NCAA Football will be returning after an eight-year absence, though it will carry a slightly different name. Electronic Arts and the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) have partnered to bring the popular simulation series back to consoles in the near future as EA Sports College Football.
The series is in the very early stages of development, and there are no concrete details regarding which platforms it will release for — or even when the first installment of the series will exit the huddle.
Cam Weber, EA Sports EVP and GM, said that “we [the development team] have a lot of really exciting work ahead of us, and a great team that is eager to bring a new game to players in the next couple of years.”
Of course, it’s safe to assume EA’s new collegiate football product will launch on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S when it does release, especially considering it’s likely a few years off, but whether it will come to other platforms outside of those, including PC, is still unclear.
A press release outlining the news said that “EA Sports begins development of exclusive new college football console experience,” with no mention of a PC version. For reference, EA’s Madden NFL franchise has launched a PC version alongside its console version for the last several years, including its most recent installment, Madden NFL 21.
Currently, there are 100 colleges set to appear in EA Sports College Football, with each school’s “logos, stadiums, uniforms, gameplay traditions, and more that fans have come to know and love” included. EA did not yet specify which schools currently make up the selection or if the selection includes only Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institutions.
The last installment of the NCAA Football series came in 2013, and the series was put on hiatus after a legal dispute regarding the use of player likeness. Though the games never used real player names of then-currently-enrolled student-athletes (cover athletes were those that had already graduated), likenesses and stats were similar to the appearances and skillsets of real players.
According to EA, EA Sports College Football “will not include student-athlete names, images, and likenesses…”
