I bought the early access version from DDS and just got a Steam key with release of the full release version, so I've been playing it several weeks. DDS College Football 2025 is a very good sports simulation game by a company that also makes pro and college basketball sims and a pro football sim. I have played the game for several years and enjoy the ability to play a mid/low level team and take it to mid-level greatness, winning conference titles and getting into an occasional big bowl game. In my case, Louisiana-Monroe, where I got my degree back in the 20th Century when it was called Northeast Louisiana University. I play the DDS sims and also OOTP baseball and Football Manager. For this game and most of my sports sims, I do not play individual games, but sim the games. That allows me to play more seasons, which is how I like to play. (FM is an exception, but I just play the highlight version there, if you are wondering.) So I can't speak for playing games out in College Football 2025, though it has a 2D play by play system allowing you to call plays and watch the plays happen, etc. But I enjoy the challenge of recruiting, in my case first seeking good players within a 100 miles radius and then looking later for players overlooked by other teams. There is also the portal, when you can gain or lose good players. In my current game started in early access I picked up a redshirt freshman 4-star QB in the portal and he led me in my latest season to the Sun Belt Conference championship game (we lost) and a minor bowl win. NIL, if you are wondering, is covered abstractly based on team prestige at this point. You go through spring training, setting different regimens for different player groups. You set depth charts and can set multiple formations. You can set your offensive and defensive strategies and vary it for different situations and teams. And you can even create custom playbooks instead of relying on your coach's playbooks. There are lots of stats and analytics. I enjoy the spreadsheet stuff more than doing actual in-game play by play. Like any game, it has its faults and weak points. But overall, though I won't rate this a great game, I would rate it a good game, well worth the money if you like college football sims. The game does not come with actual team mascots and logos, but there is an easy-to-install mod available at Wolverine Studios game site in the forums to take care of that. EDIT - I should add, as another reviewer did, that this year the game is now lightning fast with screen changes, with slow screen changing being one of the legit complaints about the game in the pasts.

Recommend. The one area of the game that everyone has agreed for years needed to be fixed has been fixed- Menu navigation speed. This alone makes this game the best out there. I have been waiting years for a football sim that I can sink hundreds of hours into and now it's finally here. I've been playing DDS college and pro since 2018 and I could never stay with the game for too long, getting frustrated with the menu navigation speed. There actually aren't screens anymore, but tabs you click on. The data loaded for every tab is instantly available (No lag whatsoever). The UI is very smooth and beautiful to look at. I hope the pro game is as good. I do not play the games out, rather simming them to play out the season making decisions on recruiting, so I cannot tell you about that aspect of the game.

I've been playing DDS games since 2020 and specifically the DDS:CF game since 2021.

I've long been an admirer of the franchise while at the same time being vocally frustrated at the speed the football games in particular played. I play either on a pc gaming rig or (as is mostly the case) on my Macbook Pro using Parallels. Screen changes on those systems used to run at 2-3 seconds on pc and 4-6 seconds on my Macbook. Both experiences were all too frequently immersion breaking.

That's not the case anymore! This version of the game, essentially totally rewritten by Brooks ( one of the lead developers) now runs lightening fast. For that reason alone I would classify it the best in the series but there's a lot of other improvements.

These include many updates to the UI, some subtle, some very obvious. Regardless they're the best yet IMHO. The base platform change and the UI improvements really do add to the overall UX playing the game and will be the launch pad for any future updates. Hopefully Brooks brings all these changes and more to the Pro game too.

Other improvements and additions include: Unlimited packages and changes to packages on the fly.

They listened to players not liking the dark skin - there's now a toggle for light skin.

The custom play maker works better, the playbooks and strategy screens are much tighter now.

The stats and history records keep getting better.

There's much more customization available including team creation etc.

I'm not certain but I think there's been improvements to the player regens. It was probably already one of the best in the industry but it just seems better too.

They added much more depth on coaches now in the game and I'm sure there will be ore expansion on this in future releases.

It's a lot of little things but overall it is just a lot more fun to play in the new environment and a lot easier to stay engaged.

It's also great that the real world mod by slybelle is already available.

Also, if you want to try the game free for 7 days, download the demo from their website, no need to worry about exceeding you Steam 3 hours.

I can't recommend enough the whole team at Draft Days Sports, these guys are a small team and always engaged with their fanbase and community on their own forums and Discord channel.

Top Sim series in general. League Commissioners can host online leagues really well.

cant even play it

This is an incredible football simulation game - not sure why it doesn't have more reviews.
Note to dev: The play/ simulation mode would be way better if you added the player icons & names into the circles like like you do with the 'Formation View' in the depth chart. Even just player names or #s would help so you can track who's where, but I think the player pictures would be a huge plus. Great game :)