EA Sports College Football 25 has been out since mid-July 2024 and it’s time for a final review of the game. Consider this the third part of the series that included a wish list post in March 2024 and a First Impressions review in late July 2024. This review will break down most aspects including those not mentioned in the July 2024 first impressions review. We’ll start with some general thoughts followed by the Dynasty and Road to Glory modes in more depth. We’ll end with some areas for improvement and provide a summary and final rating. For reference, the first impressions review rated EA CFB 25 as a 7 out of 10. Let’s get started.
General Thoughts
One of the new aspects of College Football 25 is the “wear and tear system”, which was not discussed in the initial review. After several more months, we don’t really have a strong opinion on its inclusion. On one hand, it makes sense to include it to give the game a more authentic feel. On the other hand, it can be too much when it sidelines your player after one big hit. Sure it’s “realistic” in that any one hit can derail a player’s season but that’s why there are injuries. One adjustment EA could make is to allow substitution of a player out for a certain amount of time (a series, a quarter, etc.) to prevent excessive wear and tear. Additionally, they could add a slider to adjust the wear and tear system because the current setup is simply on or off. It would be an upgrade to have the system at say 50% of its normal implementation or allow more player control during a game.
There are also 4 different passing type options: placement, placement & accuracy, classic passing, and revamped passing. At first, I used the revamped passing for the first month or so and then switched to the classic passing style. As a result, my interception ratio went way down under the classic style and that’s not on EA for providing another passing style option. This was and still is completely a skill issue that doesn’t count against EA in this review with one exception.
One negative thing about every EA sports game is the obvious scripting. There are certain plays that are destined to have a negative outcome. 3rd and inches near the goal line? Better not run a QB sneak or he will fumble. Setting up that play-action pass by running the ball? Think again because the defender will have insane catchup speed for a pick, to swat the ball down, or hit your receiver hard enough to jar the ball loose. Nothing takes the fun out of the game more than when it decides before the play whether you will succeed.
The blocking in this game is pretty terrible as well and it got noticeably worse after the early August patch. In my case, I simply don’t run more than 1 or 2 jet sweeps because the tackle will decide he doesn’t want to block, and I don’t run any RPOs or screens because the blocking never develops well. The devs did another patch for pass blocking in October but I didn’t see too much improvement after it went live. Ultimately, I ended up adjusting the sliders a bit to make the game more forgiving on All-American difficulty.
Dynasty Mode
Dynasty mode was very reminiscent of the previous CFB titles although there were some small but annoying differences. The scheduling while using custom conferences caused major headaches in Dynasty mode and was mostly fixed but there are still reports of nonsensical scheduling after some early patches. The lack of a trophy room or historical records really does take away from the mode because sometimes you want to see how a team performed 5 seasons ago. Older editions in the CFB series had historical data tracking, which doesn’t bode well in this review. The other negative is that custom teams can only be created online unlike previous games, which had plenty of issues at launch and some still persist as of this posting.
As for recruiting, it was similar to older titles in both good and bad ways. The good? It was mostly intuitive if you’ve played before. The bad? Even if you had played a previous CFB game, not every aspect was explained such as the green and red diamonds. If those familiar with CFB games don’t know these things, it’s even worse for those who are new to the series because there are no in-game guides for crucial aspects like the diamonds that can help determine which prospects you should spend recruiting hours on. There’s really no excuse for not having a simple guide to how game modes work in the game itself.
Overall, recruiting was solid but there are possible improvements such as allowing prospects to flip or allowing a mass action to take place like offering every recruit on your prospect board a scholarship. Some people had issues with big names like Oregon or Ohio State winning every recruiting battle but I didn’t see too much of that. Then again, when you are a one-star custom team, you aren’t going to be in many of those recruiting battles for several seasons but there are some possible adjustments there as well.
Road to Glory
After playing Road to Glory in the first few weeks as a running back, the game felt lacking but I wanted to see if it was because the first attempt was done as the “underdog” role, which took longer for the payoff. For the second attempt, I decided to be a power running back again but as an “elite” prospect. I chose to walk on to Florida, which meant I was a backup. After a few games, it was noticeable the mode simply lacks logic to have a 5-foot, 400-pound power running back only used on 3rd down passing plays.
After scraping the 2nd attempt as a running back, I opted to try to play as a wide receiver. Once again, I chose Florida and this meant I was second string again. I quickly made my way up from 4th WR to 2nd by the Mississippi State game (the 4th game of the 2024 season). The game decided that the 2nd string 7-foot receiver would only play 3 snaps with two of those being run plays. Even when becoming the first string WR, the simulation logic is… not great. It will sub players out at crucial times such as late in the half or before key plays.
On the flip side, including the different training modes during practice to improve the player is a great feature but it can get stale quite quickly. I did not play the RTG mode as a defensive player but I can imagine some of the same issues impact the entire mode regardless of position. Overall, there’s plenty of room to improve the Road to Glory mode to have more depth. Below is about 30 minutes of Road to Glory footage as I progressed from WR3 to WR1.
Improvement Opportunities
If you read the First Impressions article from July 2024, then a lot of the improvement areas will seem familiar and there’s a whole list below to spare the repetitive talking points. Let’s discuss some of the more prominent ones starting with the simulation logic.
At the very start of CFB25‘s life cycle in July 2024, there was a noticeable amount of FCS teams upsetting top-ranked teams when simulating week-to-week. The developers adjusted that but for the in-game defense simulation, I haven’t seen much change since the early impressions review. Full disclosure: I only play offense and simulate defense but certain patterns emerge quickly like the opponent suddenly scoring in droves in the 2nd and 4th quarters. On offense, the aggravating part is that passes caught early in the first quarter become drops in the final two minutes of the half. Or passes that should have been intercepted by the CPU are dropped anytime but the final two minutes of the first half. Or when the CPU magically jumps inhumanly high or speeds up to get a pick after the two-minute warning or fourth quarter. The outcome should be consistent throughout the game so that if a play is an interception in the first quarter, it should be an interception at every other point in the game or vice versa. If it’s a catch in 3rd quarter, it should be a catch in the 4th quarter as well.
The announcers need a major overhaul because the current iteration takes away from the immersion. Some examples are the “excitement” doesn’t match the moment, there’s a delay in their lines, jumping to conclusions after a single play, or just straight up being incorrect. Speaking of immersion, the lack of dynamic weather and lighting (shadows changing as the game progresses) is surprising. Below is a clip from Battlefield 1, a game released in 2016 (8 years ago!!) and built on the Frostbite engine (the same one used to build CFB25). It begs the question: why couldn’t these effects be included in CFB25?
Here’s a list of improvements that should be made for CFB26. This is not an exhaustive list but implementing these would be a huge boost to a game that is noticeably lacking depth in most game modes.
- General simulation logic (especially at the end of halves) with rubberbanding issues
- Formation substitutions
- Announcer lines
- Mascot Mode
- Fight Songs as a playlist
- Advanced Dynamic Weather Conditions (Show BFV as an example)
- Dynamic lighting
- Long-term Challenges
- In-game guides/tutorials
- Historical stat tracking, trophies/trophy room
- Lack of guides for each mode that allow people to understand how everything works
- FCS Teams
- Customizable Playoffs
- All-time teams for each school playable outside Ultimate Team
Summary and Final Rating
College Football 25 was a long-anticipated game and development was delayed a year to put the game in a better spot. There are some strong aspects of CFB25 with excellent graphics that provide a great atmosphere and when the animations/physics are on point, the game is fantastic. There’s a strong foundation to this game, partially due to the fact it’s a brand new game that doesn’t have legacy code hampering it (** cough ** Madden franchise ** cough **).
However… For a game that was delayed a year, too many aspects are lacking, or missing for such a hyped title. The announcers, AI/simulation logic, the lack of tutorials, no fight songs, no FCS teams, no mascot mode, no formation subs, etc. are too much to overlook. Then there are the post-launch updates that included mass subs, which is great but why wasn’t it in the game before? Other post-launch changes to blocking and nerfing the big plays have made the game less enjoyable the longer the game is played.
Only two questions remain for this review: what is the final rating and will I buy CFB26? For a final rating, I’d give it a 6.5 out of 10. The more I played this game after launch, the more the flaws became apparent, and combined with the lack of quality updates (or clear negative changes to blocking and big plays), it’s hard to see this game in a more positive light than in July 2024. As for whether I will buy CFB26, the answer is leaning towards no because this feels like a game focused on surface-level presentation. It looks great but the more you peel back the layers, the more that needs to be fixed and that’s unlikely to happen by July 2025 given EA’s historical track record. It might be wiser to return with the release of CFB27 once the solid foundation actually has more depth or hope the financial success of CFB25 is a catalyst for the return of a college basketball video game.
Final Rating: 6.5 out of 10