In EA Sports College Football 26, it’s been all about improving the product.
The next chapter in the EA Sports’ college football video game series will be fully released Thursday, July 10 after the early access window started three days prior. After the successful return of the franchise in 2024, EA Sports wanted to build on last year’s game, focusing on filling the holes some of the popular features had like dynasty mode while expanding the authenticity of a Saturday in the fall.
USA TODAY Sports was able to play the game ahead of the full release and try out all of the different gameplay options. The game has been out three days, but the early impression is College Football 26 has taken a major step forward from the previous game.
Is the game perfect? No, but EA Sports really heard the community feedback, and it resulted in an excellent sequel that gives optimism the franchise will just keep getting better and better.
EA College Football 26 gameplay
It almost feels like an entirely new game when it comes to actually playing football. College Football 25 was a nice introduction back to football video games from an 11-year hiatus. In College Football 26, it’s now a completely different ballgame.
At first, it’s extremely overwhelming to see the overhaul of changes. But over time, it becomes easier to understand. Casual football enjoyers will have to learn deeper game knowledge on things like adjustments and schemes. It’s very noticeable how playbooks have expanded, with each team having a plethora of plays to choose from to where you can easily go an entire game without running the same play twice.
Being able to sub players in and out at certain points is a big plus since you’re not required to continuously pause the game to do so. However, the feature isn’t exactly as advertised. It can only be done in the pre-snap when the team is already in formation, so it won’t affect the upcoming play and instead will take place in the following snap. It’s helpful in managing injuries and the hot hand, but you’d want it for the next play, not the one after. It would’ve made sense to allow it when selecting a play. Instead, it still requires pausing the game for immediate substitutions.
The player movement is much smoother and the animations feel more realistic. Those interceptions from defenders not looking at the ball don’t happen, and the offensive line actually blocks with better play recognition at the line of scrimmage. The mixture of user skill and player ratings feel like it matters, as it becomes tougher to make plays with a 70 overall quarterback while it’s easy pickings doing it with a signal-caller at 85.
The wear-and-tear also has improvements where players aren’t getting fatigued so easily.
One bug that persisted was getting an injury update after every play, which became annoying and would still appear on the screen in no-huddle, so you couldn’t see everything. Also, some injuries that happened wouldn’t be in effect. Like a player with a broken collarbone was still playing.
Despite some minor issues, the gameplay still is a big step-up. It’s hard at first to grasp, but soon enough, people will get a better understanding of football.
EA Sports College Football 26 dynasty mode
There were only two things dynasty mode needed fixed: trophy and accolades history, and transfer portal revamp. The two issues were addressed and the mode really feels like one of its best iterations. Dynasty mode is the franchise’s money maker, and it cashes in big.
Gamers can adjust how wild the transfer portal gets, which can get pretty ludicrous depending on the program being run. When deciding to coach a small program, it only took a few years before it became dominant. Now even on the regular sliders, it becomes much more difficult to retain players who want a bigger opportunity at higher-level teams.
While it could decimate teams, players now can fully adopt a strategy to focus on high school recruiting or the transfer portal to make up the roster, much like real life. One element that would make the transfer portal better is seeing the stats of players rather than just ratings, so users can get a sense of who they are really seeking. Imagine knowing a guy that tore up the Sun Belt could join your ACC team?
The mode that benefited most from actual coaches in the game is dynasty. Going against the sport’s coaches adds another layer of realism that last year’s game heavily lacked. Now, teams really adopt the persona of their coach, whether it’s aggressive decision making or run the ball approach. The coaching carousel can also be just insane as the transfer portal, with big name coaches unexpectedly taking other jobs.
EA Sports College Football 26 Road to Glory
If there was one mode that needed to be upgraded, it was road to glory after it missed out on the high school experience last year. It got added in this year’s game, but it isn’t close to being as good as the NCAA Football series had it.
The moments make for a good challenge into boosting your recruiting stock, but it really takes away from having an authentic recruitment. Players shouldn’t get punished if they throw an 80-yard touchdown, but the challenge required a quarterback run for the score.
It makes sense EA Sports was trying to speed along the high school process so gamers weren’t stuck playing for hours before making it to college, but maybe chose the wrong process to do it. Having players complete certain drives and get graded for how it went would have been a better process to boost your stock, just like how high school athletes actually do.
And then there’s the ever so controversial equipment topic. The fanbase feels almost split in whether the amount of player customization falls short or doesn’t matter. Both sides of the crowd got points with this. There are more things to change the look of a player with new arm sleeves, but there are also elements missing like leg sleeves. Is it a big deal? It shouldn’t be, but EA Sports should eventually tackle the issue.
But for all the things falling short in the mode, the recruiting process itself is a nice touch. Hearing from coaches about their thoughts on you, seeing schools offer and pull scholarships and gauging who is the right fit is an authentic process. Getting to see what other recruits the school is targeting increases the intrigue in the process, culminating with the iconic hat ceremony every football player dreams of doing.
Other notes
College football is a tradition-rich sport, and after every school had their own quirks in the previous game, it feels much more enhanced this year. The audio is greatly enhanced to where fight songs sound clearer and the crowd is louder, feeling like you’re at the stadium.
The game presentation and graphics got massively upgraded, giving the big game feel to those high-stake matchups. The commentary feels more sequenced and the conversations discussed about the teams, the last game and season performance help it not feel so robotic.
EA Sports deserves credit for listening to feedback from College Football 25, something production director Christian McLeod previously told USA TODAY Sports the team spends plenty of time doing. It’s noticeable, as last year’s issues were not just addressed, but greatly improved to where it wouldn’t be a consistent issue.
People often argue sequels aren’t better than the original. That isn’t the case with EA Sports College Football 26, giving its loyal fanbase another stellar game to play.