Michigan running back Donovan Edwards, Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers and Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter are among the six players displayed on the cover of the EA Sports College Football 25, which is set to return after being discontinued 11 years ago.
The cover for the deluxe edition of the popular video game was posted at the online PlayStation Store on Friday. No official release date has been set, but the game is expected to be out this summer before the start of the college football season. The game will feature all 134 major college football schools.
College Football 25 will be the first version of EA Sports’ college football franchise to be released since 2013, when the game stopped being made amid lawsuits accusing it of using players’ likeness without paying them. The NCAA’s approval in 2021 of players being able to profit from their brand opened the door for the game to be made again.
The cover features the backs of numerous players in easily identifiable college football uniforms in a stadium tunnel, with the names on the backs of the jerseys of six players. Along with Edwards, Ewers and Hunter, Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe, Georgia quarterback Carson Beck and Ohio State running back Quinshon Judkins are featured.
The video-game developer offered FBS players a minimum of $600 and a copy of the game to have their likeness included in it. It also offered some players name, image and likeness deals to promote the game through an ambassador program. It wasn’t immediately clear how much a cover-athlete deal was worth.
More than 11,000 players have accepted offers to be in the game.
For those who declined an offer, EA sports has said a generic player would be created in their place. The developer also said gamers would be blocked from manually adding those players who opted out. It didn’t say how it planned to do that.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football