A review of College Football 25

Over the summer, the video game powerhouse of EA Sports released College Football 25 (which for the sake of simplicity will be referred to in this review as CFB25). This was the first time in 11 years that EA Sports released a college football video game, the most recent being NCAA Football 14 which released in 2013.

The announcement in 2021 was met with absolute jubilation from gamers and football fans alike, and when the game was released on July 19, it received an overwhelming amount of support.

According to Sports Illustrated, the game makers had set a goal of $150 million for the game. Well, as of July, EA Sports’ big swing was an absolute cash cow, bringing in over $500 million by the end of its first month.

Of course I was one of the many to purchase the game, and I was also one of the many to upgrade to the most recent generation of console simply to access the game. The $500 million question is, does the game live up to the hype?

Like all sports video games nowadays, the game comes with various game modes to choose from when you boot it up and hear that drum line for the first time. The main two that the community, myself included, cared about were “Road to Glory” and “Dynasty,” which are the two modes I’ve spent the vast majority of my 63-plus in-game hours.

If CFB25 didn’t include “Dynasty” mode, I’m not sure it would have been worth buying. The concept of the mode is simple: You take over a team as its head coach and control all of the university’s football operations.

That may sound bland to many, but the idea of building your favorite program into a college football powerhouse using recruitment and the transfer portal was one of the biggest draws of this game. The joy of pulling out an upset win over a better team with the players you brought in is a feeling that is unmatched.

“Road to Glory” (or RTG) places you into the overpriced Nikes of a college football player. Every week, you attend practice, go to class, decide whether or not to head out late with classmates, and play as your custom player in your weekly games. As the player, you must learn to balance school, being on the team, acting as a team leader and turning yourself into an influencer, all while building your coach’s trust in you, which earns snaps.   

My first player, Bruce Wayne, walked on as a two-star recruit at Vanderbilt, and after three seasons on the field with the Commodores, transferred to the lovely mountainscape of Lynchburg, Virginia to don the red, white and blue of the Flames. That brings me to one of the most significant appeals of the game: stepping onto the turf of your school.

The first time I heard the Liberty fight song in-game after my imaginary player scored a touchdown in Williams Stadium, I sat on the edge of my couch, grinning from ear to ear like a seven-year-old watching cartoons.

There was a majesty to this game that captures the moments from a college football Saturday and plops them into your living room. I got to watch the Flames take the field as both a coach and a player in one game, all while playing a game that felt fresh and new compared to the copy and paste mess that the football video game landscape has become.

Now, the game isn’t all sunshine, rainbows and touchdowns, and it’s far from perfect. The new passing system is fantastic for those looking to play competitively, but it requires a steep learning curve for casual fans. And that learning curve gets exponentially steeper when you turn the game difficulty to any of the actually challenging game modes. The game tends to err on the side of difficulty, which is aggravating and annoying.

The real question is, are the game issues enough to quell the hype of the most unique sports video we’ve seen since Rocket League? I don’t think so. The bottom line is that EA Sports College Football 25 is an almost perfect game, but it’s very few imperfections are so brutal that EA Sports should pay for the holes in my wall.

Palsgrove is the sports editor. Follow him on X.