When college football starts to ramp up in September every year, fans from across the United States gather to cheer for their favorite team. It brings tradition and celebration that rivals the NFL in some capacities, and those roots transitioned over to its video games.EA Sports publishesMaddencurrently, but there once was a time when it published NCAA video games as well. And now it’s been confirmed thatNCAA Footballgames are finally coming back.
Most sports gamers rememberNCAA Football 14.Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson graced the cover and it’s still purchased to this day for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Since then,NCAA Footballvideo games ceased to exist, making the aforementioned game very expensive online. Fans clamored for EA Sports to create a new installment of the famous franchise, but for years, it was unable to meet those requests - until now.
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EA Sports announced on February 2 thatNCAA Footballis coming back (though it may be dropping the “NCAA” from the title) and is in development for next-gen consoles. It ends a seven-year drought of college football games, bringing the demand for the franchise to an all-time high. No other details were revealed, but more should be on the way soon.
In less than a 30-minute period on Twitter, EA Sports' tweet amassed over 30,000 likes. Needless to say, this was one of the biggest announcements by EA this year. Even though it’s early to speculate what the product could look like, judging solely by the tweet above, assumptions can be made about what to expect.
Note that the logo forNCAA Footballdoesn’t actually have the organization “NCAA” in it. That could change down the road, but by not acknowledging the NCAA right away leaves gamers to believe this could start out as a generic title. The previously releasedMaximum Football 2019was a generic take on a college football game. It was published by Canuck Play and was not received well by the community.
Licensing and student-athlete naming rightscould stand in the way of EA Sports creating the game they want to in the long-run. That was the primary force behind halting theNCAA Footballseries, since student-athletes did not make money off their likeness. EA Sports skated around that conundrum for years by not including the names of the players, but that’s where the term “likeness” enter the conversation.
NCAA Footballis returning, which is what acollege football fan wants to hear. EA Sports' decision to only bring it out for next-gen consoles should not receive too much feedback from the community. By the game’s release, inventory of PS5s or Xbox Series X consoles could be flourishing.
