The news that college basketball fans have been waiting for, since the release of EA Sports College Football 25, is here with the announcement that EA will be rebooting its College Basketball series.
Now that we know we’re finally getting another college hoops game its time to start instead wondering about what’s going to be in it. Looking at both basketball games past and sporting games present these are the key components EA Sports College Basketball should have in its returning effort to give the game the best chance to be a hit with players.
Improved In-Game Engine
The biggest and most obvious place to go is to the in-game engine. This is both the area that is likely going to make or break the first College Basketball game and one where the folks at EA may have their work cut out for them. While it’s been more than a half decade since we last saw EA trying its hand at the hardcourt, its battle with the NBA 2K series was one broadly considered to be in favor of the challenger.
Given that for all the various complaints fans have had about the modern 2K games and their reliance on virtual currencies and microtransactions to bleed players’ wallets, the on-court product has rarely been a source of much consternation. EA will need to match that level to compete.
The Women’s Game
Women’s sports are experiencing a boom across virtually every sport right now, but there is perhaps nowhere that the rush of interest is more pronounced than in college basketball. Buoyed by both general trends, with women’s players staying in college longer than their male star counterparts, which allows for stronger fan attachment, and individual stars, like the breakout 2024 class or 2025 top pick Paige Bueckers, it has arguably surpassed the men’s game in current star power.
A 2024 Final Four game between Bueckers’ UConn Huskies and Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes is the most watched game in ESPN college basketball history, men or women. At a time where women in sports games are so common that even those inclined to hate women in any videogame can’t really be bothered to cause much of a fuss about it anymore, adding women to the game would be as obvious a slam dunk as developers could hope for.
Modern Recruiting Mechanics
The recruiting mechanics used in College Football 25 were a big hit with players, and have been used in other similar sim and management games as well. The good news for EA is that there is very little about the system that is inherently tied to football in a way that would or should make it a heavy lift to get it adapted and bolted onto the recruiting process for their re-debut on the hardwood.
Locker Room Dynamics
While dynamics between players, fans, opponents, and even your virtual coach have been a part of sports games in varying degrees for a long time now, the extent to which such systems impact games has gotten far more important in the 16 years since EA last released a college hoops game. Maintaining a functional and happy locker room is a key skill as a coach, and is a system that the game will certainly include. Striking the right balance, where it feels important but not arbitrary, will be key to delivering a fun gameplay experience for players.
Competition Committee
The college sports landscape has never been known for stability, and it’s even less so in recent years. Conference realignment appears to be occurring every season, while the introduction of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the NCAA’s abdication of responsibility in providing effective guidance for both players and schools has made modern college seasons even more volatile than normal.
The competition committee system in sports games provides a way to accurately reflect the real-world tumult that occurs in off-seasons as interested parties lobby to improve their lot before the year ahead. Not only does this make for a more realistic experience, but it also can simply act as a fun way for players to keep their career modes fresh from year to year, adjusting the challenge each year to present new puzzles to solve.
Ultimate Team Mode
Online Ultimate Team modes are far from perfect, often being the source of the worst insidious pocket reaching by developers, but that is because they remain extremely popular with players. There’s a thrill to getting to build a team out of a mix-and-match approach in a way that is simply not available in a normal career mode playthrough.
Adding an online Ultimate Team is all but a given for an EA sports title, so fans excited for the chance to try their hand at building a pack-based juggernaut can rest easy, and with a little luck you may even get to take part in your own Ultimate Team March Madness tournament.
Create Your Own School
A hill that I am willing to die on is that every sports game should have a Create-a-Team builder available as detailed as the real-world teams in the game. The ability to build your school from the ground up, deciding everything from its size and location to the conference it plays in and the design of its branding and uniforms, is a joy beloved by many sports gamers.
With the next College Basketball game, including a school builder adds another creative way for players to enjoy career mode, and for extra fun EA could allow you to take your created school online as the base look and name for your Ultimate Team mode. While this last option is less likely for a mode where jerseys are an easy card to fill out virtual packs, a school creator for local play should be priority.
Are you looking forward to the return of college basketball to consoles? What are your favorite features you hope to see from the past, and what that EA hasn’t done would make this next edition better?
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