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Many people grow up with dreams of becoming an athletic superstar. While a lot of them begin to focus on more practical goals as they grow up, sports video games allow them to revisit these fantasies and lead their favorite teams to glory.
EA Sports College Football 25is no exception. Road to Glory lets you step into the shoes of a college athlete, ready to make a name for yourself on campus. While playing football is obviously important, you’ll have a lot more on your plate than just the gridiron; you need to balance school, social time, and your brand in order to make the most of the college experience.
Creating Your Player
The first thing you’ll be asked to do when entering Road to Glory is tocreate your player. Not only do you get to adjust their appearance and physical characteristics, butyou can also dictate their background. You canbe a five-star elite prospect that starts with a 79 overall rating, a 60 overall underdog just trying to earn a spot on the team, and anything in between.
If you want to see the field early,you’ll want to pick a five or four-star background. The other choices can take you quite a while before you see any meaningful playing time.
Afterward, you’llpick your position(options include quarterback, halfback, receiver, linebacker, and cornerback) as well asplayer archetype. Thisdetermines what specific stats you excel inat the beginning of your journey. Once you customize your appearance, you’llpick your school and head to campus.
Yourbackground and chosen position will shape which schools are most interested in you. You won’t be able to play right away at every college, so understand thatyou’ll have to earn a starting role in many situations. If hitting the field immediately is a priority for you,pick a college that offers you the starting job when signing.
Weekly Agenda And Upgrading Your Player
Now that your character is set up, you can enter into the mode and start engaging with its gameplay loop. Road to Glory isbroken down into weeks. Every week you cancomplete activities, practice, and play in games if you’ve earned the opportunity. When you’ve completed each of these, or want to simulate certain elements,you can advance to the next week.
The main activity you’ll want to focus on isyour weekly agenda; each week,you’re given a pool of energy points, and you may allocate them into different attributes:Academics, Leadership, Health, Training, and Brand. Ideally, you want each of these to be as high as possible, but the catch is thatspending energy on certain attributes can hurt others. For example,using energy on Brand will let you socialize and gain NIL contracts, but hurts your Academics.
As your character levels up through play,they will accrue skill points. You canspend these on a variety of stat increases and abilitiesin order to further improve your player and increase their overall rating.
Dumping energy into Training will grant you experience pointsand help you level faster. However,doing so will also destroy your health, causing you to play worse!
Practice And Coach Trust
Along with your weekly agenda,you’ll need to attend practices. You’ll be prompted tochoose from a selection of mini-games, each helping to develop your skills. It’s important toperform well as that’s how you earn the coach’s trust.
Trust is another progression systemfor your player, and while getting enough experience to level up rewards you with skill points,earning coach trust is how you move up the depth chart. Throughout Road to Glory,you’ll be shown a graph displaying how much trust you havein comparison to the other players in your position. When you reach the same amount,you’ll automatically challenge them to a position battle.
Position Battles
If you didn’t go to a school where you’re an immediate starter,you’ll have to earn the right to take the field. This is done through position battles.
After reaching the same amount of trust as one of your teammates,the coach will pit you against one anotherto determine who gets the higher position on the depth chart. You’llcompete in three of the practice mini-games, andyou need to win two of themto take their spot in the lineup.
Depending on where you choose to go to college,you may need to complete multiple position battles to finally take the starting job.
Gameday
If your squad has a game that week (and your coach lets you play), you’ll be able to play some actual football against other teams. Unlike the traditional zoomed-out camera view of other modes, hereyou’re placed much closer to the field and behind your player avatar, further helping you get immersed in the on-field experience.
Making good plays will earn you your coach’s trust, whiledoing poorly will see you lose it. Play well enough and you’re able to take your team to a National Championship, achieving college football immortality.
If the camera is too close to your player for your liking,you can zoom out slightly by pressing down on the d-pad.
