EA Sports College Football 25 on Xbox Series X

It’s been over a decade since Electronic Arts last entered the college football arena, and EA Sports College Football 25 is their widely-promoted return to campus. The pageantry and speed of gameplay make for a stellar experience. Unfortunately, hangovers from EA’s other sports titles keep the title from achieving greatness.

EA’s former college football franchise, NCAA Football, quickly became a sporting staple. They were then unceremoniously forced to cease production of the series in 2013. Due to an inability to compensate college athletes for their likeness, the series was shelved – that is, until now.

College football's best quarterbacks stay calm, cool, and collected in the pocket. But that's always easier said than done when you have over 100,000 fans at Beaver Stadium or in Death Valley cheering so loud you can't even hear yourself think. Here is everything you need to know about confidence and composure in EA Sports College Football 25.

Abilities in College Football 25 help players differentiate themselves from the rest of the competition and provide boosts that could be the difference in winning a game. However, confidence and composure are two other skills that every college athlete needs to perform at the highest level, and EA created a feature that replicates that.

What are confidence and composure in EA Sports College Football 25?

As explained in the gameplay deep dive trailer, confidence and composure are constantly changing features that depend on players getting hot or cold depending on the outcome of each play. For example, a freshman will have more erratic tendencies, and as the crowd level increases, it will affect their confidence. Events such as scoring touchdowns can lift the morale of your entire team, while individual achievements such as a pass breakup can significantly boost the composure of the player who made the big play.

Composure goes hand-in-hand with individual player archetypes. In the gameplay deep dive blog, EA used an example of a scrambling quarterback who gets hot will have improved ball security, while a field general will benefit from improved throw accuracy. There are also mental abilities that will impact composure. The Legion ability increased the confidence of other defensive backs when that player gets an interception, but these mental abilities are also lost whenever a player goes cold. Coaches will have to manage their players based on how cold or hot they are and how experienced they are given a certain situation.

If the home crowd is getting louder, it might be smart to do a simpler play so the player doesn't make a mistake because of their confidence and composure.

The post How does confidence and composure work in EA Sports College Football 25 appeared first on Destructoid.

Abilities are a new feature in EA Sports College Football 25 that differentiates players from the competition and gives your team an extra edge on game day. Here is everything you need to know about the multi-layered system.

Unlike the NFL, which has 32 teams featuring the best professional athletes in the world, EA Sports College Football 25 includes 134 schools, meaning there is a huge gulf in talent. Five-star recruits in high school go to huge programs like Alabama, while two and three-star recruits will find themselves at smaller schools in a less distinguished conference.

To achieve that authentic feeling of a gap in skill between different programs, EA created abilities, so players who are destined to be drafted into the NFL one day or were the best athletes in high school feel like that on the field.

What are abilities in EA Sports College Football 25?

In College Football 25, there are 80 different abilities categorized into physical or mental categories. Each group is further divided into four tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. A player can have five physical and three mental abilities at most. For example, the Field General mental ability allows a player to identify blitzers post-snap for the bronze tier. As for the Platinum tier, the player can identify blitzers, a coverage shell, and disguised coverage pre-snap.

An example of a physical ability is Downhill. The player will get slightly more broken tackles at Bronze after reaching max speed, and at Platinum, earn the ultimate ability to break tackles after reaching 80 percent of max speed.

EA committed to making sure that the abilities aren't too overpowered. In a blog post, the development team used the Pocket Shield ability as an example. Offensive linemen will hold blocks better on standard passing players, but even at the Platinum tier, the distance to the first down doesn't apply if it is more than 10 yards. Every ability is situational and won't be available for every play, to make games still feel balanced.

EA didn't go into detail on how players go about acquiring abilities and upgrading them. We will learn more about abilities and their impact on every game mode closer to launch.

The post How do abilities work in EA Sports College Football 25 appeared first on Destructoid.

EA Sports College Football 25 challenges players to pick their spots and protect their players from taking big hits at all costs. Here is everything you need to know about the wear and tear feature and how to best avoid injuries.

Wear and tear is a new feature in EA Sports College Football 25, which accurately tracks the impact of every hit and fall on your players. For example, if your quarterback throws the ball 40 times in a game and takes a few shots from sitting in the pocket for too long, he won't operate at 100 percent the following week. Or, if a running back takes a huge shot to his knee or lower leg, they won't have the same explosiveness on the following set of plays.

Thankfully, there is a way to mitigate wear and tear and prevent your best players from taking unnecessary damage that might potentially keep them off the field when they're needed most. Lets jump right into how this feature works.

How does wear and tear work in EA Sports College Football 25?

As seen in the image above, every limb and body part of a player is linked to a different color indicator. Yellow is slight, high is orange, and severe is red. Based on the hits or fatigue from that body part, the color will change, and a meter in the bottom left indicates how close a player is to becoming injured. Fortunately, their body parts will degrade slower based on the toughness rating, and players can regain health when they are not on the field, during timeouts, at halftime, and between weeks.

To avoid injuries, users should regularly make substitutions to provide rest and prevent wear and tear. In addition, it's always more fun to make an exciting spin move, juke, or hurdle over defenders, but you don't always want to put your players in dangerous positions. So even though it's not as flashy, sometimes running out of bounds or doing a safe catch might save your team for later in the season.

How to check wear and tear

Here is a list of ways to check wear and tear in EA Sports College Football 25.

• Player reticle - Left side Wear and Tear bars, right side fatigue. Note, the bars depleting only represent the most hurt body part.  
• Depth chart - Here, you can see a Wear and Tear panel on the bottom right of the player card as well as the total an attribute is decreasing in the spreadsheet. 
• Coach Vision - Hold LT+RS on Xbox or L2+R2 on PlayStation down to see the Wear and Tear status of your entire team. 
• Picture in Picture (PIP) in the play call menu. 
• We've added a ton of 'Wear and Tear' get-up animations. After a player is banged up, you'll see a variety of animations for a given body part, depending on the severity.
• You can also manage your players' Wear and Tear in the Dynasty player card.

The post EA Sports College Football 25: Wear and tear feature, explained appeared first on Destructoid.

CampusIQ will play a huge role in determining the realism and authenticity of EA Sports College Football 25. It's been a while since the series added a new entry, and it's making its comeback with this brand new feature.

With expectations high for EA Sports and its upcoming new college football franchise, it appears the developer is leaving no stone unturned. The new title will not only include all real-life schools, but CampusIQ will also introduce new functionality, adding depth and dynamic details to your team.

All CampusIQ gameplay features in EA Sports College Football 25

CampusIQ is a collection of gameplay features that will dictate the performance of EA Sports College Football 25. These factors will go beyond the realm of cosmetic elements, as they directly and indirectly determine your chances of success and failure. They include:

• Wear and Tear
• Player Abilities
• Homefield Advantage
• Unique Playbooks

Here are the brief explanations of the four systems as disclosed by EA Sports.

Wear and Tear: Your players won't be Terminators, and every hit will have an impact on them. This will make it crucial to strategically manage your subs to ensure that the team keeps performing at the highest level. Leave someone on the field for a long time, and they might run out of gas when trying to get the final touchdown.

Player abilities: In EA Sports College Football 25, there will be physical and mental abilities. The physical skills will focus on direct gameplay elements like tackles, spring, and more. Mental abilities will attach certain positive and negative traits, which will have a telling impact on gameplay.

Homefield advantage: "Home Sweet Home" has never been more accurate, as playing in your home stadium will provide certain advantages. These advantages could benefit your players while providing certain negative perks for your opponents. There will be 134 stadiums for players to choose from.

Unique playbooks: Each team will have a host of different options for you to choose from. Some of them will provide situational advantages, and EA Sports has also revamped the controls as part of CampusIQ to make variations in the gameplay.

EA Sports College Football 25 is now available for pre-order on the current-gen consoles Xbox and PlayStation. Players can choose between the Standard and Digital Deluxe Editions, the latter of which comes with several additional benefits, including three days of early access.

The post How does CampusIQ work in EA Sports College Football 25? appeared first on Destructoid.