Dynasty Mode, in my opinion, is the lifeblood of the College Football gaming experience. Having full control over your favorite team, picking a small school and taking them to the top, or just making your own school and making it a super-power; it’s one of the best ways to play a sports game.
Today, EA showcased their College Football 26 Dynasty Deep Dive where Chad Walker, Producer, and Ben Haumiller, Principal Game Designer took us along for a ride to see everything new coming to College Football 26’s Dynasty Mode. I’ll share some of my favorite changes and updates and check out our interview with Ben Haumiller during the College Football 26 Preview Event.
CREATE YOUR COACHThis year, existing coaches are now authentic real-life head coaches and coordinators, with more than 300 authentic coaches. Each one comes equipped with their authentic playbook, scheme, playcalling tendencies, historical career stats, and archetypes and abilities that reflect their coaching skillset…If you choose to build your own coach, we’ve added new ways to customize your appearance. New gear options let you show off your drip and deck your coach out in everything from a hoodie and joggers to a quarter zip and jeans. If you’re really feeling nicey, you can grace the sidelines with a sleeveless shirt and shorts that lets everyone know you mean business
I LOVE when you can fully customize your coach, and it seems like we’ll have plenty of options to do so. The ability to either copy a coach you’ve admired, or fully do your own look, is up to you. It’s also great that they’ve made the leap into having actual coaches in the game so we can see where coaches go after their current landing spot. Should make for some great fun!
COACH CAROUSELYou’ll now receive notifications when your coordinators accept or decline job offers, as well as alerts when one is poached for a new opportunity. Whether they’re leaving for a promotion or jumping ship unexpectedly, you’ll stay informed and ready to react.With coordinators playing such a pivotal role in your team’s performance and your coach’s overall development, we’ve added three new Program Builder abilities that give you more control over the hiring and retention process:⦁ Forever Home: Your coordinators are less likely to leave for another job.
⦁ Deal Sweetener: Coordinators are more likely to accept your job offer.
⦁ Cream of the Crop: Increases the caliber of coordinators available for you to hire.We’ve also rebalanced offer logic so that head coaches at top-tier programs now receive better and more consistent job opportunities when the carousel spins. If you’ve earned your spot among the elite, the market will better reflect it.Finally, within the Staff Moves screen, you can now view each coach’s previous role and school, their new role and destination, and the reason for the job change. Whether they were promoted, fired, or simply found a better fit, you’ll have more context for every coaching movement.
I love the story-telling aspects of Dynasty Mode almost as much as playing through the game itself. The new additions for the Coaching Carousel will make for some interesting storylines, especially with actual coaches added? Will Josh Heupel stay in Tennessee? Will Kirby Smart stick with the Bulldogs? Only the Coaching Carousel can tell us!
FILLING OUT YOUR TROPHY ROOMAs you play through Dynasty, every time you win a rivalry game, bowl game, conference championship, national championship, or earn an individual award, you will receive a notification and the trophy will be added to your Trophy Room. You can access it anytime from the Dynasty Hub, or from the main menu and your global profile.Each Dynasty you create has its own dedicated Trophy Room tied to your coach, tracking every trophy you’ve earned. For team-based achievements, you’ll see the season year, team, opponent, and final score of the game. For individual awards, you’ll see the player who won, the team they were on, and the year they took home the hardware.
This is huge for players like me who can now put down the notepad and pen and stop writing every achievement throughout the playthrough. This also looks fabulous and I’m very happy it’ll be tied to each individual playthrough and coach specifically.
BUILD YOUR PROGRAMTalent acquisition and roster management remain at the forefront of College Football. How you approach building and keeping your roster has never been more important. The transfer portal continues to grow and evolve, becoming an even bigger force in shaping programs across the country. Whether you’re reloading through high school recruiting or retooling through the portal, your success depends on how well you execute your strategy and continue to evolve with players ever changing expectations.
There is so much here I can’t talk about it all, but these changes will make the recruiting, transfer portal, and everything team-building feel more alive than ever before. One small detail I want to point out is the bar at the top of the screen in some areas that will say team needs. This, again, stops me from having to get out pen and paper in order to write down every position I need to upgrade.
These small things matter and it tells me as a player that the developers are concentrating on all aspects of the game. You can tell they listen to feedback from their player-base. I can say that because they were literally calling out people in the audience telling them when something they heard them say came up in the presentation.
POSITION CHANGESPosition changes are a key part of building and evolving a roster in Dynasty Mode, but transitioning to a new role isn’t always seamless. When a player moves to a new role they must learn a new position and skillset — one that may not directly translate from their previous experience. While they can certainly grow into the role over time, that development doesn’t happen overnight. To better reflect, now when a player changes positions, they will only retain abilities that are shared between their previous archetype and the new one.
This was one that quite a lot of the player-base had an issue with in College Football 25 and now in College Football 26, it should be much better. No more changing players to random positions and them being cheat codes. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out for CFB26.
MANAGING WEAR AND TEARMuch like a boxer, a football player’s body can only take so many hits before it starts to break down. It’s not just about whether a player is injured — it’s about how their body responds to the physical demands of the season. Every hit adds up and as our friend OG says “not all hits are created equal”. Some players are able to endure the wear and tear over the long term, while others wear down under the weight of repeated impacts.
Easy one here: don’t run your Freshman running back 180 times every season and break him before he even reaches the NFL. Last year, we gained the skills and understanding to know what Wear-and-Tear was, this year, we’ll need to actually manage this long term. I’m such a fan of this change as Dynasty Mode could be cheated a bit when you find a star WR, workhorse back, etc. Let’s see how this change does for CFB26!
Lastly, I want to bring up the ability to modify your game in almost every way. Don’t like Wear and Tear? Turn it down. Want tackles to be more frequent and interceptions happen almost every pass so you HAVE to be accurate on every throw? Turn those sliders UP! I’m such a fan of being able to control the simulation the way I want to play that day.
I cannot talk about it all, so make sure you’re reading the full blog here!
Stay tuned to GamingTrend for all your College Football 26 news, reviews, and interviews!
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