Following the release of the series' previous entry in 2013, Electronic Arts (EA) settled a lawsuit brought by former college football players who argued their name, image and, likeness (NIL) were used without permission or compensation. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), whose brand was licensed by EA, had a history of resisting attempts to financially compensate its athletes.[3] As a part of the settlement, EA announced it would stop producing college football video games.[4]
The 2021 United States Supreme Court case NCAA. v. Alston deemed the NCAA's precedent of avoiding compensating athletes impermissible.[5] Following the ruling, the NCAA reversed its position, creating rules for likeness compensation.[6] In 2023, after the implementation of these changes, EA announced that player likenesses would be featured in their next college football game.[7] In February 2024, EA revealed that they would pay each athlete a flat $600 payment and a copy of the game for allowing the NIL to be used; athletes who decline to allow EA to use their identity will be replaced in-game with a generic, auto-generated character and EA would block players from creating and inserting the athlete into the game manually.[8][9] By early March 2024, EA had secured NIL opt-ins from over 10,000 athletes; notable opt-outs were reported to include Texas quarterback Arch Manning.[10][11] Similarly, the Heisman Trophy and the various bowls will appear in the game, but the National College Football Awards Association requested that their awards and trophies not be included; the Lou Groza Award is the coalition's only honor to opt into the game.[12][13][14][15] The game is using the Frostbite engine.[16]
In February 2021 EA announced that the College Football series would return.[17] EA Orlando, developers of the Madden NFL series, was announced to be creating the game.[18] On February 15, 2024, EA confirmed the game's title as EA Sports College Football 25 and revealed a trailer for it, promising to provide further information in May 2024.[19]
On May 16, 2024, EA Sports revealed the main cover of the game and officially confirmed the game would release on July 19, 2024, ahead of a planned full reveal the following day.[27] Following the release of the trailer, EA Sports confirmed that many of its old features from NCAA Football 14 would be brought to College Football 25 such as Team Builder, Road to Glory, and Dynasty.[28] The gameplay deep dive that released on May 31 unveiled features such as "campus IQ", which allows 134 ways to play, and "Stories to Saturday", as they follow student athletes under intense pressure.[29]
