EA Sports College Football 25 Review

After a decade-long hiatus, EA Sports’ take on college football is back, baby. Naturally, I kept my expectations in check and headed into College Football 25 with deep reservations. How could I not? I won’t pretend EA Sports hasn’t had an abysmal reputation when it comes to their football games over the last ten years. Thankfully, my worries were quickly put to rest. College Football 25 is excellent, delivering an atmospheric, fast-paced take on football that does what Madden hasn’t done in a long time.

Simply put, College Football 25 is a ton of fun. Featuring all 134 FBS teams—each offering a unique, personal touch during games—EA Sports has scored the touchdown that football fans have been craving. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a football game as much as this.

Awe-Inspiring Atmosphere

For starters, College Football 25 absolutely nails the presentation that makes NCAA games enjoyable. Each stadium flourishes with personalized traits, ensuring that whether you’re playing in Michigan, Los Angeles, New York, or anywhere in between, you’ll always feel like you’re smack-dab in the middle of the action. The phenomenal atmosphere that permeates every inch of College Football 25 is astounding. It beautifully captures the essence of the gravity of an NCAA football game.

Of course, a major part of that signature college football atmosphere is the rabid crowds that attend each game. From afar, the sea of fans that line the bleachers looks tremendous. Admittedly, when up close, individuals lose a lot of their luster, but I never found this distracting. I think that’s primarily due to the excellent sound design more than making up for a lack of NPC-visual prowess. The ‘Stadium Pulse’ feature is a fantastic method for capturing how a crowd can affect a game. Home teams will see a significant boost the louder their fans become, represented by a meter that periodically displays in the upper right corner. On the flip side, away teams will feel the heat once their controller starts to vibrate, their screen shakes, and their play art becomes more challenging to read.

X’s and O’s

Another advantage College Football 25 has over Madden is its ability to offer players a more nuanced approach to the defensive and offensive game. For example, pass protection requires an understanding of when to utilize options like full slides, half slides, and empties. Before realizing I needed a cleaner approach to the pass protection game, I was getting steamrolled. Only after I put the effort into learning College Football 25’s more complex (but rewarding) systems did things start to click.

Discovering these adjustments to the strategy baked into College Football 25 has been half the fun. I can’t stress enough how pleasant it’s been to feel like I need to put actual effort into a game, utilizing my knowledge of the sport and not simply rolling through the motions. College Football 25 has changed how I approach each play, whether offensively or defensively. This is where EA Sports’ latest shines the most. I’m excited to play each game, each quarter, and each down, because I know I’ll be challenged in ways Madden is incapable of.

Even though it’s undeniable that I’ve been loving my time with College Football 25, there’s also been a handful of things I’ve found issues with. It should come as no surprise that you’ll run into awkward-looking animations. After all, this is still EA Sports, and you’ll routinely run into the trademark ‘jank’ they’re known for.

Creation Not So Sweet

Also, for a game that’s all about building the professional football stars of the future, creating teams and players is a mess. There isn’t actually a way to make a player from scratch. Instead, you’ll have limited options to edit a player that has been auto-generated onto a team. Unfortunately, there’s no way to edit fine details of one’s appearance. I know fans will groan about this for the entirety of College Football 25’s lifespan, and they’re entirely right to do so.

Team building is also a chore. You’ll need to use the EA Sports team builder through your internet browser to create a custom squad. While this does offer a decent amount of customizability, it’s baffling that this wasn’t added to the game itself. You may have better luck than I did, but after an hour of trying to upload a team to the server without any luck, I had to throw in the towel and proclaim this to be one of the worst ways to create in any game ever.

It’s also disappointing that College Football 25’s game modes never take risks. Road to Glory, Dynasty, and Ultimate Team all feel like a path we’ve traveled down a million times before. This isn’t to say that they aren’t entertaining. But they do feel a little too safe. Dynasty never ends up being more than a barebones recruiting minigame you partake in between games. Road to Glory allows you to build a player’s archetypes and fine-tune the experience, but we’ve been doing this for a long time in every sports game under the sun. And Ultimate Team, as expected, feels as if its sole purpose exists to squeeze every dollar it can out of the player base.

For the Love of the Game

Despite these shortcomings, I still find myself having a blast when I’m playing College Football 25. I daydream about it when I’m not at home. Isn’t that what we’ve been dying for from an EA Sports football game these last ten years?

College Football 25 is a success. Period. There will always be individuals who can’t accept EA Sports delivering a solid product, but I’m giving credit where credit is due. This game has gotten me excited about simulated football again—something that Madden hasn’t done since the mid-2000s. It’s not perfect, but nothing is. The year ahead with College Football 25 is officially exciting, and if Madden can replicate what it does well, it’ll be a glorious time for football fans.

***A PS5 code was provided by the publisher for this review***