It’s been three years since EA announced it was <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/02/02/ea-sports-announces-return-of-college-football-games">making a new college football game</a> after a years-long hiatus. Dubbed EA Sports College Football 25, not much has materialized about the game since its reveal in the way of updates, but the publisher has broken its silence with a new trailer confirming a release window and promising a bigger look at the title in the near future.
The video heavily leans into the skepticism fans have expressed over College Football’s existence, proudly expressing, “Yes, the game is real” while showing off snippets of behind-the-scenes development footage. The snazzy video doesn’t do much besides that, but it ends with a promise of a full reveal in May and a summer launch window.
EA Sports College Football 25 is being developed by EA Orlando (formerly known as Tiburon), the team behind the Madden games. This will be the first college football game from the publisher since the demise of its NCAA Football series, the last entry of which was released in 2013. The franchise was shelved due to a 2014 federal lawsuit in which the judge ruled that the NCAA’s long-standing rule prohibiting college athletes from being compensated for their in-game likenesses was unlawful.
With Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) rules now in place in college sports, players can now be paid for appearing in advertisements or products. That would, of course, include video games. EA Sports struck a deal with OneTeam Partners to broker deals with players to include their NIL in the upcoming game. However, this was met with resistance from school/player licensing agency The Brandr Group last summer, which filed a lawsuit to prevent EA from conducting such deals with OneTeam Partners. Both entities eventually agreed to a settlement in November, dropping the lawsuit (thanks College Football HQ).
We don’t know what platforms EA Sports College Football 25 will target, but that answer should hopefully come in May’s larger update.
Source: Game Informer
