8 Must-Have Features for EA Sports College Football 26

EA Sports College Football 25 quickly became one of the best-selling games of 2024, so it wasn’t a surprise when Electronic Arts announced that College Football 26 is launching this summer. With all of that success, EA Sports should have plenty of resources to deliver several important updates for CFB 26. After all, CFB 25 had the benefit of being the first college football game in a decade. The developers must improve on that first effort and give the playerbase an even better product.

Here are eight improvements and updates that would take College Football 26 to the next level:

Dynamic Weather/Dynamic Lighting

One of the biggest things that EA Sports needs to add is more weather conditions and lighting that updates as the game progresses. Fans rightfully raised concerns about the latter last year, so it would be surprising if College Football 26 didn’t address it this year. After all, starting a game at 4:30 in the afternoon and the sun still being in the sky at 7:00 was always jarring.

Real Coaching Likenesses/More Coach Customization

Last year the developers made the smart choice to focus on getting player likenesses. That meant all of the coaches were generated. It wasn’t necessarily a bad system, but too many of the coaches looked the same because there weren’t many customization options.

If EA Sports doesn’t want to spend the money to add Dabo Swinney, Kirby Smart, and Deion Sanders to the sideline, the developers should at least give us more ways to customize our coach’s look. They’ve slowly been adding more options to the EA Sports FC series, so it’s not a big ask to have them do the same here.

Trophy Room

The Trophy Room was one of the biggest requests from fans after College Football 25 dropped. It was a great way of showing off the history of your Dynasty in old college football games, and it would make sense as a Year 2 addition to build hype.

At the very least, Dynasty Mode needs better stat tracking from year to year. We don’t necessarily need to have the “Greatest Games” feature make a comeback, but being able to look back at every Heisman winner would be massive for Dynasty fans.

Update the Transfer Portal

The transfer portal has quickly become one of the most exciting parts of college football. Last year alone, there were nearly 2,000 players in the portal, and many of them were former top recruits, including top quarterback prospect Carson Beck.

Simply put, the transfer portal in College Football 25 never felt as game-changing as its real-life counterpart. There just weren’t enough players looking to switch teams and the deeper you got into Dynasty Mode, the quality of the players transferring consistently went down. College Football 26 needs to tweak its logic to ensure the transfer portal stays as impactful as it is in real life.

Play High School Games in Road to Glory

This one might seem like relatively small potatoes, but seeing MLB The Show 25 add college teams has given fans hope that College Football 26 might add high school games back to Road to Glory.

In the old NCAA football games, the high school tournament was a fun way to set your character’s stats. If you excelled over the three or four games, you would start as a highly touted prospect. If you struggled, things were going to be more difficult. Either way, RTG left quite a bit to be desired in CFB 25, so EA needs to give it something to appease fans.

Generic Team Builder Stadiums

While it would be great to have stadiums we can change from year to year, just having generic stadiums for team builder would be a huge step forward. Having to use a base stadium for a real team for your created school was always a downer, so giving us a few generic stadiums would at least alleviate those issues.

Add an NIL Budget

These last two are “pie in the sky” features. NIL is incredibly important in real-world college football but doesn’t really exist in College Football 25. If EA implements it, we’d likely see something tied to your recruiting budget.

For example, if you play in more nationally televised games one year, you should get more money. If you make a few bowl games in a row, the same thing should happen. Making your recruiting budget come from NIL money would be a good way to streamline your recruiting budget and let CFB 26 get rid of factors like Campus Lifestyle and Academic Prestige, which you can never change.

Bring Back Mascot Mode

Again, this one probably isn’t happening but as EA adds more mascots to the franchise, the developers should consider bringing back Mascot Mode. Going up against the Syracuse Orange as Pistol Pete was a blast during NCAA 14, and bringing it back would generate a lot of goodwill for the developers. Here’s hoping we get it within the next few years.

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EA Sports College Football 26 launches this summer on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.