With last year’s EA Sports College Football 25 signalling the welcome end to a more than decade long drought of college football in video games, and not to mention buoyed by both critical and commercial success, EA has seemingly put its College Football series back on the annual gravy train and so, somewhat predictably, we arrive at this year’s effort – EA Sports College Football 26.
Of course like any EA title that has suffixed by a two digit year number, EA Sports College Football 26 brings with it the expected yearly roster updates, notches to presentation and so on. As our own Tim Nunes quite rightly observed when he reviewed last year’s iteration though, the appeal of EA Sports College Football is just how different college football feels to what EA is doing with its mainline Madden titles, and that’s especially true in the case of this year’s instalment.
EA Sports College Football 26 Review
EA’s Reinvigorated College Football Series Goes From Strength To Strength
Starting with the presentation itself, college football and indeed football itself, has never looked (or sounded) better. Starting with the audio side of things, from the exuberant welcome of an ear-thumping medley of drums and brass, to Virginia Tech’s iconic and hair-tingling ‘Enter the Sandman’ entrance replicated in its entirety, EA Sports College Football 26 knows exactly what your ears want and delivers accordingly.
In terms of the visual presentation, EA Sports College Football 26 also somewhat predictably soars here, too. Doubling and even tripling down on the technical opulence of last year’s instalment, not only does EA Sports College Football 26 bring its busy an energetic big event, TV style presentation to vivid life, but so too do both the various stadiums, arenas (complete with new dynamic pulse effects, dynamic lighting, new mascot behaviours and more besides) and character models look more detailed than ever before.
In particular, the character models have seen a lot of love this year, with reworked tackling physics that do a much improved job of replicating the smash mouth spectacle of the real thing. Quarterback movements have also seen a marked improvement in this year’s effort too, with much more authentic looking run-after-catch animations, better looking blocks and many smaller welcome aesthetic tweaks to boot. In short, EA Sports College Football 26 continues on EA’s expected trajectory of continually investing many, many millions of dollars to improve the audiovisual presentation year on year and, well, this is very much one of the reasons why both the Madden and College Football games have been so successful – nobody emulates the big game spectacle quite so reliable as EA.
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Of course as any gridiron aficionado or EA Sports fan will know, the appeal of its NFL and college football efforts is far more than skin deep, and so in sticking with its annual release model, EA has made some really worthwhile improvements to both the core gameplay and many of the modes seen in last year’s offering, though there are some sticking points that manifest overall. First, the good stuff.
It’s worth noting right away that the core mechanics and gameplay have largely been carried over from last year’s game intact. This is to say that the changes veer towards the incremental instead of the substantial which is pretty much what you might expect from an annual running sports series such as this.
Arguably one of the biggest changes that EA Sports College Football 26 brings to the table are the new trophies. Essentially encouraging a broader embrace of all of the different (and new) playbooks and teams, these 85(!) different trophies (and not to be confused with the PlayStation trophy system) act as a highly effective incentive to not only keep you playing, but encourage you to play in a number of different ways as well. And, well, it works – there’s nothing quite like snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat at the last minute to win the Cotton Bowl Classic trophy before setting your sights on the next trinket to fill your ever-growing trophy cabinet with.
Elsewhere, a reworked wear and tear system finds itself supported by a physics-based damage mechanic where damage is gradually accrued over the season in ways that seem authentic and accurate, while the new Dynamic Subs system makes the process of substituting players back onto the field a seamless process without ever taking your eyes off the action.
Another new feature which allows players to expand their strategic approach in every game is the newly and greatly expanded playbook which offers up close to 3,000 different plays and nearly 50 formations for budding gridiron tacticians to wrap their head around. Again, this is just one more example of where EA Sports College Football 26 is seeking to improve on the already robust foundations established in last year’s game, rather than attempting to reinvent the wheel.
One of the most satisfying changes that EA has made in this year’s game in the opinion of this humble scribe is how interceptions work, in particular when it comes to line of sight. Previously, it was all too easy (and downright frustrating) to attempt a pass only to see it intercepted from some improbable angle from where the intercepting player had no hope of seeing the ball to start with. Now, interceptions can only be attempted if the intercepting player can physically see the ball travelling towards them and in their vicinity. No more blind superhero interceptions then, thank you very much EA.
Some chunky changes are afoot in relation to the Dynasty mode, as well. Not only have more real-life coaches been added and a reworked transfer portal which now allows the maximum transfers per team to be adjusted, but it’s not much easier to see how archetype perks work in terms of their trade-offs, while as an added bonus cross-play has also been implemented here also, allowing you to test the mettle of your Dynasty team against opponents further afield.
The sheer number of changes that have been made here, while perhaps incremental on their own in many cases, is hugely impressive nonetheless and there are still plenty more that I have yet to mention in this review. It demonstrates a commitment toward positive iteration that I wish other annualised sports series would embrace, though I do wish that the Ultimate Team mode, much like other EA UT modes, was a little less grindy and reliant on real-world funds to get ahead – though I suspect that won’t change anytime soon considering how broadly popular it is with folks.
Really though, if you look past all of the meaningful tweaks and improvements, it’s the core gameplay of EA College Football 26 which shines through. Buoyed by its effervescent collegiate presentation, games in EA Sports College Football 26 just feel more intense, frantic and momentum driven than anything you might experience in EA’s Madden NFL series.
So, EA Sports College Football 26 is better than last year albeit demonstrating its superiority in a measurement of inches rather than miles. That said, the raft of incremental improvements, massive amount of content to stuck into which when married with EA’s reliably all-star, blockbuster presentation which succeeds in emulating the audiovisual sensation of the real-life spectacle mean that EA Sports College Football 26 remains an essential purchase for those looking to hit digital college gridiron. All in all, EA College Football 26 is the best football game to come along for a good while and once again supplants the Madden NFL franchise as the premier gaming series for America’s most passionate sporting pastime.
EA Sports College Football 26 is out now on PS5.
Review code kindly provided by PR.