As the tumultuous world of college sports keeps spinning and we approach another landmark season of change we wanted to turn our attention to one of the biggest story’s coming up this summer. Yes, we are closing in on the return of a college football video game as EA Sports College Football 25 is set to drop after a 10 year absence, reportedly this July.

We’ve talked about the game coming back in a few different articles over the past several months and today I wanted to coalesce all of the potential issues and questions for everyone into one place. The hype is growing immensely for the return of this game, can it possibly meet expectations?

Can the Frostbite engine be overcome?

Maybe the biggest news released about College Football 25 is that it has been coded from scratch and that means the bulk of the game–especially outside the field of play–will not be a re-skinned version of EA Sports’ Madden franchise. Hooray!

However, the college video game will be using the same Frostbite engine as Madden. Boo!

EA Sports spent hundreds of millions developing their own sports game engine Ignite which debuted in late 2013. Over a decade earlier, a Swedish developer DICE created the engine Frostbite for use in the first-person shooter game Battlefield released in 2002, and eventually EA Sports bought DICE, retired Ignite, and have been using Frostbite on most of their sports game titles beginning with Madden 18 and FIFA 17.

In the sports sector, Frostbite has received atrocious reviews. The claims are that the AI-based engine was purpose built for a first-person shooter game and its strengths (world building and story telling) translate poorly to the world of sports.

Critics say Frostbite makes games overly buggy, the animation is bad for athletes, the gameplay and menu control can lag, while the lightning and graphics often feels like a step backwards from the mid-2010’s era.

I’ve noticed the little amount of information that has come out about the new game has focused heavily on the “atmosphere” of college football. While that is a smart decision and made previous generations of the game fun it makes me worry it’s overcompensating for the poor Frostbite gameplay that is expected to hit some unsuspecting consumers.

How many years until microtransactions begin and dynasty mode withers?

If you ask most gamers about their biggest worry, if it isn’t Frostbite, then it’s the steady deterioration of dynasty modes across all EA Sports titles in favor of microtransactions and other frivolous gameplay modes–a decision that has undoubtedly brought untold riches to EA but also plagued the company in recent years, in the form of poor reviews, with the process accelerating extremely since the last college football game was released.

Surely, EA Sports is greedy and lazy but they aren’t dumb.

All signs point to College Football 25 having a ton of time and energy invested into an in-depth and immersive franchise mode. I’m not worried about this for now as EA would be crazy to mess this up and phone in an area of their business with such a large bullseye on it for multiple years. It’s possible to argue this is the most important EA release in many years (perhaps ever?) and they simply cannot afford to mess up dynasty mode.

Yet, down the road of course things will change. At some point, they will introduce other modes to the game that will detract from dynasty mode. How bad will it get?

How much customization will be possible from day one?

For the average gamer this might not be atop the list of issues but for many others the ability to customize College Football 25 is a big deal. We already know custom conferences will be included in this summer’s release but beyond that little else is known.

Something like Team Builder was very popular in the past but hasn’t been confirmed (yet) in the 2024 edition. Will the 12-team playoff format be able to change? Will certain aspects to a program, like the stadium, have customization and maintenance? EA Sports has said players not opted into the game via NIL will not be allowed to be created which raises questions about how customizable player rosters will be, as well.

My personal opinion–based on the expanding licensing fees these games are garnering especially as they are dishing out upwards of $7 million directly to football players now–is that customization may be limited in these first few editions of the game and definitely for this summer’s release.

Will it be released on PC?

EA Sports is moving on with this game by leaving behind the old generation of gaming consoles. If you have a PlayStation 4 or earlier or a Xbox One X or earlier this game will not be available to you. For a gaming console, you’ll need the PlayStation 5 (released in late 2020) or the Xbox Series X or Series S (also released in late 2020) so if you need to maybe think about upgrading sooner rather than later.

Curiously, EA has not mentioned if the game will be released on PC yet either. My conspiracy theory is that they want to steer away from the wide world of customization that comes much easier from PC gameplay but along with that comes a potentially smaller overall sales figure. A lot of progress with PC’s has occurred since a college football game was released and it would be somewhat shocking to release it only on PlayStation and Xbox.

Will there be a smooth launch without many technical issues?

My personal experience with EA Sports games in recent years has been one of major frustration. In the past few years I’ve played FIFA 23, PGA Tour, F1 23, and Madden 20 as the latest titles for me in those premier EA titles. All have their individual issues with gameplay but together they’ve suffered similar problems:

1) There are typically struggles to navigate consistent bugs that can sometimes take weeks for a patch to be sent through as a fix. Since College Football 25 is being coded from the ground up this may be less of an issue, or maybe it’s a huge issue at launch.

2) The servers for EA Sports have proven to be extremely unreliable and you can imagine a major launch of this game will put major stress on their ability to deliver a smooth experience to gamers. Gone are the days of loading up your console and playing dynasty for hours offline.

3) Saving issues have been rampant and ultimately these made me walk away from EA Sports titles. Whether it’s their servers, or a broken and buggy ‘quick resume’ feature, it’s far too common to see franchise progress go unsaved and be thrown into a loop where you’re being asked to go through elaborate changes to your console and home internet that usually don’t up fixing the problem.

I can’t in good faith buy this game on its release date, however difficult that may be when July rolls around! Others can guinea pig the return and I’ll be monitoring how things proceed.

Does the future of college sports video games hinge on the success of College Football 25?

A lot is riding on College Football 25 from a variety of angles. The most recent Madden NFL 24 pivoted to a more realistic and less arcade-y gameplay that showed improvements from an decently rated game. The same can be said for EA FC 24 with some improvements, but like its other football flagship title, suffers greatly from stale gameplay and franchise mode after several weeks.

College football will have the benefit of being fresh and one would assume there will be massive first day, first week, and first month sales.

There are rumors that EA Sports (or another publisher) are interested in more college football video games for basketball, baseball, softball, and maybe lacrosse. It appears that folks are watching how the new football game goes, especially in terms of navigating NIL, and will decide if it’s worth it to expand into other sports.

Is the announcing team good enough?

We should note that the full list of announcers and commentators hasn’t been officially released but the following names have publicly come out and said they are in College Football 25:

Chris Fowler
Kirk Herbstreit
Rece Davis
Kevin Conners
Jesse Palmer
Desmond Howard
David Pollack

It’s not set in stone but with the sport’s relationship with ESPN via the College Football Playoff and the talent listed above it would seem like the game is going to be fully on the World Wide Leader of Sports visual presentation model. Obviously, the Fowler and Herbstreit duo was a no-brainer for EA Sports and the former even mentions in the above video that he’s been doing voice work for the game for over 2 years!

However, the rest of the cast seems really underwhelming, particularly the inclusion of David Pollack who doesn’t even work for ESPN anymore and has made a controversial bid to end wokeness.

Is it odd that no women are involved? This feels like a massive missed opportunity if true. They can find time for the recently let go Pollack now dabbling in grifting but nothing for Holly Rowe, Beth Mowins, Laura Rutledge, Katie George, Heather Dinich, or Molly McGrath in the ESPN universe?

Who will be on the cover?

Normally, the cover for these games really isn’t that big of a deal and it’s a little overblown usually when these companies try to market the game based on the design. After a 10-year absence, the anticipation feels much different for College Football 25. Whomever the lucky person ends up being their face is going to be everywhere this summer.

With NIL sitting front and center a solo cover for any football star could be a massive money-making deal. There’s been talk of a non-athlete (like Nick Saban or Coach Prime) gracing the cover or an outgoing college athlete (the norm in previous editions) like Jayden Daniels or Caleb Williams but both decisions would feel misplaced in the current environment.

In order to get broader national coverage it might be useful to put more than one current football player on the cover. It’s never happened in the history of the game (NCAA Football 13 used outgoing Heisman winner Robert Griffin III and the long retired Barry Sanders together) and could be an interesting move.

Regional covers could also be used, but in the era of digital downloads is that necessary anymore?