EA Sports College Football 26: Reaching the 1st and 10

Although the football experience is something that many know thanks to the NFL, college football is a very particular one. And in a more global panorama, there will be people who know this more thanks to movies or series, than to follow week by week, what happens on the college gridiron. But for those who are curious or who want to get closer to this sport, video games become an interesting window to learn more about this experience, and this is where EA Sports College Football 26 works its magic.

EA Sports College Football 26 is the new installment in the revival of this EA Sports franchise. As its name suggests, this is an football title focused on the college experience. In this installment, everything is on the rise, from the number of plays, movements and aspects of the players, to a more realistic environment that captures details such as the party in the stands, mascots, school marching bands and everything surrounding it, with rituals beforehand, making the experience like being there.

Expanding the action on the gridiron

Among the most important changes coming this year to EA Sports College Football 26 is the expansion of what we can accomplish on the field. The playbook has more than 2,800 plays and 45 new formations; each school following its own style. On the other hand, there are tweaks to the AI that help make it a more realistic experience. One of these details is that players will no longer catch balls without having visual contact with the ball beforehand.

On the other hand, we have a renewed Wear and Tear, where after training or matches, our players will start to get tired or even get hurt. On the other hand, we will be able to access dynamic substitutions by simply pressing a button on our D-Pad to achieve this action faster and without having to navigate through the game menus.

The college experience

One of the details that most caught my attention when playing EA Sports College Football was everything it does to manage to transmit that game experience, even if you don’t know much about it. When playing a normal game, the game itself will tell you if there is some kind of rivalry between the colleges, or even if there is some kind of traditional trophy in contention.

Jumping onto the field is quite an experience and is the most eye-catching part of the game. While its older cousin, Madden NFL, has had us accustomed to a presentation closer to the broadcast of a game on television, College Football shows us the marching bands, the college students in the stands and the different mascots, traditions, cheers and more details that make up part of that environment. As the game progresses, see all the celebrations, chants and more, the passage of time, making a game that began in the afternoon gradually get dark, using dynamic lights that manage to add several extras that complements the whole experience.

Finally, there are the game modes, which manage to adapt the experience we usually have in the career modes of sports titles. From the Dynasty mode, where many details were renewed compared to last year, with new goals to achieve thanks to historical records, to new options to create your coach with new archetypes to select.

On the other hand, we have Road to Glory, where we create our player and take him from high school, in his dream to his experience as a college player. Here we select from his position and school and take him through different games to generate expectation and hopefully enter the university of our preference. Once inside the university, our player will have to fulfill different activities, from training, and climbing within the coaches’ options, to becoming a celebrity, and most importantly, studying. My complaints revolve around the control you can have, from options when it comes to selecting plays and changes, to the very exact moments in which you play in each match. Other than that, it is the mode with the most changes and the most interesting.

Finally, we have College Ultimate Team, which comes with several quality-of-life tweaks to improve how we interact with this mode, allowing us to have better control of our players and how we can use them within our roster. However, overall, the experience still feels complex, especially with some tutorials that you have to look for to learn how to play.

EA Sports College Football 26 achieves the most important thing, keeping the good things that came out of the previous installment and improving it. While the success its predecessor had was thanks to an 11-year break, here the adjustments feel like those small improvements that were necessary for the game to continue being a success. Despite the small tweaks, the game still has many areas where it can improve, but without a doubt, the atmosphere in each match, is something it has already mastered.