It didn’t seem like the return of an AAA NCAA football video game would be on the horizon any time soon, but thanks to Electronic Arts’ bombshell announcement on 2021, it is. EA announced that it had reached a licensing agreement with the CLC to have access to over 100 NCAA team names and logos, and it is currently in the early stages of developing a brand new simulation college football game. EA Sports College Football is a reality, but when will it be released? Let’s take a look.
When is the release date of EA Sports College Football?
In the original press release sent out in 2021, EA stated that the development of the new NCAA football game has just started. EA Sports vice president Daryl Holt told ESPN at the time that the new game, called EA Sports College Football, will not launch in 2021. Holt added that he could not give a release date for the game, nor a day for when that information would be made public.
Since that release in 2021, things were relatively quiet. Virtually all of 2021 and 2022 past on without news on the development of EA Sports College Football. That did change in late November of 2022, as Holt told ESPN that EA Sports College Football will return in the summer of 2024. This was a bit later than originally thought by some, but Holt told the outlet that the time is needed to build an immersive virtual college football experience.
EA Sports shelved the old NCAA Football franchise in 2013, and after a brutal legal battle that ended the series, it was very much unknown as to whether NCAA-licensed simulation games would come back any time soon. But thanks to NILs and a friendlier landscape, the time is ripe for a new college football game.
