewarded.

Passing the ball definitely required an adjustment. The new “revamped” passing game presents a meter over a pass catcher’s head that dramatically impacts how good your throw is. However, the game’s settings do give you the option to switch to classic passing mode, which makes the throwing game easier. “Placement” and “placement & accuracy” passing modes are also available.

One of the biggest frustrations you might find in the game is the frequency with which receivers drop the ball when attempting to make a catch amid contact. That does make the game more realistic, but it will have you yelling at your TV more than a few times.

The toughest part of the game by far is kicking. The two-part kicking meter has players press for kick accuracy and hold for power. Much like passing, holding the button for too long will ruin your accuracy, even on kickoffs. I missed some field goals quite badly; I guess these are #CollegeKickers after all. Special teams in general are an adventure. In one day of playing, I saw two roughing the punter penalties by computer players (one on my team, one on the opponent), and my team’s CPU blocked a field goal.

Tackling is also more difficult: You need to be precise and wrap up, or the ball carrier will shed your tackle. Again, credit to the game designers because the tackling motions look very good.

Playing defense has always been tough, and it’s even harder in this game. I don’t know if this is because of my own skill or because of the CPU (at Varsity difficulty level), but I had trouble stopping the opponent on most drives. The CPU has so much more insight and skill than in the past. Its offense would go up-tempo on me periodically when my players were tired. It recognized when I called the same play twice in a row. On fourth-and-1s, the defense sells out for the run. It’s not an easy conversion.

My only gameplay glitch over three days came when the opponent went no-huddle. My defensive lineman was lined up, then floated to the other side of the line of scrimmage, creating an offside penalty. It only happened once. I’ve also had some lag during the transition between play selection and game action, but that may just be my console. My colleague Ari Wasserman didn’t have that issue on PlayStation 5.

Lastly, let’s talk about the playbooks. Man, oh man, the playbooks. There’s never been a football video game this deep with play options. Along with all your typical passing and running plays, there are more read-option plays than ever, different kinds of RPOs, triple-option plays, and even a Wildcat formation available in certain playbooks. Just make sure you throw the ball quickly enough on RPOs, or you’ll get hit with an illegal man downfield penalty.

My go-to has become playing as Alabama with the Wake Forest playbook, which includes the “RPO Walk” plays with Wake’s Slow Mesh offense, a run option with several passing routes. You can read the linebackers either coming up or falling back as you make your decision. The hardcore gamers with custom playbooks are going to have a field day with this. However, much like play-action passes in the old game were difficult because of limited pass protection time, running the ball in the Slow Mesh often gets blown up against better opponents.

Playing with the better Power 4 teams feels much different than playing with lower Group of 5 teams, especially the speed of the players. The gameplay feels like college football, and that’s the best thing you can say.

Some other stray notes: You can change the camera angle with the D-pad, including all-22 and sideline angles. The two-minute warning is a big mental adjustment fans will experience in real life this season. And kneeling the ball to end the game speeds up the clock running down to zero. Take note, Miami.

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Dynasty mode

I spent my first six hours upon receiving the review copy of the game on Dynasty mode. It’s my personal bread-and-butter game format and where I’ll spend most of my time in the future. This was also part of the game I hadn’t tested before.

I have to give the highest praise to Dynasty mode. It’s deep and intricate but not overwhelming. If you go heavy on recruiting, you’ve got a lot to work with. If you don’t want to do recruiting, you can select the “Simple” option at the beginning of the Dynasty to let the CPU handle it automatically.

You already know the three archetypes for coaches: Motivator, Tactician and Recruiter. The various skill points in this part of the game that come with that choice were not anything I noticed, so your opinion on the feature may vary. You can edit your coach’s name and background while in Dynasty, so don’t worry if you want to change it later.

Growing up, my Dynasty strategy was to take a program with a two-star prestige or lower and work my way up, so I chose USF, which has 1.5 stars of prestige, a good recruiting backyard and, in my mind, a huge short-term upside with quarterback Byrum Brown. As a kid, my friend group would simulate games rather than play them, but it became clear through three seasons that this approach limits your upside in this game. Over three seasons, although I was able to recruit one of the best G5 recruiting classes every year, my team rating stayed similar and my record kept hovering around 6-6. If you decide to play a game, you can play the full game, just offense, just defense or “play the moments,” in which you take over for big third- and fourth-down plays before the simulation resumes.

Although I recruited well, my success was relative. The folks at EA Sports had warned me that the days of a Group of 5 program landing a five-star prospect were done, and they were right, even though the game tricked me. Several times, I went heavy on a four-star player who had me atop his list early on, only to see Power 4 schools rise up as the weeks progressed and the player narrowed his choices from a top 10 list to eight, five and three. If you don’t make the cut for a prospect, you’re locked out and can’t recruit that player any longer. I did not land a blue-chip player despite my efforts, probably in part because my simulated seasons never raised my program’s prestige high enough.

The same went for the transfer portal, which gets added to recruiting after bowl games for an additional four-week recruiting period. Only a few transfers were interested in my program each year. As for losing your players, you can see each week during the season which players are at a high risk for transfer and why. I lost my No. 1 running back because of “brand exposure,” which I couldn’t fix. After the season, you’re given a list of players who want to transfer and a certain number of “persuasion” pushes to attempt. Players’ chances of staying range from “none” to “high.” In one offseason, I was able to keep two of five players, including one whose chances of staying were “very low.”

Your recruiting board before the season is extremely important and sets the tone for the rest of your recruiting year. The game nicely gives you a “recommended” option on the drop-down menu to let you know who you have a realistic chance of adding. When you’re committing hours to prospects, “Search Social Media” and “DM Recruit” are the lowest-investment options to learn which factors matter to a recruit. You don’t actually get to see their old tweets, which is probably for the best.

The most enjoyable part of recruiting is that recruiting actions are “active” and ongoing, carrying over week to week. So you don’t have to recommit hundreds of hours each week. You can add or remove hours spent on prospects however you desire, like dropping out of a race if you can see it’s not going well, freeing up time for other pursuits.

While the game limits the editing of real-life players to only their equipment, new prospects can have their names, positions, handedness, physique and QB style edited once they’re on your team. You cannot edit their attributes or their jersey number.

(If you were wondering, Colorado started 8-1 and became a top-10 team in Year 1 of this dynasty. Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel won the Heisman. I played UCF in the Liberty Bowl. Hooray, rivalries! Then Charlotte quarterback Max Brown won the Heisman in Year 2, and Jacksonville State was the CFP No. 3 seed in Year 3. Now that’s the old game I know and love).

You can fire your assistant coaches in this game for the first time, and it has to be done before the bowl games. You can then hire replacements in the ensuing weeks during bowl season. While I was the USF coach, I was offered the Michigan State offensive and defensive coordinator jobs in consecutive offseasons. That’s because when you create a coach, you pick his alma mater, and mine was Michigan State, so the game recognizes you might want to go there. Your coach’s home state is designated as a recruiting pipeline, no matter where he’s coaching.

A note on custom conferences: Conferences require between four and 20 teams. So although the Pac-2 exists with Oregon State and Washington State, if you add anyone else to the league, you cannot get it back down to two. Custom conferences can be changed every offseason. I don’t know if you can get invited to another league like the old days, because my USF team wasn’t good enough to get a nod.

One stray criticism: The game doesn’t play fight songs over the menus, just a drumline. And when you’re a few hours into Dynasty or Road to Glory, the drumline can become very annoying. I muted the game at one point. It’s my biggest criticism. It’d be nice to flip on fight songs or something different.

Road to Glory

RTG is both scaled down a bit and bigger than before, and I really like the final product. Gone is the high school stage in which you play a season to determine your prospect skill level. Instead, you begin by picking your skill level, from a two-star to a five-star. Personally, I like this because it lets you get to the fun stuff and makes RTG accessible for more people. EA Sports told me the developers just didn’t have enough room to fit in the high school stage, and that was one part that got left on the cutting room floor. I don’t mind if it stays there, though I know many want it back.

I made myself a five-star quarterback from Michigan who wanted playing time and to be prepared for the NFL. The top option presented by the game was … Iowa! Each week, you go through a practice drill, use skill points on the “agenda” and play/sim a game. There are five agenda items each week, and you have to choose where to put your time: academics, team building, recovery, training and socializing. Throughout the season, you get texts from the media, coaches, teammates, classmates, academic advisers and businesses. Your responses, some of which carry risk, impact your skill points and create choose-your-own-adventure consequences.

Midway through the season, I decided to have some fun, so I accepted a party invitation from a teammate, only for my coach to find a picture of my partying, docking my Coach Trust points. A local reporter asked about our losing streak, and I blamed the team, costing me leadership points. A classmate found answers to a test and I agreed to use them, boosting my GPA — but the professor found out we cheated a week later and my GPA took a big hit. I accepted every NIL deal, which increased my following but limited the amount of points I had for other areas.

Perhaps a small glitch: The game said I hadn’t completed “practice” during conference championship week, but practice wasn’t available. In the option drill, a zone read handoff was a touchdown every time as the linebacker always overcommitted.

I ultimately earned second-team All-Big Ten honors on a 7-6 team, and after a good season of partying in Iowa City, I transferred to Michigan State. Just like real life, you can transfer every season. It’s a fun game mode that won’t take up too much of your time, and RTG players will be exportable to Madden’s Superstar mode.

Other game modes

Road to the CFP is an online season-type mode in which you play against gamers at your same skill level. But with the servers not yet live, I couldn’t dig into this very much. I like the idea. I also wasn’t able to test normal online head-to-head play.

I’ve never been an Ultimate Team person, so my review here is limited. I played around for a bit, and there appear to be a lot of options with real players in the game. I can see how people have fun with this. This is also where you’ll find microtransactions, but you don’t have to spend money to buy points. You can win points.

We still know almost nothing about the new Team Builder. People at EA Sports have been tight-lipped about it. There was nothing to test here. An update on the Team Builder website will come on July 19 with the worldwide game launch.

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Conclusion

I worried EA Sports College Football 25 couldn’t live up to our ridiculous nostalgic expectations, but it really does meet the hype.

They got this right. No game is perfect, some parts of the gameplay are really hard, and I’m sure there will be other aspects that some people don’t like — maybe around the game modes I don’t use as much. As the years go on, perhaps we’ll become upset at the lack of year-to-year updates or changes. The special feeling could wear off when fans are not waiting 11 years for a new game. But for this game, College Football 25 is basically everything we dreamed it could be. Now I just need to find more time outside of work to play it.

(Top illustration: Dan Goldfarb for The Athletic; screenshots courtesy of EA Sports)