About a month after the reveal trailer for College Football 26, EA did a series of deep dives for the next installment of the College Football series. On Friday, June 20, EA dropped a video and a long, detailed post on the gameplay improvements for CFB26. On Monday, June 23, EA posted a deep dive on the presentation for CFB26, but in a blog post. On Tuesday, June 24, EA did a separate deep dive on the Dynasty mode for CFB26, with the accompanying blog post. I’ll provide some thoughts on each deep dive below, starting with the gameplay, the presentation, discussing the dynasty deep dive, and ending with some overall thoughts.
Gameplay Deep Dive Impressions
As noted in the reveal trailer first impressions article from May, EA has emphasized providing a deeper experience. CFB26 will have over 300 real coaches, 2,800 new plays, and 45 new formations. While I personally don’t care about whether real coaches were in the game, the expanded playbook sounds great. CFB25 felt a bit stale with a limited selection of plays, while this year’s game will have new motion types, more RPO options, and gadget packages. Granted, some of CFB25’s lack of play variety was a user issue on my end, but people tend to stick with what works. This should alleviate the constant drag routes I preferred last year.
EA also discussed some new player archetypes and abilities, with a player’s performance factoring into how it translates onto the field. EA hyped up a “Heisman tier” ability that “captures those unexplainable moments when a player single-handedly takes over a game.” My first impression is that this new ability will allow for some CPU/AI shenanigans and will result in broken gameplay at times. I’m very cynical about this aspect. The new “battering ram” and “hammer” abilities, along with how all the abilities will integrate with wear and tear, were discussed in the deep dive blog post.
EA spoke about the revamped wear & tear system, which looks very impressive. Users can now set auto-subs for each position based on wear and tear. EA even allows for the weather to impact wear & tear, which is… interesting. We can also see the wear and tear impacting how players perform, or visually trying to shake off an injury. Based on the video, it appears we have an option to have wear and tear be on or off, along with sliders for the different tackle impacts (i.e., normal tackle, hit stick, cut stick, etc.). Wear and tear will also be impacted by a player’s toughness rating, allowing higher toughness to affect recovery time.
There will also be dynamic subs in the game that allow users to switch players on the field without having to pause the game. Personally, I was fine with having to stop the game, but this is a good inclusion. There are even quick options to bring starters back in, which is another smart idea.
CFB26 will also have updated “physics-based tackling,” which means nothing to me because it’s corporate jargon. We’ll see how much “better” the tackling really is when the game comes out. This year’s game also has “updated” blocking logic and includes defensive twists and stunts. Again, I’m skeptical of the changes made after last year’s stream of updates hardly changed the blocking logic. There are two detailed sections in the deep dive blog on some of the changes to the tackling and blocking systems.
Another defensive feature coming to CFB26 is the ability to adjust zones. I don’t play much defense as I usually opt for super sim, but this change looks positive because it can be done before the play. Users can also set safety depth and width, particularly useful if the AI is having success running a specific play. EA is also upgrading the AI quarterbacks to be better at hot reads, providing more defensive formations, and removing the AI’s ability to intercept or knock the ball down without looking. Glad that last one is being fixed because it was aggravating to constantly deal with.
Finally, we arrive at the stadium pulse, which will see additional changes this year with a louder environment, more camera shaking, and a disappearing play clock. I’ve never been a big fan of the stadium pulse dating back to the original NCAA Football series, so the idea of a distorted or disappearing play clock is ridiculous. It also looks like the kicking meter will change based on stadium pulse, with the meter becoming transparent, the ball fading out as the kicker lines up, and the power meter filling white.
Presentation Deep Dive Impressions
On Monday, June 23, EA dropped a long post about all the presentation enhancements for CFB26. I thought the visual presentation was one of the stronger aspects in CFB25, so I’m curious to see how things will improve this year. The post starts with one of my hopes for this edition: dynamic time. We will see the lighting change as the game progresses, with variance depending on the region and time of the season. Even without any mention of dynamic weather, this is a great inclusion. It looks like the developers included some additional visual items, such as more body types, visual wrinkling of the uniforms, high school uniforms, and new NPCs in the crowd. There’s also the new score bug for CFB26 and it looks like this will include updates to the score banner at the bottom.
CFB26 will have team-specific runs out of the tunnel, drone shows, light shows, and some tailored to the Road to Glory mode. The post also discussed band formations specific to different schools and additional team mascots. There doesn’t appear to be mascot mode this year, but I do like the expanding school-specific traditions they’re putting in this year. Also included this year are more touchdown and turnover traditions.
The presentation deep dive also discussed the commentary. This was an area of CFB25 that was not good. Based on the post, it looks like they updated the logic to include historical context, such as in rivalry games. It sounds promising, but I want to see how it sounds in the game as we go deeper into the dynasty mode. EA has also added more school-specific music to be played at games, such as Mr. Brightside for Michigan. The one-track drumline will be lessened this year, with CFB26 having its own theme, different drumline variations, 15 new fight songs, and 16 new pop songs. There will be over 160 new crowd chants this year as well.
Dynasty Deep Dive Impressions
The dynasty deep dive covered some of the previously mentioned aspects, such as real-life coaches and the expanded playbook. EA will have rebalanced coaching archetypes, an increased level cap to 100, and will make users go all-in on their chosen archetype. The coaching archetypes will also cost more as you progress, which adds a bit more strategy when you spend coaching tokens.
One of the critiques from CFB25 was the lack of a trophy room, but that’s no longer the case this year. EA will add a trophy room for Dynasty, Road to Glory, Road to the CFP, and Rivalries. Speaking of rivalries, EA added historical information dating back to the 1800s. This is a great inclusion and one of my favorite things from the early College Football series was seeing the individual and team records.
There will be an overhauled transfer portal with 2,000 players in the portal, “more realistic” movement, and ratings tied to an athlete’s position and class year. Dealbreakers will change as a player develops, which could lead them to leave your program, and coaching abilities could impact the dealbreakers as well. Dynasty mode will include development stats so users can see how a player has improved year-over-year, which is also a much-needed addition. This will help us understand which players to move on from, leading to better decisions in recruiting and the transfer portal.
On the topic of recruiting, there will be some changes there as well. Athletes closer to your school will cost fewer points, while those further away will cost more. The idea is to have smaller schools focus on local talent and national powers think… well, nationally. This is a more realistic outcome in college football, but it doesn’t solve the issue of the Oregons and Ohio States winning every recruiting battle against you. I’ll need to see how this changes over time in Dynasty mode. EA has also put your school’s recruiting needs on the recruiting page, which is a great UI change. No more having to navigate away from the page to find that information.
EA also talked about the wear & tear in Dynasty, which is changing to have “seasonal” and “career” health bars. As the season goes on, the bar will lower, with the possibility of the bar emptying. Once that happens, the player cannot recover from wear & tear until the offseason. I’m curious to see how this plays out throughout a player’s. As mentioned in the gameplay deep dive, wear & tear is customizable, including in Dynasty mode. The formation subs can be set to include wear & tear as a factor when determining which players should come into the game.
We can now set permanent rivalries in Dynasty mode as part of custom conferences, although it’s limited to 2 per team. Formation subs have a maximum of 50 per team, but they carry over year-to-year so we don’t have to enter them each season. Create-a-coach has a lot more customization options compared to CFB25, there’s a minimum coaching level of 10 required before unlocking the three base archetypes, and we’ll be notified when coordinators leave (with three assistant coach archetypes).
Finally, Team Builder is returning, and we can import the teams we used from CFB25. I had some issues with the functionality of Team Builder in CFB25 at launch, as well as not being able to use the ampersand (&) in the team name. I also noticed my team’s location didn’t reflect what the location I listed in Team Builder. I hope all those issues are corrected this year and I’m looking forward to seeing the creative team designs again in CFB26.
Overall Thoughts
What I posted above is only a sliver of the information EA provided, and may be different by the time the game launches. There are many things from the three blog posts that I didn’t mention and may be of more interest to you. In addition, EA only posted short videos on the deep dives, so how all the changes and features work together may alter some of my thoughts after release. Overall, this was a good series of deep dives. What I like the most is the focus on customization in the game, which should provide more depth compared to last year’s edition.
I plan on playing Dynasty mode, tinkering with different archetypes, trying different strategies, but sometimes I want to just play the game and not worry about everything else. Being able to customize the options, where I can have a Dynasty with all the bells and whistles, and one without so many, is a good balance. At the end of the CFB26 trailer impressions article, I said, “I’m leaning towards purchasing CFB26, but I need to see those deep dives before deciding.” After seeing the deep dives, I’ll be purchasing CFB26 when it comes out. I won’t be preordering, but I look forward to seeing the improvements made from last year’s game on July 10.
Photo Credit to EA Sports