In terms of specifications, EA Sports has worked on its copy: the 134 teams that make up the Football Bowl Subdivision, the first division of the NCAA, will respond, with jerseys and stadiums as required. Commentator duo Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit from network ESPN for the audio part. We talked about culture in the Chapô, and this aspect is unsurprisingly largely highlighted in this first marketing slaughter: in addition to recreating the atmosphere of the stadiums with their mascots, fan songs and other pitch rituals, playing at home will have a concrete impact on the gameplay, by shaking or outright hiding certain visual aids. Moreover, EA promises a “ real college gameplay » ever more realistic, with a new passing system and dynamism reflecting the speed of the sport.
The usual modes of the franchise make their return, to the great pleasure of general managers amateurs who will be able to build their own team or take care of an already existing one in Dynasty mode, or PE failures who have always dreamed of winning the Heisman Trophy with Road to Glory mode. Obviously, College Football 25 will align with its counterparts to offer an Ultimate Team mode that won't stung beetles. EA obliges, a Deluxe edition is also included, with 2 days of early access as a bonus, 4600 College Football points straight away and different packs of items for Ultimate Team mode. And for true oval ball aficionados, a bundled bundle with the professional bent Madden NFL 25 is also available for pre-order, bringing together the content of their respective Deluxe editions in a single (expensive) package.
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My face, my rules
Announced 3 years ago, the development of this new episode was followed with all the zeal specific to sports aficionados – the aura of the last episode NCAA Football 14, still a source of mods to update the rosters today, is still very strong among this (noisy) niche. This period of shortage is not the result of chance or declining sales, but rather the result of a legal battle between EA Sports and several athletes from the NCAA, the organization which governs university football competitions, concerning the use of their physical attributes, personal information and jersey number. At the time, EA Sports was careful not to mention the names of the players involved; but did not hesitate to bring closer to the maximum the virtual of the real. The context was infinitely more complicated than today, with a strict ban on direct monetary compensation from university athletes.
This deeply unfair ban was finally lifted in 2021 by the Supreme Court, at the same time removing any obstacle to the development of a new opus. EA still needs to be ready to put its hand in its pocket: one of the big questions surrounding the project concerned the fair monetary remuneration of the athletes lending their faces to the title, and the publisher was proud of offer $600 (and a copy of the game) to each athlete who agrees to lend their “name, image and physical likeness”. 10,000 athletes accepted the deal, for a total expenditure of more than $6 million – a very relative sum when we know the $33 billion in market value that the publisher represents overall. A gap that some did not fail to note analysts sportsmen. If the cover of the game has 3 current big names with Travis Hunter, Donovan Edwards and Quinn Ewers, one big absentee is noted: Arch Manning, quarterback for the University of Texas Longhorns, refused to appear in the game.