EA Sports’ College Football 25 franchise is set to start again after years of hiatus– here’s what will change from the regular Madden.
The last time we saw a licensed NCAA football product was 2013. NCAA 14 was the last NCAA title to ever hit store shelves. Since then the college football landscape has changed monumentally with NIL and the transfer portal. Back when NCAA 14 came out– it significantly focused on the growth of teams and had the Bowl Championship Series as its hallmark factor. Nowadays, there is a clear winner of the college football season, something College Football 25 will try to capture in the best way possible.
The game, being produced by Electronic Arts, will draw sharp comparisons to its NFL counterpart franchise– Madden. However, Madden has been met with severe criticism from fans with everything from gameplay to depth being regarded as a negative factor. EA Sports will attempt to remedy that with the production of College Football 25– something that they have taken the liberty to announce the differences between the two title lines.
College Football 25 has focused on creating a more in-depth game than Madden whose general sense has been the same since Madden 13 which was incepted back in 2012. College Football 25 will hone in on the environment in a much greater scope than any Madden titles in the past.
“Fans will be immersed into the most iconic settings, stadiums and traditions of college football, from The Big House to The Swamp, Tuscaloosa to College Station, and everywhere in between,” EA Sports said in a press release. “The sights, sounds, fight songs, mascots, commentators, and unique touches that make up college football game days across all 134 FBS universities, bowl games and the College Football Playoff will come to life.”
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The environment is one of the pieces that matters the most with the development team taking more care into home-field advantage and unique quirks of each stadium into consideration. We can assume this means that Bryant-Denny Stadium will be much louder than Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium. Home-field advantage means that each stadium will also have distinctive obstacles and distractions you must overcome. This means things like shaky playart (a feature carried over from previous NCAA titles), missing preplay icons, and a shaking screen will fill players with an authentic feel.
“Game-altering homefield advantages rattle your rivals in college football’s toughest places to play. Test your squad’s road game composure and confidence levels as you play through distractions like screen shaking, missing pre-play icons, and moving play art,” EA said in the same press release.
This notes a level of attention to detail not seen before in previous Madden games. A common complaint with today’s Madden is that the game feels too stoic. Every stadium is the same, every game and moment emulates the same exact feeling as another moment. This is what game developers sought to avoid when creating College Football 25. For example, stadiums will now have actual chants and fan audio. Team runouts will be unique as well rivalry traditions will be accounted for. Ohio State versus Michigan will very much feel like “The Game” whereas SMU versus Utah won’t have the same exact atmosphere.
College Football 25 will also see game modes that feel much more in-depth than in Madden. Madden’s Franchise Mode hasn’t changed since the game switched over to the Frostbite engine, instead being essentially a copy and paste replica. College Football 25 will bring back Dynasty Mode– CFB 25’s variant of Franchise Mode, with more breadth. Team builder will return– unlike in Madden and the setup and behind the scenes of playing will feel much more skill-based rather than AI-based. This means coaching trees, archetypes, scouting, and recruiting will all be up to the player rather than feeling empty and hollow.
While Madden only has one broadcast crew, College Football 25 will have multiple, “listen to the iconic voices of Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit as they call marquee matchups, while Rece Davis, Jesse Palmer, and David Pollack take the mic for all other games,” EA says. “Take in the sights and sounds around the stadium between plays with a dynamic picture-in-picture play-call system.”
The game overall is meant to feel much more complete than Madden titles. The changes might be coming to Madden as well but as a whole, this game is meant to be much deeper than in years past. We’ll have to see how College Football 25 works out exactly, but the game is off to a good start.
