College Football 27 Is Making Some Major Strides in Its Junior Season

After a strong reboot of the franchise with College Football 25, last year’s edition in the annualized football series, College Football 26, left me wanting. While there were some small upgrades and improvements when compared to its predecessor, CFB 26 seemed predominantly focused on making minor quality-of-life tweaks that made it a slightly better version of the game that had released the year prior. Even though the core game was still solid, there were still some big improvements that needed to be made to make this series feel more like its real-world counterpart.

Fortunately, after having now played College Football 27, I believe that this year’s game is very much delivering on this front. Not only does the on-field gameplay of CFB 27 continue to feel great to play, but EA Sports is adding considerably more depth to all of its primary game modes that should make each far more compelling to sink hundreds of hours into in the months and year ahead.

Dynasty Mode Will Be More Strategic Than Ever

Dynasty is my favorite mode in the College Football series, which is a sentiment shared by countless other fans. The process of recruiting, building a coaching staff, and creating a college football powerhouse is something that never seems to get stale. Despite this, past College Football games definitely had plenty of room for improvement with Dynasty, which EA Sports is now addressing.

The most glaring omission with Dynasty mode in recent years has been the lack of an NIL budget. NIL has taken over college sports, as student-athletes are now allowed to profit off of their name and likeness. This factor has overhauled the collegiate landscape, as players now take into account how much money they can make at certain schools as part of their recruiting process. EA is now looking to incorporate this itself with the inclusion of Dynasty Points, which seem to be the greatest new element to Dynasty in College Football 27.

Dynasty Points can be earned while completing various tasks in Dynasty mode and can then be used when trying to recruit players. So if you’re running a small school like Northern Illinois and are trying to recruit a major, 5-star player, dumping as many Dynasty Points as you can in that player’s lap could help sway them to sign with your team compared to a big-name university. While giving a player as many Dynasty Points as possible isn’t going to guarantee that they commit to your program, it’s another factor in the recruiting process that will prove to be pivotal.

Beyond recruiting, Dynasty Points can be used for a variety of other factors. College Football 27 will now allow you to upgrade the facilities of your school, which will also assist with your recruiting process. Although some schools will already have massive facilities from the jump (Ohio State, Notre Dame, Alabama, etc.), smaller universities will be able to scale over time if their program finds success. This success is often dependent on what a university’s athletic director demands of the coaching staff, which is another vital element to how you plan each season.

After having briefly gone hands-on with Dynasty for myself in College Football 27, I think that the mode feels more strategic than ever. Dynasty Points are going to be scarce, even for larger schools, which will lead to some tough decisions when choosing how to allocate them throughout the year. I was already planning to spend the majority of my time with CFB 27 in the trenches of Dynasty, but I see the mode overtaking my life more than normal because of these changes.

Road to Glory Is Shaping Up to Be Far More Compelling

Although I love creating my own player and improving them from year to year, I’ve found Road to Glory to be pretty stale at times since its introduction in College Football 25. The mode becomes too repetitive too quickly, and it often didn’t do enough to incentivize or challenge players over the course of their career. Thankfully, I think some of my criticisms on this front look like they’re being acknowledged with College Football 27.

For starters, EA seems to be improving the overall presentation of Road to Glory in some key ways. Although there won’t be countless cutscenes or story moments added to the mode, small inclusions like the Heisman trophy ceremony now being incorporated will make the payoff of having a fantastic season that much better. The high school component of Road to Glory is also being emphasized a bit more, which will allow you to get better offers if you dominate the competition as a high schooler.

EA is also allowing users to create players that belong to different positional roles in CFB 27. So if you’ve ever longed to develop a Tight End of Free Safety, you’ll now be able to do so. Not only this, but the new “Legends” templates will let you easily model your player after a college football star from the past. So if you’re simply looking to create Tim Tebow 2.0, this will be easily doable by selecting the Tebow template upon creating your character.

I’m a bit worried that Road to Glory’s changes are still going to be pretty small in the grand scheme of what the mode offers. Still, these are steps in the right direction and should lead to Road to Glory being much more enticing than before.

CFB 27’s On-Field Product Feels Largely the Same, Which Isn’t a Bad Thing

On a gameplay front, College Football 27 doesn’t feel all that different from College Football 26. EA has touted many alterations it’s made to the AI, primarily on the defensive side of the ball, which should make CFB 27 less offense-centric than in the past. In my time playing so far, though, I haven’t seen much that makes me feel like this is going to be a complete overhaul of what established players have come to expect.

For the most part, I don’t view this as a bad thing. I think the gameplay of the College Football series has largely been great since its introduction, even if there have been some small issues. If the AI is more realistic in College Football 27 and defenses do prove to give offenses more of a challenge, then this could be a bigger leap forward than I realize. I’ll simply have to play more of the game to determine just how cast these refinements might be.

In a time when most sports games barely seem to be making many changes from one year to the next, I actually think EA Sports is actually making some big strides with College Football 27. With more fleshed-out game modes and improved presentation across the board, CFB 27 is looking like it will easily be the best version of EA’s rebooted college football series so far.

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College Football 27 is set to launch next month on July 9th and will be coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Those who subscribe to EA’s new MVP+ membership, however, can gain access to the game a full week early beginning on July 2nd.