EA Sports has answered a few prayers and dropped one quick tweet telling the world that its college basketball series will be returning. Hopefully still under the March Madness name.
college basketball is back. now what?
Now that there is a clear path to handling NIL and still getting these college games out, EA Sports clearly felt comfortable reaching back into the NCAA bag. And the March Madness series was pretty solid even though the best versions of it didn’t come until around 2005. I’ve heard some clamoring for it back, but it seemed to be more “Anyone want to make a college basketball game again? Anyone?” And that’s fine. Because it gets us somewhere else.
I’m not saying that NBA Live is a certainty, but it would appear to be the next logical step. We aren’t getting the college basketball game until 2028. And that makes sense given the timeline on bringing back College Football 25. They’ve got to create a whole new game and tweak an entire engine to make this work. And that is what makes me think that this is a test run for bringing Live back. Electronic Arts will have more time than they ever had to test out a basketball engine to create the best possible product. It’s the thing that effectively killed the pro basketball series. They just couldn’t keep up year to year with 2K. And when they did try to make changes, they fell flat on their faces.
I can’t wait to see how they make this work with College Basketball. Because honestly, the excitement will be around the game itself. Not the combination of the game and the larger outside culture like football. With the way one and done is handled in college basketball today, you have to incorporate that in the game. If you’re going for a level of realism, then how difficult will it be to get a player to stay for two to four years in your dynasty? That’s what makes me feel like this is a test run more than anything to bring NBA Live back. I hope they can make it work and get a great game out of it. Just don’t be surprised if we look up in 2029 and NBA Live is leaping over our heads.
The post EA Sports Has Just Announced the Return of College Basketball! I’m Excited but I Have Questions appeared first on VICE.
