EA released its presentation trailer and deep dive earlier today for EA Sports College Football 25, and we’re back now to do our own deep dive and analyze all of what was revealed today.
As has usually been the case during this build to college football’s return, it’s mostly positive vibes as the care and pride EA seems to have for this title continues to ooze off our screens. Even when there’s negatives that we can pinpoint (and we will get to some below), it’s usually not something that is a huge bummer, or at the very least doesn’t seem like an issue that could not be rectified should the game continue to be made in future years.
Give Us All The Wide Shots
The graphics in this game continue to pop, and that has to do with the color palette as much as the polygons a lot of the time, but I’m most amazed by the presentation and graphics in the game during the wide shots where we just get to take in the entire field.
The picture above I believe is taken from an opening kickoff where EA can have a little more fun with the camera cuts before having to give control over to the user, but the other shots of the entire stadium look great as well. The crowds really do look impressive, and since EA has added in color-coded crowds and other ways to make the stadiums seem alive, getting all those little details on your screen at once from zoomed-out shots gives us a chance to appreciate it all.
It also appears things like snow look better here so far in these zoomed-out shots, especially when compared to anything we’ve really seen of Madden on current-gen consoles. Maybe it won’t look as great from a normal gameplay view, but we’ll just have and see on that one. Plus, the lighting at certain times of day and how light is playing off different parts of the stadium all really look great.
And this is all before we get to my favorite wide shots we’ve seen, and those are the ones that include the bands:
It just looks sick, and in 4K it looks nearly true to real life. As much as there are tons of details in this game, the wide shots make any irregularities almost fade away, and because the lighting is so good it’s really one of those rare moments where your mom or dad or whoever who doesn’t play games might walk in and ask “is that a real game on the TV?”
I hope EA gets creative here and continues to find ways to incorporate more of these wide shots into the game outside of pregame and halftime because it’s a visual selling point. Oh, and we better have a broadcast view that we can play from as well because it’s worth being a little worse at the game if we get to appreciate visuals like these.
So Much Of The Coolest Stuff Seems Tied To Pregame
Building a little on the above, I do want to get it out of the way that so much of the coolest stuff we saw today and read about does have to do with pregame. It’s the nature of the beast to some extent because it’s just being true to life, but while some of these pregame intros seem like they could be 90 seconds long (and that’s totally fine and rad), it’s why so many people in the community also care so deeply about broadcast presentation.
There’s plenty of celebrations and other things that are still “popping” on the screen in these previews, but I think the TV presentation components will likely lag the in-stadium atmosphere components if that makes sense.
For example, we are getting studio updates back:
Through studio updates, you’ll be informed of the latest news from around the country. Long-time ESPN Studio Host, Kevin Connors, will be jumping in from time to time to call out national upsets, scores for games you care about in your conference, or updates on how your rival is doing when in Dynasty mode. These updates will happen whether you are playing in a Dynasty that is offline or online. For an Online Dynasty, you’ll hear about scores from other members in your Dynasty if they have already finished their match-up that week.
-EA Sports Sights And Sounds Deep Dive Blog
But the way this is worded means we’re probably not getting highlights — I would think if we were, they would have said this a different way. And, look, updates in some form are better than none at all, but as much as it seems like EA Sports College Football 25 is headed towards being “best in class” in terms of mimicking the real traditions of teams, I think there’s going to be plenty of room for growth on the TV side of things.
The New Playcall Screen Is Perfect
I would have loved to hear EA talk even more about the playcall screen during the deep dive because it’s something we’ll see every play, but I really love the layout here. It’s a real callback to the general layout of NFL 2K5, and even one of the old Madden PS3/Xbox 360 games — but I can’t recall which year off the top of my head (I think it might be Madden 09 though).
You’ll have the plays on the bottom (and some key players on the right before you go into formations), the “live” action or replays in the top left (picture-in-picture), and then something interesting in the top right. The top-right portion is the most intriguing:
Here are the types of information panels you will see throughout the game, according to EA (mostly dealing with that top-right corner):
- Stat Compares – Today, Season, Career, vs Last Week, vs Opponent
- Impact Players – Who are they, why are they impact players showing their abilities
- Ranking – Top players from around the country in TD’s, rushing yards, etc…
- Rankings – Conference, Media and Coaches Poll, and potential Playoff brackets
- Wear and Tear, Field Goal Kicker range and much more
- We have over 400 panels to keep each game feeling fresh and new
This will be so awesome in dynasty mode, and because the action will always be on the screen now, it gives EA all the more reason to continue to push presentation because we won’t spam through it and miss it. It might even give EA more of a reason to invest in the between-the-play action as we see players get back to a huddle or head to the sidelines. This is a massive win, and it’s really something that should be standard from here on out in the EA football games.
Dynamic Attendance Likely Means More Goodies
EA has confirmed dynamic attendance will be a thing in dynasty mode:
To help paint a better picture, here is a great example from one of our team members who was playing a Dynasty with FIU. During the first couple of games the stands were not very full which resulted in a lower home field advantage stadium pulse. Once he landed a big win on the road at Indiana and the team record was 7-0, the stands were becoming more full to start the game. By the end of the season with a 10-1 record and finishing in the top 25 rankings, home games would result in sell out crowds and the home field advantage pulse meter was now rocking high on the way to the conference championship.
I would think this likely means the toughest places to play list will also be dynamic in dynasty mode. There had been some questions about that coming off yesterday’s update, and I think this should settle it. (As an aside, something like this is a reason I think college presentation is “easier” to do than NFL presentation because a feature like this, and how it impacts on-the-field action, really is unique to the college game.)
Speaking Of Crowds
Most of the other goodies in the deep dive that really stood out have to do with crowds. From crowd themes, to fight songs for every team, to oodles of cutscenes with fans doing various hand signals, and a buttload of chants, so many sweeteners are going to be found in these moments. It’s time for some folks to invest in a better sound system or some headphones.
On the topic of crowd theming, I want to include what EA wrote about that below.
Another example of what makes college football so special are the theme games when the crowd comes together in unison to create a pattern across the stadium. From the checkerboard pattern at Tennessee, to the triple stripe layout at Boise State. We have over 170 different patterns for schools that have them in real life. Each seat in the stadium was hand set up seat by seat to match the patterns. Also if your school has multiple themes, those are in too. Here we have the Stripe Out, the Helmet Stripe, and then to one of the most electric atmosphere’s in College Football, the White Out game.
Sick.
But Those Poor Mascots…
One negative is that EA only had time to get to so many mascots in this year. EA had previously talked about how creating animals had been one of the most difficult things the art team had been trying to tackle. It seems like there’s no real “generative” tools or ways to really get around creating these individual pieces of art wholesale each time. Handcrafting things is obviously going to take extra time, and so this year the mascots count is topping out at 50.
We have 50 total mascots in the game including 40 Team Mascots and 10 real animals representing their schools.
I don’t think this will be something EA will attack with in-season updates either, it will probably just be a methodical process to add a bunch of them each year.
OS user beau21 also put together a rough list of the confirmed mascots so far based on images and videos released so far:
Costumes/Non-Animal Mascots
1.Alabama
2.Arizona State
3.California
4.Clemson
5.Colorado
6.Florida
7.Georgia Tech
8.LSU
9.Maryland
10.Michigan State
11.North Carolina
12.Ohio State
13.Oregon
14.Penn State
15.Purdue
16.Stanford
17.Tennessee
18.Texas
19.Texas Christian University
20.UCF
21.USC
22.Virginia Tech
23.Wake Forest
24.Western Kentucky University
25.Wisconsin
Real animals
1.Auburn
2.Colorado
3.Georgia
4.Florida State (+ Osceola)
5.Oklahoma
6.Tennessee
7.Texas
8.Texas A&M
9.Washington
Commentary Teams…And Where Is Desmond Howard?
In another piece of expected news, EA is mostly going with the style they went with back in the day with the “main” commentary team of Herbstreit and Fowler for big games, and then the team of Davis, Palmer, and Pollack for the other games.
The celebrated team of Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will be on the call in your Dynasty and Road to Glory seasons when your weekly matchup is declared the Game of the Week. They will also be present if you reach a Conference Championship game, each game of the College Football Playoff, and the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. But like I said, we have two teams that will be a part of your playing experience. Referring back to the Thursday Night broadcasts in the final years of our original iteration, the iconic crew of Rece Davis, Jesse Palmer and David Pollack will be on the call for the other games on your Dynasty and Road to Glory schedule. Each commentary team will be available in Play Now when you’re looking to just get a quick game in.
My stance on commentary is that it’s great to hear all the big numbers about hours recorded and all that, but it’s just a matter of feeling out how repetitive it gets and how much interesting audio they can squeeze into those moments between plays. In other words, it’s best to just judge commentary once you have 30 hours in the game.
One name that was not mentioned anywhere was Desmond Howard. We know he’s in the game, but he’s not doing studio updates, it doesn’t appear we’re getting any sort of College GameDay equivalent, and so that really only leaves Road to Glory? We’ll just have to wait and see there.
Bottom Line
It’s hard to call today’s reveals anything else but another positive step on the road to the release of EA Sports College Football 25. The next deep dive is going to be on dynasty mode, so here’s to hoping that’s next week. For the rest of this week, we know we’re getting team rankings on Thursday and Friday.
