EA has been dropping bombs after bombs on football freaks. With a recent Madden NFL 26 rundown, they are back with the College Football 26 deep dive, just two days apart. Kirk Herbstreit narrated the detailed gameplay exploration on College Football’s YouTube channel a couple of hours ago. And with more than 200k views already, this deep dive has certainly become a hot topic in the sports games universe.
As someone really excited about the launch of CFB 26, I’ve watched the video multiple times to dissect everything. That said, here are all the major things in the College Football 26 gameplay deep dive.
College Football 26: 5 Things We Noticed In The Gameplay Deep Dive
While the future deep dives are rumored to showcase other immersive traits, such as separate high school football portions for the Road to Glory mode. For today, let’s talk about everything showcased in the current deep dive.
Dynamic Subs
Gameplay is faster than ever, thanks to dynamic subs. With the previous games, you had to hover over the menu while calling a play just to swap a player on and off the field. Now, it’s pretty straightforward, as you can switch players with a simple button push. This is similar to EA FC’s suggested-sub feature, which lets you sub players with just a push of a button.
Wear And Tear
EA claims they’ve made the wear and tear system better than ever. If the player needs rest before the snap, you’ll know. The Campus Huddle will warn you when a quarterback’s health goes below 60%, which will change their behavior and body language. Such warnings will also show up on the Dynamic Subs quick menu.
Further into the deep dive is a showcase of players getting injured while playing under cold conditions, which means that weather conditions can now impact the gameplay. However, if it’s getting too much for you to handle, you can adjust the wear and tear settings in the Dynasty Mode.
Playbook Expansion
College Football 26 welcomes more than 300 real-life coaches to the game. This isn’t just for show, as you’ll be able to implement 2,800 new plays and 45 new formations, the biggest expansion in EA Sports history. EA suggests that they have studied the game to the letter, and CFB will now feature all the plays that define Saturday Football. This will allow you to switch up strategies according to your playstyle and get the most authentic college football experience possible.
Stadium Pulse
Night games are going to get louder as EA has amped up the crowd noise this year. If you’re playing on the home ground of the opponent, expect more disruption during pre-snap and signal-calling. And if the crowd is energetic enough, the play clock might even fail to keep up.
This brings in that sense of pressure that players feel when they’re away from home. So, to make the game as real as possible, it’ll affect your gameplay in more ways than one. So, if you’re visiting Penn State during a white-out game and “Mo Bamba” starts playing, I imagine your quarterback isn’t going to have a good time.
Block Steering
Now you have excessive command over the offensive line. With block steering, it’s possible to manually alter the path where your offensive linemen shove defenders. Thanks to this new ability, you can create holes, protect the quarterbacks for a little longer, and run more clever plays. Plus, there are 12 new stunts available for the defense for more variety and deception.
While this is everything major that has been featured in the deep dive, it also includes some other features like the addition of 10 new archetypes, the out-of-body experience (which captures the flow state of a player), and new offensive/defensive abilities. Another thing that I’m particularly excited about is that height finally matters for a QB. If your QB is short and in a collapsing pocket, your field of vision will be disrupted. This, again, captures that realism of Saturday Football to bring players the most authentic experience possible.
