College Football 25 review: The start of a new era with some busted plays

College Football 25 marks the long-awaited revival of a beloved franchise 11 years in the making. With all the pressure in the world to deliver a memorable product, EA came through and established an impressive foundation that puts the series in an excellent position moving forward.

College football has a rich history of pageantry and tradition. The SEC’s adage, “It just means more,” extends across college football. Nothing in sports compares to a primetime game at Death Valley or a White Out in Happy Valley.

EA captured that feeling in College Football 25 by faithfully re-creating all 134 Division I stadiums and game-day rituals. For example, players run down the hill at Clemson, Florida State’s crowd does the tomahawk chop, and an eagle soars overhead Auburn’s stadium.

The presentation alone makes CFB 25 a remarkable achievement, but that only scratches the surface of what this title offers.

College Football 25 key details

• Price: $69.99 / £69.99
• Developer: EA SPORTS
• Release date: July 19, 2024 / July 16, 2024 (Ultimate Edition)
• Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
• Reviewed on PS5

Back and better than ever

Too many modern sports games strive for hyper-realism, resulting in a formulaic and uninteresting experience. Thankfully, College Football 25’s gameplay resembles the fast-paced, chaotic product fans know and love. The unpredictable nature of each play makes gameplay addicting and moments memorable.

For example, Stadium Pulse is an excellent innovation that ranks different home-field advantages based on how loud the crowd is. If the noise is too intense, less-experienced players make mistakes, audibles result in pre-snap penalties, and receiver routes become unrecognizable.

EA deserves credit for taking a daring swing with arcade-like gameplay, but one innovation sticks out like a sore thumb. Wear and tear is supposed to accurately track the impact of every hit and fall.

To avoid getting injured, players can get the ball out early, cover up the ball, or get out of bounds before taking a hit. However, the system is far too punishing, and one big hit shouldn’t decrease attributes like it does.

Meanwhile, Chris Fowler typically delivers exceptional commentary, but he and the rest of the broadcast need more energy for big plays. I expect improvements as the crew gets more comfortable in future titles, but this was disappointing.

Here’s your key to the kingdom

If college football fans are sick of their program underperforming every season, Dynasty allows you to take over a school and lead it to a National Championship. The gameplay loop of upgrading coach attributes, recruiting players, and building a roster never gets old and keeps you engaged for long saves.

EA put a lot of work and passion into this game mode, and it’s commendable. Inviting friends and competing against them to win a title is also fun. Unfortunately, the game mode is not cross-platform compatible, but hopefully, that gets added in a future title.

The game mode started in a rough state, with inaccurate sim logic and inconsistent recruiting, but EA released several updates to address both issues.

Long-time fans would still like to see some legacy features like the trophy room or a more detailed look at stats from previous seasons, but Dynasty exceeded expectations.

Step into the shoes of a college athlete, sort of

On the other hand, Road to Glory follows the journey of a college football player throughout their four or five-year career if they decide to sit out the first season. You can either start as a low overall, one-star recruit, or a high-rated five-star recruit.

Thanks to the new transfer rules, moving up the ladder and playing for significantly better programs is easy. The Weekly Agenda gives players points to allocate each week on studying, team chemistry, coach trust, XP gain, or more.

That’s where Road to Dynasty falters, as it’s nearly impossible to upgrade your players enough if you start as too low of an overall and you don’t get any opportunities to improve with little playtime. And even if you get the complete trust of coaches, you only get access to four preset plays and have to use whatever the coach wants for everything else.

After four years, you can transfer your player to Madden, a nice touch. However, this game mode lacks the replayability of Dynasty which brings players back for more.

Dexerto

Ultimate Team does the bare minimum

There isn’t much to say about Ultimate Team, and that’s the problem. CFB 25’s take on the card-collecting game mode follows the lead of other EA titles and fails to innovate meaningfully. The team chemistry system is uninspiring and doesn’t lead to any unique or different teams.

Solo Seasons, H2H Seasons, Squad Regular Season, and Gauntlet are all found in other EA sports simulation titles and don’t do anything new. As for the cards, Ultimate Alumni and Legends Programs added fun players from the past, but the content quickly got stale, as new Programs didn’t come soon enough.

The potential is there, but this game mode desperately needs more attention next year.

Verdict: 4/5

On Oct. 24, Circana’s Mat Piscatella reported that CFB 25 is the all-time best-selling football video game in US dollar sales and only trails NBA 2K21. Since this was the first title in over 10 years, sales were always going to do well.

In saying that, this achievement is a testament to the game being an engaging and replayable experience that has kept players coming back far longer than other sports titles do. Usually, it is hard to recommend an annual release game unless you are a massive fan, but College Football 25 warrants a purchase from any football out there.

Since this year’s title is already so polished and jam-packed with content, we won’t expect it to be better each coming year.

For more information on how we score video games, check out our scoring guidelines here.