At Long Last, We Have a Trailer for the New College Football Video Game

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The day that many thought would never come has finally arrived. Fans have waited and waited (and waited), clutching their copies of NCAA Football 14 tight while speculating about whether a new game would ever get released. Even after the NCAA loosened the reins to let players get paid for their name, image, and likeness (NIL), it was unclear if we’d ever get another college football video game—one of the holy grails of sports gaming.

No need to worry about that anymore. On Thursday morning—right as the sports world prepared to enter a post-Super Bowl, NBA All-Star break dead zone—EA Sports blessed us with an official trailer for a game they’re calling College Football 25.

The game is set to release this summer, and while the sunny teaser does not show any snippets of actual gameplay yet, we are set for a full reveal come May, presumably with all of the classic features. What’s better than creating a player and guiding them from high school to the Heisman? How many hours have you devoted to the immersive world of Dynasty Mode, which lets you hit the recruiting trail and build a squad from the ground up? Hopefully, and crucially, the mascot game survives, a chaotic mode where all 22 players on the field are mascots.

With the new release, however, there’s the possibility that the game will get even better. For starters, it can finally use players’ real names (rather than the perennially annoying QB #10 or RB #22) and players’ likeness, so we could get a facially realistic version of college football needle-movers like Shedeur Sanders. That’s much better than the old editions of the game, where players—no matter how famous—were given one of several pre-made visages, which often looked nothing like them at all.

There is obviously a ton of nostalgia tied to this game, which has not gotten a new release since NCAA 14 dropped in 2013, so it will be interesting to see how, say, 25-year-olds react to a present-day version of a game they haven’t seen since middle school. Modern sports games have had a tumultuous run—ask anyone in your life still playing Madden how they feel about the recent quality of that storied title—but there’s reason for optimism here. First, they’ve had a lot of time to work on this. There’s really no excuse for a bad product here, given that EA has technically had over a decade to prepare. Just by virtue of not being on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 4 anymore, the game should look, feel, and play better on newer consoles.

There’s also the anticipation that EA will really meet the moment here in releasing one of the biggest sports video games in quite some time. The spotlight is on, and if the history of the game is any indication—as someone who’s held on to their decaying Xbox 360 for the sole purpose of playing NCAA 14, the game holds up amazingly well—they’ll come correct. We also, of course, cannot rule out the possibility that they’ll add some new features to reflect just how much college football has changed in the last decade.

It is jarring to realize that the stars of NCAA 14—unnamed virtual depictions of Marcus Mariota, Johnny Manziel, and Todd Gurley—are now legacy acts, the same way ‘05 Reggie Bush was for people playing in 2014. I’m already giggling with glee imagining a scene where your created player has to decide between partnering with the local car dealership or the local fast food chain. If a virtual coach isn’t giving me the ball, best believe I will hit the transfer portal and find one who will. Past versions forced your player to do homework; College Football 25 should let your player make TikToks.

There is no wrong way to celebrate this; just don’t be that person complaining about how much better things used to be. Even if that is true, you will sound washed as hell, just like the people yelling about how NIL and the transfer portal ruined the sport. Sadly, it is not 2013 anymore, but a decade later as the trailer maintains, this is still the game this sport deserves.

Originally Appeared on GQ