EA Sports College Football 25 is the best sports game in years

Although Electronic Arts is one of the kings of the sports video game genre, it does not have the best track record as of late. FC (formerly FIFA) and Madden games are bestsellers every year, but they also have dreadful user reviews on sites like Metacritic. That’s due to light, incremental changes year-over-year, a lack of crucial mechanics for sports simulators, and lots of bugs. That rocky reputation made EA’s impending return to college football equal parts exciting and scary ahead of its release. Would EA Sports College Football 25 be the grand return of the series after a decade of dormancy or a disastrous return?

Thankfully, I can confirm that EA Sports College Football 25 is the best EA Sports game that I’ve played in years. It takes the solid core of Madden’s football gameplay, but actually builds on that in a couple of key ways. Its presentation feels much more lively and polished than other EA Sports games, and its modes bring a lot of welcome depth and customization options that have been sorely lacking in other EA Sports offerings. While there are still a couple of quirks to be ironed out, this is the first EA Sports game I’ve felt comfortable recommending at full price in a long time.

Taking the field again

Unlike this year’s Top Spin 2K25 (which somehow still felt like a minor improvement over its predecessor despite the decade-long gap between them), College Football 25 feels like a big step up for the college football franchise. It’s now running on the Frostbite Engine like Madden and FC do, and because this is a current-gen exclusive, it’s one of the best-looking sports games out there. EA upped the production value of the presentation around the game too, with highly detailed stadiums, cheerleaders, mascots, referees, and more.

Those kinds of presentation flourishes were something that has felt lacking from even recent Madden games, giving College Football 25 an edge over its NFL-focused counterpart. On Xbox Series X, there are occasional frame