Review | ‘EA Sports College Football 25’ is like reliving your best college years

There’s a palpable energy surrounding “EA Sports College Football 25.” A long-awaited revival to a franchise that’s lain dormant for 11 years, the game has already garnered attention from celebrities like LeBron James, Shane Gillis and Tim Tebow, who all streamed it on Twitch last weekend. In many ways, the hype around “College Football 25” is like the first day of college — lots of sights, sounds and triumphant messaging, with uncertainty about what the future holds.

But once you get going, there’s no looking back. You’ll be here for a good time, and a long time.

“College Football 25,” which comes out Friday on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, is the successor to “NCAA Football 14,” a game released in the summer of 2013 that has developed a hero reputation among college football fans. EA stopped releasing college football video games because of legal issues surrounding name, image and likeness deals with players. But once the NCAA opened the way for players to profit off NIL deals in 2019, EA was quick to bring back the franchise. The newest rendition was announced in February 2021, and the earliest access to the game began this past Monday.

Naturally, the first true college football game in over a decade will raise some eyebrows. Does it hold up to the originals? Is it just a re-skinned version of the juggernaut Madden NFL video games? And is “College Football 25” actually fun?

Like many sports games, “College Football 25” is easy to pick up but difficult to master. The new passing system will take some getting used to, since it has a number of custom controls and requires timing a meter while reading an opposing defense all at once (you’ll need to stay locked in to hit your passes). Defense, just like in actual college football, is hard to come by and will require patience. For as much fun as you have moving the chains, you’ll need to take some time to understand how the game works and which players work best for your team’s scheme.

Your difficulty setting will define your experience. The second-lowest setting (“varsity”) brought me a pair of exciting games (Massachusetts vs. Brigham Young and Texas vs. Georgia) that went down to the wire, filled with high-octane offense and heartbreaking pick-sixes. The highest setting — the dreaded “Heisman” difficulty — should be used by only those who wish to worship the CPU as the new overlord of college football. In my first “Heisman” encounter, the Texas Christian Horned Frogs stomped my Southern Methodist Mustangs, 63-0 (using three-minute quarters, mind you). (I should note I’m a casual Madden player, so you might do better if you’re more experienced with that game.)

That said, this isn’t a Madden NFL re-skin. Madden games tend to be chunky, bloated, slow and dark. “College Football 25” is bright, fast-paced, ridiculous and wild. You get high scores, deep throws and raucous crowds. The vibrant colors and intense atmosphere of college football made all of my blowout losses (we’ll see you again soon, Eastern Michigan) much less painful.

Any fan of the NCAA Football franchise will point to “Dynasty Mode” — in which you take control of the recruiting and on-field performance of a college football program — as the go-to. This revived version is incredibly deep with a heavy emphasis on recruiting, which requires you to plan how to spend your allotted time, whom to recruit and where to look for players. It’s a fun experience for menu merchants and creatives (I spent an hour working my way through my prospect list instead of hitting the field), but it won’t excite everyone who wants to dive right into play.

Similarly, “Road to Glory,” the role-playing mode in which you create a custom college athlete, can have you stuck in the dorm room rather than on the field. As a bench player in year one, I spent two hours using my allocated “energy” coins on studying and teammate bonding, with a few minutes performing practice drills. I didn’t see game time until the final game of the season. So if you want to hop right into the action, make sure you pick a “starter” spot from the get-go. (Just be careful not to get blocked by your college crush!)

There’s no question “College Football 25” is worth buying and a welcome return to the franchise. At times, you’ll find yourself picking apart defenses and scoring wildly entertaining touchdowns. On its worst day, you’ll be stuck in the menu for an hour trying to recruit a quarterback from Riverside, Calif., or studying for an upcoming exam (which is its own puzzle).

The game is truly a combination of work hard, play harder — sounds a lot like college.