Gameplay info on EA Sports' 'College Football 25' grows with Kirk Herbstreit-voiced 'gameplay deep dive,' reporters' hands-on accounts (2024)

We’re getting closer to the July 19 launch of EA Sports’ heavily-anticipatedCollege Football 25, the publisher’s first college football game in 11 years. There’s been a lot of reporting on the announcers, stadiums, team traditions, and even songs that will be incorporated, but a key question is what the gameplay will actually be like.

EA answered a little bit of that earlier this month with a two-minute game trailer with some in-game footage. However, that trailer was largely focused on pregame introductions and team rituals. Now, they’ve put out a five-minute ‘gameplay deep dive’ with many more details on what this will be like to play. And it’s narrated by one of the game’s prominent announcers, ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit:

One step closer to making game day every day#CFB25 Coming July 19
Pre-Order Now 🔗: https://t.co/h079QzWxaP pic.twitter.com/t2t5r6olzA

— EASPORTSCollege (@EASPORTSCollege) May 31, 2024

Herbstreit goes through several key new “CampusIQ” features there, including a “wear and tear” progressive health system to encourage players to make strategic substitutions to balance fatigue and injury risk and to reflect the potential for notable injuries on any play. The game will also have both a range of specific mental and physical abilities for players, homefield advantage that will impact players with low composure levels, a wide range of school-specific playbooks, and ways to quickly change what’s happening on the field, from a “switch stick” to rapidly alter what player you’re controlling to new hot routes.

There are still a lot of questions about what this will actually be like to play. (And some media members preemptively wrote off the game and the gameplay with headlines like “It will only disappoint you” even before any of these close-up looks, much less playing it themselves.) But some of those have been answered thanks to journalists who got some hands-on time with the game (and interview time with developers) at a press event in Orlando this week. One of those is Chris Vannini of The Athletic, who wrote several stories on that, covering Dynasty Mode, NIL, and a gameplay overview. Here are some of his many gameplay takeaways:

To cut to the chase and get to what they and everyone else really want to know: Playing College Football 25 was very fun. We weren’t allowed to take photos or video of gameplay because the game is not yet finished. We couldn’t test Dynasty mode or other modes. A few bugs popped up during games, which we flagged for developers. That’s normal. Although teams and players had ratings, we were told the ratings process hadn’t been completed, and because the numbers I saw may not match the ratings when the game is released in July, I won’t share them here.

…If you take one thing away from reading this, it’s that running the ball is actually fun. The blocking AI is really well done, and players are rewarded for hitting the hole. The game has new physics-based tackling, based on where and how hard a hit is made, that looks much more realistic than Madden 24. Breaking tackles or falling forward through them becomes more likely if you follow blockers correctly.

The flip side is that playing defense is tougher. If you’re one of those people like me who used to just use the Hit Stick when your defender was close to a ball carrier, that won’t cut it anymore. For advanced players, the right joystick helps you switch between defensive players more quickly, which helps in the secondary and in some situations where close control of two players is necessary.

This is where the new Wear and Tear system comes into play. Not all hits are equal, but if a player is taking big hits, certain body parts on a model will turn orange and then red on the play screen to indicate his increased chance of injury. A player’s Strength attribute corresponds with how much impact he can take, and bigger players have more Strength. If you put a small wide receiver at QB and run the option, he’ll be more likely to get injured. The longer the game, the more the injury chances rise.

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Robby Kalland of Uproxx offered more thoughts on his own time with the game at that event (he’s also done several other stories on commentators and songs included, the “Road to Glory” mode where you play as one player, Dynasty mode, and more). Here are some of his takeaways:

Overall, I think fans will be very happy with the initial offering in the resurrection of the franchise, and there are some real differentiators between it and Madden that make it feel like a standalone, unique game.

…All 134 teams have a unique playbook to themselves, and it’s pretty impressive the depth in which the game goes to give teams their actual style. In the old games, everyone had their own playbook, but it was from a smaller pool of plays that they put together for each team. In this game, there are 10 specific play styles, from Air Raid to the Triple Option (more on option updates below), but within those styles each team has its own distinct look and feel. For example, if you play with Tennessee, you’ll get their wide splits. If you play with Wake Forest, you can run the long mesh.

…The first thing they talked about was their All-22+ system, which ensures that each player on the field plays to their skill level. With such a wide variance in skill levels in the college game, they really wanted to make sure you felt that. A star player will really stand out in this game, while a backup or freshman with a low rating is going to struggle to make a positive impact.

That was noticeable in playing the game, and you have to know your personnel and make sure you’re getting them the ball in the right spots. A star receiver is going to go up and get the ball over defenders, while a lesser receiver is going to struggle to make a catch in traffic.

…One thing that was immediately noticeable once I started playing the game was how much smarter the computer opponent is now. It used to be extremely easy to manipulate the computer, but that will not be the case in this game – especially at higher difficulty levels. I started at All-American, because that’s what I always played at on NCAA, and I was having absolute fits with the defense. The computer now has all the same tools as the user, and it will use them.

No game is going to make everyone happy. And a hotly-anticipated game like College Football ’25 carries particular risks: it’s the first official entry in this series in more than a decade, and while there’s a huge fanbase for that series, people play it for many different reasons and enjoy many different aspects of it. So the new version certainly won’t work for everyone. But gameplay deep dives like this, and detailed reporting like we’ve seen from Kalland and Vannini, is certainly helpful for fans to start getting an idea of if this game will interest them.

[EA Sports College on X/Twitter]

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