Finally, after 10 long years of hiatus from the sports video game scene, EA Sports’s NCAA Football video game series is back, this time under the name “College Football 25”. However, over these long and frustrating 10 years, due to the absence of the beloved game, NCAA 14, EA Sports has produced some of the worst NFL video games in existence that are filled with micro-transactions, horrible animations, repetitive gameplay, and a very toxic community. With a dark shadow cast over EA Sports, many NCAA video game lovers are wondering how EA Sports could possibly mess up such an anticipated release this summer. Due to NCAA 14 being such a massive part of my childhood, I have four main ideas for EA that would make this release the biggest in EA Sports History.
- Bring Back Team Builder– In the old NCAA video games, Team Builder was always a fan favorite, as users were able to customize and create any college football team they could think of and put them into a dynasty mode to compete for a National Championship. However, since the NCAA video games, EA has removed all team customization from their Madden franchise, and this simply cannot be the case for College Football 25. College Football is meant to be fun, and exciting, and what is more fun than taking a team of your dreams to glory?
- Separate Gameplay from Madden- I hate Madden, and I think most of that hatred stems from its awful gameplay, which consists of awful animations, glitchy movements, and unrealistic football play. The fun part about NCAA 14 was its simple and smooth gameplay that seemed more like an arcade game rather than an imitation of an actual football game. All I’m asking of EA is to take the exact gameplay from NCAA 14, update the graphics so it fits 2024, and call it a day.
- Bring Back Mascot Mashup- One of the best parts about the old NCAA video games was mascot mashup. In this mode, you could simply just play a football game, but all the players were replaced with college mascots, making the games a lot funnier, and also like something a kid’s fever dream. This game mode is a staple of the NCAA video games, so there would be no point in leaving it out.
- Conference and Playoff Customization- One of the more fun parts of dynasty mode in NCAA 14 was realigning conferences to have any team face off in the regular season. For example, if you were to rebuild the FAU Owls in a dynasty mode, you could put them into the SEC to make things difficult and get more recruits for your team. As well as conference realignment, EA has to include playoff customization due to the constant changing of the playoffs in real college football. Without these two, the game just would feel like college football.
Those are the four main points I hope EA nails when they release the game later this summer. Of course, some other ideas could include, uniform customization, transfers in Road to Glory, realistic stadiums, multiple announcers, and bowl games, but I honestly think most of those are given and will be in the game anyway. With EA actually sticking with their word of releasing this long-awaited game, it’s interesting to see how they changed it up from its latest release in 2013. College football video games are back, and true fans couldn’t be more excited.
