As the release of College Football 25 approached last July, it felt increasingly unlikely that the video game would live up to the hype.
And how could it?
Eleven years removed from the last installment of EA Sports’ college football franchise, there might not have been a more highly anticipated sports video game in my lifetime. And even with the early reviews indicating that the return of the series would be well received, it seemed improbable — if not impossible — that it would live up to its lofty expectations.
And yet it did. And then some.
I’ve been playing sports video games for as long as I can remember, dating all the way back to Madden ’94 on Sega Genesis, which I primarily played by running the ball out of the back of my own end zone until my dad finally explained to me that it wasn’t a glitch that the two points per safety were being awarded to the opposing team. Over the years, I’ve gone through my football, basketball, baseball and soccer video game phases, with only a handful standing out as more than just an annual roster update; NBA Live 2003, Madden 2005, MVP Baseball 2005, FIFA 06, NCAA Football 14 and NBA 2K14.
Believe me when I say that College Football 25 is now in a category all of its own.
I won’t tell you how many hours my PlayStation 5 says I spent playing the game because it’s that embarrassing, but just trust me when I say that it was a lot. At least enough to keep pace in three fairly engaged online dynasties, one of which I joined via Reddit because I needed the additional action.
All three dynasties took on personalities of their own, whether it was the varying skill levels among coaches, desires to stay at small schools or jump to big-time programs or the reality that some were with close friends and others were with complete strangers. But all three also shared a common thread: 30-something-year-old men bonding over the shared experience of losing themselves in the world of college football for a few hours each week (or in my case, each night).
EA Sports got the gameplay right, reinvigorating a football engine that had largely grown stale under the Madden banner. The game wasn’t perfect — looking at you, coaching carousel — but was more than passable, with the overall presentation far exceeding what you’d likely expect from the franchise’s first installment in more than a decade.
But for as enjoyable as the game was in and of itself, its true heart comes in the form of the aforementioned online dynasties, which allowed users to participate in a shared league with friends (or strangers from Reddit). It’s there that the inside jokes, exaggerated storylines and real-life rivalries formed, creating an experience that often felt like more than just a video game.
While online dynasties are available in other games too, there’s something about college football that especially lends itself to such an experience. Whether it’s climbing the mountain from the Sun Belt to the SEC or the excitement of a user vs. user national championship game, I can’t quite remember a video game that’s helped foster friendship the way College Football 25 did —at least not since I was in high school, literally passing around a PlayStation 2 memory card to whoever’s turn it was to play their next game in the Madden franchise.
As the cliché goes, all good things must come to an end and I’ve now taken my final kneel downs in each of my three College Football 25 dynasties in anticipation of College Football 26, which comes out on Monday (at least for those with early access). But while excitement remains high and the franchise’s improvements have already been made public, it’s hard to imagine the game — or any game — truly recapturing the magic that its predecessor returned last summer.