Taking a Deep Look at Ultimate Team

There is a lot to unpack after the latest announcement from EA Sports.

Those who follow the sports gaming scene are likely familiar with the Ultimate Team game mode — which consists of building your own custom team with different player “cards” to challenge online and AI opponents. It debuted for the first time in FIFA 09 and was introduced to the Madden series a year later, but did you know Ultimate Team also appeared in EA Sports’ NCAA Football series before its extended hiatus.

In NCAA Football 14, players were introduced to a new take on Ultimate Team where they could build a roster of former college greats. And with how profitable the game mode has become for EA in its other franchises, it’s no surprise that it will return in College Football 25.  

On Tuesday morning, EA Sports released a deep dive on their website that showcased everything coming in the new version of College Football Ultimate Team. Here’s what we learned:

Roster building

Ultimate Team in College Football 25 will once again allow you to coach some of the sport’s greatest players throughout history, but current players will also be included among the pool of available cards. EA announced that current NFL players will also be included thanks to a deal with the NFL Players’ Association.

Cards are separated into the following tiers:

Grey — Common
Green — Uncommon
Blue — Rare
Purple — Epic
Gold — Legendary

When you open Ultimate Team for the first time, you will be given a “beginner team” that features low-rated players, including a few from the school you have selected as your favorite. From there, the challenge is building up your roster by completing solo challenges or playing head-to-head against other players online.

Part of improving your roster early on will be taking advantage of the mode’s chemistry mechanic. There are 134 team chemistries in the mode, one for each available team in the game, along with 19 offensive and defensive scheme chemistries. While all players will start with the default team chemistry of their actual school, you can unlock other team chemistry items for that player and essentially “transfer” them to a new school. In EA’s example, they suggested that you could build a team around Ohio State chemistry with a bunch of Michigan players.

Players will also have a scheme chemistry based on their attributes, and building a roster of players with the same scheme chemistry can give them in-game stat boosts.
Over time, you will be able to unlock abilities — situational boosts that say, for example, give the quarterback the ability to identify blitzers pre snap — for your player cards.

Ways to play

There are a plethora of game modes within College Football Ultimate Team that will allow you to build up your team from a group of scrappy benchwarmers to a true national powerhouse.

For those who prefer to play against the computer, the new Solo Seasons mode lets you play out a five-game “regular season” with the ultimate goal being making the playoffs and competing for a championship. A Solo Battles mode will let you play individual games against the AI, with your performance determining what rewards you can acquire.

And for those who enjoy playing other real-world opponents, H2H seasons offers virtually the same experience as Solo Seasons, but you can also do a season with a friend in the Squads Regular Season mode, which lets you take on your preferred role as the offensive captain, defensive captain or head coach.

Additionally, this year’s version of College Football Team will feature an online mode called the Gauntlet. Similar to the “Champions” mode in the FIFA series, the Gauntlet starts on Fridays each week and consists of you playing a maximum of 11 games with the goal being to reach 10 wins before you accrue two losses. Those that do so will be rewarded with some of the best items in the game, including exclusive player cards.

To qualify for the Gauntlet each week, you can either pay a coin entry fee or play the Champs game mode to earn a Gauntlet entry. This operates similarly to how the Division Rivals online mode works in FIFA. You will need to win 16 games to qualify for the Gauntlet each week.

Taking another page from FIFA Ultimate Team, there is also a House Rules mode that will allow you to take on online opponents in games with modified rulesets. One of the available options for House Rules, called Touchdown Tango, switches things up by requiring 25 yards for a first down and making touchdowns count for 14 points. Once a team goes up by 28, the game ends.

Over the course of College Football 25’s lifespan, both offline and online players can participate in “Programs” — which offer their own timed challenges and rewards that will change regularly. There are several Programs that will be available at launch, including the following: Ultimate Alumni, Conference Stories of the Week, ICYMI (In Case You Missed Us) and Legends.

Those who preorder College Football 25 will receive one of the following 10 Ultimate Alumni Player Items of their choice from the 2024 NFL Draft class — Brock Bowers, Blake Corum, Cooper DeJean, Michael Penix Jr., Jared Verse, Adonai Mitchell, J.C. Latham, Jordan Morgan, Payton Wilson and Quinyon Mitchell.

Jeremy Vernon is a Featured Columnist for Four Verts: An EA Sports College Football 25 Substack. He also writes about the MLS and NWSL for Field Level Media, and his previous stops include Sporting News and MLB.com. You can follow him on X @jbo_vernon and on Twitch @jbovernon. When he isn’t working, you can likely find Jeremy at the dog park with his two-year old lab mix, Summer.