PlayStation 5 Critic Reviews

EACF 27 is more than worth the purchase, if you love football and video games. No college football game offers a better combination of stunning visuals, top-notch presentation, customization and gameplay. That combination is why College Football 27 reads as the high point of EA's football resurgence, the same late-prime form that carried its recent UFC entry. The gaps are real, but they are wishes for more rather than reasons to wait.

On gameplay alone, EA SPORTS College Football 27 is perfect. One could make the argument for one of the best sports games, let alone football. While it's not as fast and loose as College Football 25, which many will hold onto as the best, College Football 27 teeters on that late PS2 era depth of football. However, thanks to technology, this blows that era out of the water. Microtransactions are a blossoming issue, but it doesn't hinder the experience quite like the bugs do. At the very least, they're not in the gameplay itself. The one big thing that needs to be brought to attention is the focus on the hardcore fanbase. The uncle or dad who doesn't care about setting up defensive schemes or a Catch Meter and just loves college football is going to be left out. The devs are going the NBA 2K route, and too much of a simulation aspect will drive those out. Nobody wants to explain how to do all these things. Sports games are THE couch co-op option no matter what. This is why College Football 25 worked so well for the masses. College Football 27 is the hardcore college football fan's dream experience.

While this modern era of college football isn't flawless, EA SPORTS College Football 27 is perfect for those seeking their own Road to Glory.

The gameplay is fun and challenging, especially with the updates to how defense is played. The addition of NIL, AD expectations, the new elements in recruiting and managing your staff; EA has given users one of the best versions of college football so far. Is this game perfect, absolutely not but is it better than last year’s version, absolutely.

College Football 27 from EA Tiburon and EA Sports feels good in gameplay and execution, as expected, and still delivers a fantastic football experience. It stalls a bit in its additional mode innovation, despite its variety of modes, by focusing more on number-crunching than button-mashing.

EA Sports College Football 27 sees EA Orlando settle right into things in their Junior season since the return of college football sims. This is without a doubt the best the series has ever been, and what it’s been trying to be all along. There’s weight and reason to Road to Glory and Dynasty this year, with metrics and decisions that matter, and Ultimate Team no longer feels like it’s forced on you. There’s still a little of that classic EA Jank left that comes with every game off the tob, but here it is actually pretty cozy and endearing. It’s another good year for EA Sports College Football.

EA Orlando has delivered the best college football game ever seen on consoles and PC, even though it nearly ruined the party for itself. The gameplay is simply fantastic; the atmosphere is so authentic that you’ll find yourself rooting for a college team that, until yesterday, you might not have even been able to locate on a map of the United States, while Dynasty Mode is a time sink disguised as a video game. This is the standard, and the bar is set incredibly high. The only thing that really threatened to break the spell was EA itself, but fortunately, the community reminded it of a golden rule that applies to college football just as much as it does to video games: games are won on the field, not with a credit card.

While the foundational EA Sports College Football experience remains high-quality and slowly improving, a lack of much meaningful new content in CFB 27, headlined by the barebones Mascot Mashup, highlights how this franchise has already shown signs of stagnation, even if only in its third year back.

This season ain’t gonna knock anybody’s socks off, and both Dynasty and Road to Glory have leaned hard into spreadsheet management this year, but smart on-field additions to an already good game make College Football 27 worth suiting up for once again.

The on-field product remains good, albeit in the face of losing the CFB identity. Stadiums, teams, rituals, atmosphere are all second-to-none. It’s truly brilliant. But the gap that once separated this series from Madden keeps narrowing. Then, there’s arguably the most ridiculous, embarrassing, anti-consumer implementation of microtransactions I’ve ever seen in a sports game. EA should genuinely be ashamed about it. I like CFB 27; I just don’t trust where the road leads if EA doesn’t reverse course, and soon.