EA Sports activities’ sophomore go back to the school gridiron is right here, and after per week with Faculty Soccer 26, the decision is obvious: it is high quality. Now not nice. Now not horrible. Simply… high quality. A wonderfully ok follow-up to closing yr’s triumphant but turbulent reboot.
When CFB 25 dropped, the fanfare was once large. After a decade-long hiatus and a prison gauntlet, the franchise got here roaring again, most effective to straight away go back and forth over its personal cleats. Lacking options, buggy simulations, anemic remark, and undercooked sport modes briefly cooled the hype.
I used to be some of the many stuck within the hype. I reviewed CFB 25 closing yr and optimistically claimed it was once “higher than Madden.” And howdy, I stand through that — however let’s no longer faux that’s a prime bar to transparent. Highway to Glory mode felt like a placeholder, and Dynasty lacked even elementary quality-of-life gear. Sim stats broke immersion. Chris Fowler’s voiceover — in spite of his public pleasure — sounded love it was once phoned in from a bunker. The hype of a franchise revival couldn’t masks the cracks in its basis.
Faculty Soccer 26 is a greater sport than its predecessor, however it is also nonetheless deeply fallacious. The core revel in has attainable, and the joys is actual, however EA continues to regard the franchise like an annual legal responsibility quite than a flagship alternative.
With that during thoughts, listed below are 3 issues I like — and 3 issues I will’t stand — about CFB 26.
Love: Highschool in RTG is again
Credit score: EA Sports activities
An extended-requested characteristic from NCAA Soccer 14 in the end makes its go back in Faculty Soccer 26: highschool soccer in Highway to Glory. The idea that stays easy — avid gamers start their occupation beneath the Friday evening lighting, the place their efficiency earns them recruiting stars and scholarship provides. Rack up sufficient stars, and top-tier systems will come calling, with a beginning activity most probably ready. Fall quick, and you’ll be able to nonetheless stroll on at your dream faculty — however you will have to grind your manner up the intensity chart thru practices and place battles.
It’s a forged basis, and seeing highschool go back to the mode is in fact thrilling. However even this addition comes with a catch.
Hate: Highschool RTG is half-baked
For the entire reward I simply gave about highschool in the end making its long ago into Highway to Glory, what we in fact were given is a large downgrade in comparison to what we used to have.
In previous entries — particularly NCAA Soccer 12 — avid gamers may just play thru a complete highschool season earlier than committing to a faculty. It began small in NCAA 08 with simply the state championship playoffs, however briefly developed into one thing a lot more immersive. Now, in CFB 26, it is been decreased to simply 4 video games—and no longer even complete ones. You’re most effective enjoying remoted “spotlight moments.”
Credit score: EA Sports activities
Earlier than each and every sport, you choose from a handful of pre-set eventualities — such things as a “2-Minute Drill” or “Pink Zone Risk” — with particular goals tied to them. Be triumphant, and also you earn issues towards your recruiting superstar ranking. Fail, and your inventory drops. As you acquire pastime from faculties, some eventualities turn out to be school-specific, supplying you with further probabilities to provoke a program with a spotlight tailored for his or her scouts.
It’s a tight idea in idea, however in execution, it’s clunky and needlessly restrictive. Probably the most goals are outright damaged—like a “scramble for fifty+ yards” problem that doesn’t sign up for those who additionally ranking a landing at the play.
This stripped-down, gamified model of highschool feels arbitrary and disconnected. No person requested for this chopped-up manner. Avid gamers simply sought after the entire highschool season again. What we were given as an alternative appears like a rushed compromise.
Mashable Best Tales
Love: Historic information/Trophy Room
Credit score: EA Sports activities
One in all my nerdiest gaming obsessions is the Soccer Supervisor collection. I’ve sunk 1000’s of hours into its glorified spreadsheets, poring over information, charts, and graphs as I information some no-name Scottish membership to Champions League glory. There’s one thing deeply gratifying about monitoring each milestone, each stat, each tiny piece of historical past your staff creates.
That’s precisely what was once lacking from CFB 25. For always I spent in Highway to Glory or Dynasty, there was once no approach to glance again at the legacy I used to be construction. No archive of previous champions, no document of bowl sport winners, no hall-of-fame second to revisit the mythical 2027 Nationwide Championship between Clemson and North Texas. I couldn’t even mournfully revisit the Independence Bowl trophy I fought enamel and nail to win.
Fortunately, CFB 26 fixes this. EA introduced again historic information and made some degree to focus on it—and for just right explanation why. Immersion has all the time been some of the defining strengths of this collection, and contours like those subject. Those little main points aren’t simply fluff; they’re how avid gamers hook up with the tales they devise.
Hate: RTG’s working again AI nonetheless sucks
This may well be a distinct segment gripe, however it drove me loopy in CFB 25 and it’s nonetheless an issue in CFB 26: the pathfinding common sense for AI working backs in Highway to Glory is in fact migraine-inducing.
Take a easy inside of handoff out of a pistol formation. The offensive line opens up a blank hole up the center—however as an alternative of hitting the opening, the working again bounces the play huge, drifting towards the sideline like he’s allergic to certain yardage. It’s no longer a rankings factor, both. This occurs whether or not you’re enjoying for a bottom-tier faculty or a Energy 4 powerhouse.
It’s a constant, irritating quirk that turns elementary working performs into unpredictable messes, and after two instantly years of it, it is dressed in skinny.
Love: Dynamic subs
Credit score: EA Sports activities
A large number of this quasi-review has targeted at the options round CFB 26 quite than the gameplay itself — and that’s most commonly for the reason that gameplay continues to be rock forged, simply love it was once closing yr. EA has in the end nailed down a basis that’s in fact amusing, so the year-to-year enhancements are going to be marginal at best possible. When the basis is robust, you don’t want to tear the entire thing down simply to make development. (That mentioned, I’ll most definitely by no means personal a area on my wage, so what do I find out about foundations anyway?)
I name this a “quasi-review” as a result of maximum of what I mentioned about CFB 25 nonetheless applies right here. Doing a complete, conventional overview once more would really feel redundant. That mentioned, one gameplay characteristic did stand out sufficient to fortify the revel in meaningfully: dynamic subs.
Substitutions have all the time been a clunky afterthought in sports activities video games — both buried in menus or too sluggish to subject mid-drive. However CFB 26 streamlines it utterly. With a handy guide a rough press of the D-pad, you’ll be able to straight away view who’s at the discipline, cycle avid gamers out and in through tapping left or proper, and your adjustments stick with no need to dig again into the intensity chart. It’s fast, it’s intuitive, and most significantly, it’s planned — your selections now subject within the second.
It is going a step additional with adapted sub-filters, letting you set up your whole protection or offense in logical teams. Need to switch simply your linebackers or ability avid gamers? Simple. Need to reset the entirety again for your starters after giving backups some reps? One button press (Sq. on PlayStation, X on Xbox) and also you’re just right. It’s small on paper however makes in-game technique smoother and extra responsive, particularly in Dynasty or Highway to Glory when fatigue and matchup control in fact subject.
Dynamic subs don’t reinvent the wheel — however they don’t want to. They in the end make roster control really feel like a part of the on-field motion as an alternative of a separate chore, and that’s a large win for gameplay go with the flow.
Hate: Final Group
Credit score: EA Sports activities
The inclusion of Final Group in any sports activities sport is already a blight—however what actually grinds me down in CFB 26 is its creep into the educational mode.
One of the vital greatest hurdles in trendy sports activities video games is how complicated they’ve turn out to be. Ten years in the past, passing was once easy. Now there’s “placement + accuracy” mechanics, or bizarre finger-twister combinations like protecting L1 whilst flicking the suitable persist with correctly execute a prime lob fade. I’m most effective 26, however from time to time it actually does really feel like I’m yelling at clouds. Sports activities video games was once out there. Now they call for some working out of programs layered on peak of programs.
Which might be high quality — if finding out the ones programs didn’t funnel you into EA’s glorified slot gadget. If you wish to discover ways to move, learn protection, or execute an RPO correctly, you’re doing it inside of Final Group beneath the mode’s Demanding situations phase. That’s the one position the place the tutorials and talent demanding situations reside. So if you are a mum or dad with a full-time activity and rarely an hour of unfastened time to be informed a sport like this, you might be compelled to do it inside of a virtual on line casino full of microtransactions, pretend foreign money, and card packs.
There may be not anything redeemable about Final Group. Now not right here, no longer in Madden, no longer in FIFA, no longer any place. It’s a hole, predatory mode — and the truth that CFB 26 ties its elementary coaching gear to this can be a easiest instance of the way cynical trendy sports activities gaming can also be.
And if I’m doing a love/hate listing for CFB 27 subsequent yr? Spoiler alert: this phase’s coming again.
Subjects
PlayStation
Video Video games
