Remember last summer when gamers were messing themselves over the return of NCAA Football on most major consoles? Get yourself ready, because it’s happening again, this time with the roundball sibling from EA Sports back in the fold (link).
The details at this point are incredibly thin, other than a general release date of 2028, which is like a million years away. No word on features, teams, or really anything other than it’s coming and it’s not going to be for a while, but anything is better than nothing and it at least gives a glimmer of hope that all is not lost for college basketball video game players.
This may be an unpopular opinion but for me, the NCAA basketball video games were generally better than the NCAA football ones. The controversy exists with the fact that both EA and 2k put out a college basketball game and most regarded 2k’s version as the superior presentation and execution. At its core, it seemed like the basketball franchises just never got much attention, resources, or fanfare, so here’s to hoping that this new version will capitalize on the current console capabilities and deliver an exciting option for college basketball fans.
Some things that I hope are in the game:
- Conference realignment
- NIL recruiting
- Coaching mode/carousel
- Actual arenas/sounds/chants/bands
- All the teams in D1
- Historical players and coaches
Now, some of that is a pipe dream and likely not realistic, but one need only look at the NCAA Football series to see how deep something can go. Admittedly, the first version of the return of NCAA Football wasn’t without issue and the game had no hope of living up to its intensely high expectations, but year 2 (coming out next week) seems like a much improved and more feature heavy version. So, let’s hope the long runway gives the developers time to really come up with something incredible. I have hope.
