College Football 26 Gets a Release Date Along With Some Good and Bad News

Happy NFL Draft week to all those who celebrate. I hope your teams didn’t infuriate you too much last night, but if they did, maybe later rounds will soothe the rage. I’m going to jump into a little discussion about College Football 26, Madden 26, and then a quick bit about Rematch to end things for this newsletter, but I quickly want to call out April as an underrated hero on the sports calendar. It dawned on me last night while flipping between the Draft and multiple playoff games that April cooks. The Final Four, the NFL Draft, NHL and NBA Playoffs starting, MLB season in full swing, and The Masters — and what a sick Masters it was this year — really bring it home that this is a rad month for sports.

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So in case you missed it, College Football 26 and Madden 26 were both announced yesterday in the same trailer. They both got release dates, and they both were light on actual game details.

To be clear, I would not even expect the UI elements that we see in the trailer above to be in the final games. This seemed like a trailer made way ahead of time to tie into the NFL Draft hype. That said, the release dates are very real.

• College Football 26 arrives on July 10 with early access beginning July 7 if you get a “premium” edition of the game.

• Madden 26 arrives roughly a month later on August 14 with early access starting on August 11 if you get a “premium” edition of the game.

• The very successful MVP Bundle deal is back as well with you getting both games — and lots of extra goodies including early access for both games — for $150 (remember the games cost $70 each either way now).

Of course, that MVP Bundle is only available for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S users because this is where the games start to diverge. Madden 26 is ditching last-gen consoles (PS4, Xbox One) and picking up Nintendo Switch 2 support. College Football 26 remains on just the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S and is adding no new consoles to the mix.

In other words, College Football 26 will not make it to PC this year. This is a bit of a blow because there had been genuine smoke that it could arrive on the PC as early this year. It was a massive sales and critical success in year one, and it was only on current-gen consoles so it’s ready to be ported to PC as is.

Regardless, I believe this decision has been made for two reasons: not wanting to add to development costs and the lingering legal concerns about what the PC landscape would look like. It’s a bummer either way because the mod scene for CFB could be very inspiring, and I also think it likely means we won’t get imported draft classes this year either — even if EA hasn’t officially said anything one way or the other as of now.

I think the importing of draft classes is probably more damaging for the “brand” itself because the trailer is all about taking your player from high school (yes, high school for Road to Glory is back) all the way through your whole career in the NFL. That is not a new thing for how CFB and Madden interact, but being able to take more than just your created player through that process is sorely missing considering we used to have it years ago. Plus, EA is all in on this “bundle” deal, and one of the easiest ways to sell the need for both games is to have them interact in as many ways as possible.

If we do somehow end up with the importing of draft classes this year, I will be stunned. I think the big challenge there is a legal issue. The college players are being paid now, but I think things get murky once you’re bringing them to a whole new game even if it’s made by the same company. It seems like you’d need a separate deal with all the players to make that happen.

In terms of actual tidbits from the trailer, we did see Delaware on the scorebug, which means Delaware and Missouri State likely made the cut (they’re both in FBS now so it’s not confirmation of FCS schools). Beyond that, again, high school was promised for Road to Glory, even if we didn’t see any footage of it.

With that in mind, I want to quickly remind people that the high school news isn’t that exciting on its own. Yes, it’s cool to get another old feature back, but the HS stuff was kind of shit if we’re being honest.

I know not everyone is even going to remember what was in a game from 10+ years ago (if you even played it at all), but there was nothing much to the HS part of Road to Glory. You played some games, got recruited based on your performance, and that was it. If that is all EA does with the mode, fair enough, but it’s not some huge add in that case. I also don’t want the mode to be 5-10+ hours long if it’s just playing high school games that feel like any other game. EA either needs to keep it short and sweet with some presentational flair, or actually blow the mode out with different commentators and such to make multiple games feel unique in some way.

EA has promised a “full reveal” for College Football 26 in May, and that likely means our first look at gameplay and/or at least the first official trailer with in-game assets to go along with a set of features. Last year, they also promised a “full reveal” and it ultimately was more of a taste until they started deep diving the features in the weeks and months after.

On the Madden side of things, losing last-gen support would be classified as a positive development in my view. I know some people haven’t made the leap to current-gen consoles either for financial reasons or not yet being sold on the newer consoles — which is understandable — but it’s time. Madden has been on the PS4 since 2013, which is an insanely long time for any console generation. Even if you don’t subscribe to the idea that sports games are being held back in some ways by the old platforms, there are costs associated with needing to make things work on older platforms, and the biggest sports games have usually thrived more in environments where they’re pushing forward and trying to be on the cutting edge of the latest tech rather than lagging behind.

We’ll need to wait and see if NBA 2K and EA FC also abandon last-gen consoles or not this year as those are the two other tent-pole mega sports games that are widely available (The Show already ditched PS4/Xbox One but did release on Switch). Whatever ends up happening there, it appears we’re finally moving away from the last generation (for better or worse) and this will be the last year most sports games show up on those platforms.

The Switch 2 support is somewhat interesting because that is a new console that is coming soon. I don’t know how many of you were able — or were even interested — in pre-ordering that console, but it has been a messy process so far, so it’s natural if you didn’t secure a pre-order as of yet. Switch 2 will not rival current-gen consoles in power, so it’s still going to be a last-gen platform in some respects. Madden and College Football already look different in terms of graphics and what they prioritize on the field to some extent — each does some unique stuff that has positives/negatives — but it will be interesting to see if there is any other noticeable gaps between the games considering one will remain fully current-gen while the other supports at least one console with less power.

Beyond that, EA had mostly given up on the original Switch even if games were still showing up there, so I am wondering if there will be anything unique about the Switch 2 version. I also wonder about what won’t make it to the Switch 2 version that is in the PS5/Xbox Series X version. EA does tend to try, at least a little, with new Nintendo consoles at launch, and I assume that’s because it’s the one time some of their games actually sell somewhat well on Nintendo’s platform. By the time we get to year three of a Nintendo console, third-party sales (and especially EA Sports game sales) probably massively fall off even though the install base is much larger, so that probably plays a role in why EA cares early on but not after a couple years.

As a final note on these two games, one fun tidbit of information comes from the OS forums and OSer IlluminatusUIUC. He got an email from the Metallica fan club because they’re running a competition for marching bands using their songs.

The deadline for this competition is Fall 25, so this would not be for College Football 26, but I wouldn’t rule out Metallica making it into the game as soon as this year since it seems like some agreement must already be in place. Either way, it’s still confirmation about Metallica being in CFB at some point. Fans of college teams like Virginia Tech don’t need me to tell you how important Metallica is to the in-stadium experience, but whether that means Enter Sandman or some other song(s) is coming to CFB is TBD for now.

Closing Things Out With A Thought On Rematch

This is my most anticipated sports game for 2025. I’ve already talked about it a bunch, but I was in the beta tests the last two weekends, and I put in nearly 30 hours between the two weekends, as my Steam page will confirm below.

No shade against childhood Chase, but adult Chase does not have 30 hours to be spending — even on weekends — playing video games, but I just could not stop playing this game. I think it will throw some people off by default because it’s online-only and the art style isn’t for everyone, but I genuinely think it could be a real game changer when it launches in June (it will launch day one on Game Pass, and it’s $30 otherwise — I would expect it to be free-to-play at some point down the line as well).

The comparisons to Rocket League are valid, but I think the biggest thing is it’s real soccer. It might not look like it at all times, and it’s obviously over the top in some ways, but it’s not just some basic arcade game. It’s challenging and has a real learning curve both with its controls and even just gathering and dribbling the ball.

It’s kind of everything I want out of a “competitive” soccer game. There is a vast chasm between good and bad players so far, there is nuance to the controls and tactics, and there is true teamwork needed to succeed. It’s a very basic game in that you either play 4-on-4 or 5-on-5 with nothing much else there for modes, but I take that as a positive. I’ve talked about “bloat” in sports games for a long time, and it’s undeniable that these sports games are their own ecosystems that sort of get too big for their own good. They start to ignore features and the product deteriorates a bit over time because they can’t keep up with updates for all the stuff they’ve created.

Rematch knows exactly what it is, and I think it’s a clear sub-genre of sports games that should get more attention. We have made fun of esports on OS plenty of times — and I would say for good reason — because games like NBA 2K are awful to watch in a team-oriented environment. It’s a lot of the worst kind of five-out iso ball, and things like Pro Clubs in EA FC are not much better. Teamwork is sidestepped for mostly boring stick skills/exploits, or the teamwork that is on display a lot of the time has little to do with tactics from the real sport. It’s not fun to watch because it in no way resembles the real sport, so why would I ever watch it over real soccer/basketball/and so on?

On the individual side, Madden is equally awful to watch at a high level much of the time. It’s no shade against the people competing, it’s just that those games are not built for those environments — and I would say nor should they be. EA can pretend to balance the online parts of their game for those competitions, but Ultimate Team is still a pay-to-win mode even before you get to the imbalances in the gameplay itself. And I don’t really blame EA for that either. They’re already trying to do so much, so it’s a little silly to also expect them to be these ultra competitive games that are balanced for that level when they’re made for millions of people to play in a variety of ways.

Rematch doesn’t have to worry about all that. It can just be a competitive game that is balanced for that situation. For that reason, even if it doesn’t look realistic, have fouls, out of bounds, or some other rules of soccer, it’s the most realistic soccer game I’ve seen in terms of how it actually looks when competitive players/teams are battling it out — and it’s still just in beta with mostly noobs running around. It gives off the vibes of a real soccer game even if it’s not totally “real” soccer.

The bottom line is I’m super excited for it, and I hope it’s successful because every sport could use its own Rematch equivalent at this point. A game that isn’t just trying to be the latest NBA Jam or NFL Blitz, but rather a new sort of “arcade” game that bridges the gap between competitive sports games and the real sport itself (but I’ll also take a new NBA Jam and NFL Blitz if you got one).

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase

Reach out to me with “mailbag” questions whenever you want. I grew up reading Bill Simmons during the rise of the internet, and so I give you the means to hit me up with comments, thoughts, musings, questions, or whatever else you got. Whether you want to tell me about your Road to Glory memories, explain why no one can ever top Bo Jackson in Super Tecmo Bowl, or talk about why Tin Cup is underrated as a movie, all are welcome. If I get enough responses, I’d love to feature them in future newsletters or in “mailbags” of our own.

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