Back in the Game

While July is usually a dormant time on the college football calendar, this year was a different experience — at least for video game fans.

Ending an 11-year hiatus, EA SPORTS returned to the collegiate gridiron with College Football 25. During a three-day early access period prior to the worldwide release on July 19, 2.2 million unique players started enjoying the new game, according to an Electronic Arts (EA) press release.

One of the year’s most anticipated and successful games is in part credited to the many Knights who work at EA SPORTS. From menu screens to online play, College Football 25 has Black & Gold fingerprints all over it.

Providing an Authentic Experience

With UCF’s football stadium located 25 minutes from EA’s studio in downtown Orlando’s Creative Village, the developer has college football source material in its backyard.

To capture the realism of game day in an electric college environment, EA SPORTS modeled and textured indoor and outdoor
environmental assets based on photographs taken at FBC Mortgage Stadium, often called the Bounce House. The production team used tools such as lidar (light detection and ranging) scanners to capture 3D models of the stadium and the lighting inside. They also used individual scanners to capture models ranging from trash cans to cleats.

Plus, EA SPORTS was also on hand for UCF’s 2023 Space Game against Oklahoma State University, researching crowd audio, stadium and natural lighting, and various textures.

The relationship between the university, the video game developer and the alumni who contributed to the game is seen in the details. An occasional Easter egg even appears when you play as the Knights on their home field; a rocket launches from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39, which aligns with the 50-yard line at FBC Mortgage Stadium.

“When UCF kicks off, you hear ‘U-C-F Knights!’ and that’s stuff that you wouldn’t hear unless you have boots on the ground and were able to be here to experience it,” says Senior Associate Athletics Director for #Content Eric DeSalvo ’09, who led UCF Athletics’ involvement with the game. “Because of [that], I think we can sneak a little bit more into the game.”

The Video Game Academy

Before UCF alumni worked on the game, many honed their skills through UCF’s graduate game design program, the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA). Housed at UCF Downtown, FIEA is the result of a collaboration that began in 2005 between EA, UCF and Orlando city leaders to meet a need by producing skilled talent for a growing industry. A total of 42 FIEA alumni are credited in the new game.

Among those FIEA alumni are Development Director Zachary Karlins ’19 and Kaitlin Bliss ’17, technical lead for the game’s Ultimate Team mode, an online format where players create teams comprising current and historical players. Karlins’ and Bliss’ roles included managing developers and ensuring the game was within its computing metrics, running at the proper speed and frame rate.

Karlins pursued a project management track during his studies at FIEA, where he led a team in creating a game as part of a capstone project. His experience in the program prepared him for his role at EA SPORTS, he says.

“[It’s so important to] have a school like FIEA where you are actually in an industry-simulated environment versus just reading textbooks and watching lectures,” Karlins says.

Before attending FIEA, Bliss was interested in a gaming career but did not have an extensive computer science background. The program brought her up to speed, teaching her about various stages of game production and allowing her to learn software used by developers at EA SPORTS.

“[FIEA faculty members] really do a good job at not just teaching you programming and those details, but how the industry works and what really goes into the development of a game,” Bliss says.

A Big Return

While more than a decade passed between College Football 25 and the last collegiate football game EA SPORTS made, NCAA Football 14, some Knights were able to work on both iconic games.

One of them is Chris Husein ’05, a senior experience design lead for EA who says this franchise has been his favorite to work on at the video-game company.

“[We] brought back small navigational patterns and elements from NCAA [Football] 14 just so it felt familiar for people who had picked that game up,” Husein says of College Football 25. “The design choices we made were intentional, where we look at, ‘What is the college vibe? What does that feel [like]?’ It’s raw. It’s rough. It’s gritty.”

A member of UCF’s Greater Orlando Community Alumni Board, Husein says he took extra pride in UCF-related design tasks for College Football 25, which were mainly creating the user experience and defining the visual identity in the menus and screens.

“We have such an incredibly talented group of people [from Knight Nation] at EA,” Husein says. “I’m just really proud that we were able to represent UCF that way.”