EA Sports’ College Football 25 marks the return of a beloved sports sim franchise and according to Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson, the game couldn’t have been made without developers leveraging machine learning and AI-driven technology.
In an investor call on Tuesday, Wilson said in prepared remarks that “creating 150 unique stadiums and over 11,000 player likenesses (for College Football 25) would not have been possible without EA’s rich history as a technology leader and our incredibly passionate and talented teams who harness the power of AI and machine learning.”
Wilson later clarified those commentsand said that the player likenesses — which he called “heads” — and stadiums weren’t generated purely by AI and machine learning. EA’s “very talented artists” supplemented that algorithmic work by updating and improving player likenesses, Wilson said, rather than “having to go through full core development programs.”
Wilson noted that “in any given year, (EA) will develop somewhere between 500 and 1,000 star heads” for one of its sports games. The 11,000 needed to represent the players who played in College Football 25 was clearly a much bigger challenge.
“Without AI we simply wouldn’t have been able to deliver this College football “At the level we did, even though we gave the team many, many years to develop,” Wilson concluded.
“It was a decision we made because we were really building the franchise for the future,” Wilson said. “It was the first time in 10 years that we’d done it, and the level of gameplay and the level of visual fidelity that we did was a combination of many years of work from our incredible teams, amplified and accelerated by AI, something that we just couldn’t have done two or three years ago.”
That the reliance on AI and machine learning will not be limited to College Football 25Wilson noted. The EA CEO said this year’s sequel EA Sport FC 24the replacement for the FIFA franchise, will also use AI technology.
“Following a historic brand relaunch embraced by players, fans and partners around the world, EA Sport FC 25 “It will be a big step forward,” Wilson said.FC25 will feature more innovation, as well as more realistic and authentic gameplay, powered by enhanced tactical refinement using AI and real football data.”
College Football 25 is now available for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.