College Football 25 Review – Unrivaled Fluidity

I want to preface this review of College Football 25. I am not a big consumer of sports at a collegiate level. In this review, College Football 25 will be judged on gameplay, modes, and settings more so than how accurately the teams and stadium are portrayed.

After over 10 years the NCAA football series is Reborn under the new title¹, EA Sports College Football 25! (I will refer to the game as CFB25 going forward). This title is developed using the Frostbite Engine and the team behind the game is EA Orlando, which used to be EA Tiburon. This game offers many fleshed-out modes to interact with and I can confidently say, that CFB25 stands out as one of the best-feeling football games in recent memory.

Read more: College Football 25 Review – Unrivaled Fluidity

Developer & Publisher // Developed by EA Orlando, Published by EA Sports

Platforms // Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5

MSRP & Release Date // $69.99, July 19, 2024

Reviewed On // Xbox Series X

Dial it in

Let’s get the intangibles out of the way first! When you boot up College Football 25, there are 6 menu tabs to comb through. In settings, there’s an abundance of options to tailor the experience. The one I suggest looking at first is in the tab “game options”. Scroll down until you see “Passing Mechanics” and take a look at passing types.

I played with 2 of the 4, Placement & Accuracy and Revamped Passing. The first one gauges the arc of the pass with the use of a meter, but there’s no control over where the ball is placed. The Placement & Accuracy passing type still lets you gauge the arc of the ball, but being able to choose where the ball lands offers a more dialed-in experience. Here I also upped the reticle speed a bit.

Accessibility

There’s a fleshed-out settings menu in CFB25. Everything from menu narration to how accurate the CPU is at punting the ball can be changed here. These settings can be altered however the user desires and it doesn’t affect earning the Achievements or trophies! I applaud EA Orlando for giving players as much flexibility and freedom when playing against CPU. 

To test your settings go into the training tab and select “mini-games”. This is also a great place to learn how to play on offense, defense, and special teams (field goals, punts, punt returns). Go through all of them individually or use the gauntlet to play a random assortment. 

Performance

Running the game on a Series X, the resolution looks to be 1440p upscaled to 4k. The frame rate when in action is a buttery smooth 60fps but will drop to a locked 30fps in cinematics and transitions. It sounds jarring however while playing it’s hardly noticeable. What else is there to say, other than that it works as intended; plays smoothly, and the load times are fast. I have two minor nitpicks here, first one is how long it takes to sim the seasons in the career modes. The second one is the lack of performance/quality toggles. A 120fps option would have been appreciated here. Just throwing out some crude numbers, the response time for 60fps is around 16.67ms and the response time for 120fps is half that at around 8.33ms. On paper the difference is small, but in practice, it is noticeable.

Collge Football 25 – Sports are RPGs

Players that play Madden should be able to hop right in. However, if you haven’t played Madden in a while or don’t partake in sports, the easiest way for me to depict sports in general is as a role-playing game. Each player on the field is a class, and each class has a specific skill set to attain a certain goal. These goals change depending on whether you’re playing offense or defense. 

The mode I loved the most and shows this idea off well is Road to Glory. Here I created a QB (Quarterback) named him Lord Avatar and cheesed him to a 99 overall. Yes, there’s even a setting to modify how much exp you earn as well. This mode showcases the RPG elements of football the best. You get to pick the exact position you want to play, level up your player, compete for the Heisman, and try and win the national football chip.

Comparison to Madden

Most annualized sports titles, especially the Madden series, have grown stale for the past few years as they’ve become far more animation-led. This animation-led design makes the games look realistic, but chasing realism comes at the sacrifice of good-feeling gameplay. This is apparent in the newer Madden titles where everything from read-option runs to play-action passes feel sluggish. The animation-led gameplay remains in CFB25 but the difference is in how fluid and succinct the animations are. 

The swift animations are what make this game a joy to play and manufacture dynamic moments. Even RPO (run-pass option) are delightful to pull with a smooth transition from faking the ball to the RB (Running Back) to then passing it. The animations here really allow players to trick the defense.

Gameplay

I primarily used the coach’s suggestions when calling plays on both offense and defense although It’s simple to call audibles on the fly. You can see the play while holding the right trigger pre-snap. If you choose Placement & Accuracy passing type it is much easier to pull off back-shoulder throws to your receivers. Once the ball is in the air, receivers have a couple of options before catching the pass. Is it wise to catch the ball in stride, securely catch the ball, or make an aggressive play at the ball? The choice is yours via the face buttons.

Once the ball is caught or passed off to a running back you have many different moves to get past your defenders. Breaking ankles with swift jukes and hesi’s, hurdling over defenders, spinning out of tackles, and even pitching the ball back to another teammate to extend the play. Mastering these skills and using them in the right context will earn you extra yards. On top of that, hitting these moves at the right time is so satisfying.

This concept also applies to defense. Holding RT/R2 while on defense shows the defensive coverage. You can switch between the Defensive Line or the Secondary. The Defensive line’s goal is to rush past the offensive line to either limit runs or sack the QB. The Secondary carries the burden of sticking onto the wide receivers and hunting for picks, deflections, and tackles. To see all the different inputs on offense and defense go into the “settings tab” and select the option “game controls”. Familiarize yourself with all these options!

Achievement Hunting in EA Sports College Football 25

CFB25 has a straightforward list of achievements. Chasing all these down forced me to interact with all the main modes in the game but some achievements here may be bugged. The specific one that was glitched for me was the achievements titled “playoff bound”. To nab this achievement you need to earn a spot in the college football playoffs in either the dynasty mode or road to glory.

In the Road to Glory mode, I played every single game in the regular season. I made the playoffs, got the Heisman, and won the title. Frustratingly this specific achievement didn’t pop. I then simulated a couple of seasons in Dynasty, making sure to choose a team with a high overall and I still didn’t attain it. The achievement finally popped after simulating to the playoffs and physically going in and playing the whole playoff game. What a sigh of relief!

Online

I tested out the servers primarily through the mode Road to College Football Playoffs. Here you pick a team that is categorized by tiers and play against other players online. I played 12 matches in total and outside of the opponents that would just leave, the servers held up fairly well. There were a few brief moments where the action would pause and a prompt appeared on the screen labeling network issues, but these quickly resolved themselves and I was never disconnected from matches. There’s even cross-platform play and you’re able to talk smack to the opponent with a connected headset/mic. I also played a couple of casual online matches with my homie and it held up there as well. 

Sound

The game’s soundtrack is full of marching band horns and drums. The lack of a licensed soundtrack may also turn some people off¹. This is in stark contrast to Madden 24’s soundtrack where the list is filled with popular names like Jack Harlow, Wiz Khalifa, and Armani White, but the Madden titles do eventually get delisted from online storefronts. CFB25 might be safe in the store for a while.

Sports games are my comfort food so the lack of licensed music did not bother me, I tend to just mute the in-game soundtracks anyway and listen to podcasts or my music in the background. The commentary throughout the matches is done by either the broadcast team or the big game team. Each team has a unique run-out tradition that is displayed pre-match which can be skipped, furthermore, the stadiums are packed with roaring albeit pretty ugly-looking NPC models.

Conclusion

All games represent a new language to learn but to throw on that learning a whole sport and its quirks can feel daunting, but that’s the beauty in Video Games! When playing CFB25 you are given the tools to learn the sport more inherently, and there’s no other football game out right now that feels as fast, responsive, and dynamic as this one! 

Score: 8.5/10

Pros

• Fluid and fast gameplay
• A great number of game modes
• Both Solo and Online Modes have merit
• Very Accessible
• Breadth of options
• Locked 60fps during gameplay

Cons

• Potentially bugged Achievements/Trophies
• No 120fps option
• Lack of licensed music may be a turn-off

1. the concession EA had to pay to bring this series back is to pay each athlete $600 for their likeness in the game
   https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240719357/eas-college-football-25-brings-in-about-200-million-in-preorders-the-players-its-based-on-get-600-each
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2. The game seems to feature a very limited amount of licensed tracks https://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-college-football/college-football-25/news/college-football-25-sights-and-sounds madden 24’s soundtrack https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-24/news/madden-nfl-24-soundtrack CFB25‘s soundtrack on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPkINIxiy2iR-Rb2d-1Qz4_mCgEmh6JNg ↩︎