EA Sports College Football 25 was a momentous occasion when it released last year, as it was the first entry in the series in 11 years due to litigation surrounding name, image, and likeness. Due to players now being able to be compensated for this, the series was able to return finally and did so in strong fashion.

Now in its sophomore year under the new name, EA Sports uses the excellent foundation that was built last year to bring us College Football 26. Does it follow the dreaded sophomore slump or does it manage to outrun the curse? Read on for our verdict.

No Longer in Rebuild Mode

The return of College Football couldn’t have come at a better time last year with the Madden series struggling mightily in recent years for a number of reasons, which continued with last year’s entry. Once again, College Football 26 enters the competition as an alternative to the NFL-based Madden series that features faster-paced gameplay and a much larger focus on the overall atmosphere and aesthetic, which plays a big part in college football.

There is just something special about being at a college football game under the lights on a Saturday night in the fall, a crisp breeze in the air, traditions all around, and your team fighting back and forth against a division rival in a hotly contested game. College Football 26 builds upon last year’s game in terms of presentation, taking it to new heights to truly feel like you are at the game or watching a live game on television.

This begins with the number of iconic stadium entrances in college football, including those of Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Penn State. College Football 26 takes things to the next level this year though with some additional licensed songs used in stadium entrances. This includes Also Sprach Zarathustra, aka 2001, for the South Carolina Gamecocks and Enter Sandman by Metallica for Virginia Tech, which just add entirely new levels of realism to the team entrances. The development team did their homework in the offseason and made sure to add in new wrinkles to the entrances such as the introduction of the Cockaboose train in South Carolina’s entrance. They even addressed minor complaints that people had last year, such as using the correct white towels instead of black in the stands for their entrance and the rest of the game. Even more so than last year I found myself watching the full intros rather than skipping past them to get straight into the game due to the high level of presentation utilized here.

One of the biggest complaints about last year’s game was the repetitive drumline menu music that played every time you were in a menu in the game with no change at all. As someone who played over 500 hours of last year’s game across various Dynasty modes, this certainly grew tiresome over time and led me to mute it most of the time. Thankfully, this year’s game made a complete 180 in its approach by taking note from most other sports games, which include an array of different music to play. This includes not only team specific teams, but also a large number of marching band covers of popular songs you’d actually hear at a game, including Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, A Bar Song (Tipsy) by Shaboozey, and Flowers by Miley Cyrus. Sadly, the number of new songs added for entrances like “Enter Sandman” cannot be played in the menus, as they have kept them strictly to band covers here.

There is also a strange assortment of fight songs available that you can have play in the menu that will also play in-game for the respective schools. However, this is very strange mix of schools like Arkansas State, Missouri, and USF, with very few Power 5 schools being included. As a South Carolina fan, not having the fight song Step to the Rear still feels weird, but at least it’s progress.

Home field advantage is king in college football and this has always been a unique factor that has played into the college football video games. Stadium Pulse once again returns this year and feels even more impactful than it did in last year’s game. Playing against LSU in Death Valley was brutal enough as is, but now it can get even tougher by adding in modifiers related to nighttime games and rivalry games. On the other side, the game has made it to where the offense can also quiet down the crowd more successfully in situations, so it feels pretty balanced overall. When Stadium Pulse is at it’s height, you can pretty much forget about trying a long field goal though, as it’s near impossible.

While not directly related to the presentation, the development team has made the game more realistic this year by adding over 300 real-life coaches, including head coaches, offensive coordinators, and defensive coordinators. Not every coach made it into the game, but there are a lot of them in there that you should recognize. The body types for them isn’t always great, but they generally do look like most coaches and helps to add just a little more to the game alongside the real life players that make up the rosters now.

When it comes to gameplay, College Football 26 feels a lot like last year’s game, though with some improvements all across the board. The player AI has seen a major uptick to where it plays much more realistically. No longer will it feel like defensive players are on skates and jump in front of every ball that you throw regardless of how open a player is. That isn’t to mean that you won’t throw interceptions, as you likely still will throw plenty if you make mistakes, but it’s no longer as apparent as in the past, where it could get super frustrating.

Dynamic Additions

Easily the most important addition to College Football 26 for me was the inclusion of dynamic substitutions that can be made on the field. As someone who spent hours upon hours playing online dynasties last year, I can’t say the number of times I got incredibly annoyed by the fact I had to go into the pause menu just to make subs. I personally am a player who loves to run the ball, and that means having a healthy rotation between your running backs to ensure they stay healthy, but this was very difficult to do in the past. However, now it can be done easily with a few presses of a button, which is a godsend for Dynasty mode especially where wear and tear especially comes into play over a long season. The Wear and Tear system itself has also received some upgrades, where you can more easily see what part of a player is injured.

Season modes in a sports games are often hit-and-miss, with a lot of them finding more players gravitating towards the likes of modes like Ultimate Team, but College Football is truly built around the idea of Dynasty mode and it is another fun experience again this year. As before, you can participate in Dynasty mode offline or online and take your favorite team to glory as the existing coach or with a created coach. What makes this even better is that the Coach level cap has been increased from 50 to 100, which should allow for even longer Dynasties to reign, as you would cap out at max after about 8-10 years in the past. Much of Dynasty mode is as it was last year, but the major changes have been made in the recruiting sector.

Recruiting battles against friends in an online Dynasty can get really competitive and this year’s game will make those competitions even more hotly contested. Recruiting local guys is now easier than hosting those from further way, which makes a lot of sense. One of the biggest issues with recruiting last year was the fact that two teams would be in a neck and neck race for a player and then they would just commit to one without really any reason. This has been greatly altered this year with the introduction of Recruiting Battles that can only be triggered once the school has reached the commitment threshold. From there, it’s a race to see who can then get to the new level and gain that commitment.

The sway mechanic was also something that felt undercooked in last year’s game, but here it is much more laid out in how it can work. When trying to sway a player, the probability of success is now displayed on a scale of High, Medium, and Low. Perhaps the most useful qualify of life addition here though is the bar at the top of recruiting at all times showing you your position needs and how many players you are currently targeting at each position. Rather than having to move back and forth between what are sometimes sluggish screens, you can see it all in one place instead.

Trying to keep players from going into the Transfer Portal is also a big part of the game now, just as in real life. In the past, player dealbreakers were static at B-, but now that can change depending on performance. It’s not just about the recruiting to get a player to join your program, but making sure they stay happy while they are there too.

While EA Sports says they are working to fix it, one major issue found in Dynasty revolves around position changes. Position changes are always a crucial decision for a coach in the game, whether that involves switching from RE to LE or from WR to RB. This year’s game has a glitch, though, that makes changing positions nearly impossible at this point, as it currently adds various skill caps to the player that essentially ruin their ability to use them. While this is a major issue, at least it is something they are addressing to fix and shouldn’t be a long-term problem, hopefully.

Road to Glory is the other mode that is perfectly built for a college game, as it focuses on a singular player as they start in high school and make the jump to college and aim to win the Heisman and be the greatest of all time. The major addition this year, which was much requested, was the return of high school football, where your player starts their journey in their senior year. To start, you get to select your star rating and then you get to select your top 10 schools that you would like to potentially attend. From there, you get the opportunity to play through your senior season and get offers from schools depending on your success.

One strange element here is that rather than just letting you play general games in high school, you instead have to select specific moments with goals in them to perform instead. Sometimes a specific team will tell you they are coming to watch and give you a specific moment that you can select as well to try and impress them. I would have rather been able to play through the full games to get that feeling of high school football, but at least we get the chance to play high school here at all.

Once it comes down to commitment time, you have the opportunity to hold your own commitment ceremony and do a fake-out if you so choose. From there, you move onto college and more of what you expect from Road to Glory from last year’s game. Earning Coach Trust is very important if you want to success in the long term, which can be helped by your players skill group levels that have now increased from 10 to 20 this year.

Ultimate Team is always one of the most polarizing game modes in an EA Sports game due to its reliance on microtransactions to get the full experience from it without grinding like crazy. It also typically changes very little year to year in the various games, which is also the case in College Football 26. The collection of current players and legends is more solid than it was when last year’s game launched, so you do have a deeper pool to enjoy now, but getting the worthwhile players can be tough without spending money. As always, this is the mode that you may love or hate, so you’ll just have to figure it out for yourself.

Road to the CFP is back again as the game’s online mode, and if you played it last year, you know exactly what to expect in this year’s game as well. Within Road to the CFP, you can matchmake with other players online for a total of 10 games at a time. Once you have played 10 games, you will make the playoffs if you perform well enough. You will then play up to three additional games, with you winning the CFP Championship if you win all three. Your success in the season also allows you to level up from the base level of Recruit all the way up to seven levels to Heisman. Other than leaderboards, there isn’t anything else really here besides playing others. I was still disappointed to see that you could not pick custom playbooks or at least pick other existing playbooks besides the team you select here, but everything else still works smoothly here.

Proving a Point

Easily one of the most requested features that fans wanted back after being left out in last year’s game was that of a Trophy Room and that is something they did in fact deliver. Split into All, Dynasty, Road to Glory, Road to the CFP, and Rivalries, you can view all of the trophies that you have earned across the various game modes here. With the return of the Trophy Room, I hope this may lead to the return of Greatest Game rankings, as we had in the past. That was always fun to see a highly competitive game receive a Greatest Game ranking after completing it.

Players greatly missed the College Football series for over a decade before its triumphant return last year, which served as a great starting point to build on for future entries. College Football 26 has now taken the already great game and built upon it here and there to create another fantastic entry in the series for fans to enjoy. The gameplay has been tweaked in some ways and the presentation has improved even further, especially with the inclusion of new music in-game and in the menus. Some areas could have used some more upgrades like Road to the CFP or even Ultimate Team, but fan favorite requests like the Trophy Room and dynamic subs help to make up for that. While some sports games just feel like roster upgrades, this year’s iteration has enough new content updates to be worth picking up for everyone who enjoyed last year’s game or just loves college football in general.

Score: 9/10

Pros:

• Presentation upgrades all around
• Gameplay tweaks in key areas
• Dynamic subs
• High school in Road to Glory mode
• Recruiting upgrades in Dynasty
• Addition of Trophy Room

Cons:

• No real upgrades to Road to CFP or Ultimate Team
• Position change glitch in Dynasty

College Football 26 was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.