After 11 long and frustrating years, EA Sports shook the sports community with the awaited release of College Football (CFB) 25. After various delays and false promises, the game is everything people hoped it would be. For this edition of the game, EA has added countless new features never before seen in previous NCAA (college football) games. The game does a near perfect job of capturing new fans, but also staying true to the roots of the original games and reinvigorating old fans’ love for the game.
One of the main new features of this year’s game is that the real life college players are included. In previous iterations of the system, developers were not able to attain the rights to legitimate players, because the athletes were not able to get paid off their name image and likeness (NIL). NIL deals have affected college sports in massive ways and the protocol used for these deals have come into question, due to it essentially being a way to pay players to come to schools. It upgrades the attractiveness and addictiveness of the game to be able to play as the actual players and teams within it.
One of the most realistic changes added in this game was the stadium pulse system. College football is known for their rowdy fans and how the spectators can affect the game simply with their noise level. If the player is playing as the away team-depending on what team they’re playing-and the momentum they have, it will try to throw off the player. The screen might shake or the player routes might be altered or ruined entirely. It can definitely be frustrating when it negatively affects the person playing, but it is also really cool how it is based on the real life stadium’s crowd noise.The release of College Football 25 took the world by storm and has already made over 500 million dollars. Many football fans have been asking for a new video game due to Madden failing to stray from its carbon copy routine every year, and College Football 25 definitely delivers that. The funny part about Madden is that it’s made by the same company that made College Football 25, and Madden is already overshadowed by its college counterpart.
College Football 25 has definitely lived up to the astronomical expectations it has had since release. It feels fresh and has breathed new life into the dying genre of football video games. It has been a while since the whole video game community has loved a sports game and so this is a great step in the right direction. Hopefully more companies that produce sports games take notes, and learn what audiences enjoy about their game and what they don’t.
