Nearly a full decade after 2013's NCAA Football 14, EA's developing a new game for college football.
EA Sports is going back to college. The subsidiary of Electronic Arts announced through ESPN that it would revive its college football series beginning with a new installment in summer 2024.
Last year, EA announced that it would be bringing back its college football franchise after a seven-year hiatus. At the time, the sub-series went on ice due to the publisher's tumultuous legal battle with the NCAA about player likenesses that first began in 2014.
Known as EA Sports College Football, this new title will come from a partnership with the Collegiate Licensing Company that allows the publisher to use real-world logos, stadiums, and imagery of college football teams.
In 2021, EA Sports said its eventual college football return couldn't feature the likenesses of real-world players. But vice president Daryl Holt told ESPN that the possibility exists for college players to be in the game, and they'll be compensated for it.
"Our intent is to work towards that and find a meaningful way to include them in the game," said Holt. Getting real-world players and their colleges into the game is currently in the works, he added, and there are "a host of FBS schools committed."
"We expect more will join, but we can only commit to what we have got in the hopper right now. [...] But we'll put as many schools as we possibly can put into the game."
The return of EA's college football series is another notable change to its sports game portfolio. Beginning 2023, the long-running FIFA series will be rebranded to EA Sports FC to avoid being "held back" by the FIFA brand.
Both the distancing from FIFA and the return of EA Sports College Football signify that the publisher wants its audience to now associate specific sports with the EA brand.
Since live service titles drive much of EA's profits, and how its sports games classify as such, one can surmise that plays a part in EA's sports-related decisions as well.
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