EA Sports to release college football game in summer 2024

The return of EA Sports' college football video game series now has a time of arrival: the summer of 2024.

Daryl Holt, EA Sports' vice president and general manager, told ESPN in an interview the brand is going to launch EA Sports College Football at that time because of the enormous undertaking of creating the game from scratch.

For them, it's not about rushing to market but making sure the inaugural edition of what they plan to have as a yearly title is up to standard.

"That's the best date for us to bring the game that we think is going to meet or exceed our player expectations," Holt said. "And cover the breadth and scale of what we want in the game. We're trying to build a very immersive college football experience."

Holt said rumored potential earlier dates of release were conjecture and the release had not been delayed. He said there is a lot they wanted to work into the game, and they had to start from Square 1.

Holt said that included figuring out a way to use real college football players in the game. This is a change from when the brand announced the game was returning in February 2021 and the inner workings of name, image and likeness (NIL) were still being worked out in the college athletics landscape. Back then there were more unknowns about NIL.

NIL has opened avenues for college players to now be in the game, although it's unclear how the structure of facilitating that will happen. An EA source told ESPN that players will be compensated if they are in the game.

"If you look back on where we were talking in 2021, that road was blocked," Holt said. "I think I even said something to the fact that we were passengers on this journey, just like anyone else.

"Well, the road's open now, but it's still under construction."