What are some of the best-looking games of all time? Many examples that come to my mind are not from this generation, but rather the early 2010s: Metal Gear Solid 5, The Witcher 3, and Batman: Arkham Knight all looked stunning upon release, and still do today.

To this list I would also add Ryse: Son of Rome, German developer Crytek’s ill-fated Xbox One launch title in which you play as a Roman centurion seeking to avenge his dead family. It is gloriously, mouth-wateringly cinematic, more so than many actual works of cinema.

Unfortunately, it’s also rather short, taking only around 6 hours to complete. Former employees say as much as two thirds of planned content had to be cut in the race to make launch day. The crunch was brutal, but many of the game’s creators took comfort in the knowledge they were laying the foundations for not just a sequel, but an entire franchise – one that would take us far beyond Rome.

How Empires Fall

While work on the original game was wrapping up, four concept artists, a historical researcher, and the key leadership team of Ryse: Son of Rome got together to figure out where they could take things moving forward.

Leading this group was Patrick Hanenberger, a production designer who had previously worked at DreamWorks. He’d initially been brought on board as a visual consultant to help make Ryse feel – as Crytek’s then-CEO Cevat Yerli used to say – like a “playable movie.” Later, he tells IGN, “they offered me a job as the franchise’s art director.”

Also set to be involved in some capacity was Todd Papy of Sony’s Santa Monica Studio. Papy joined Crytek in late 2013 after having directed God of War: Ascension to work on what was then reported to be an “unannounced project.” A former Crytek employee who spoke to IGN under condition of anonymity affirmed what was back then just speculation: that he would apply his experience with games set in ancient Greece to a game set in ancient Rome.

A lot of people were super keen on Japan, unsurprisingly. But that’s not like going from Rome to Greece. It would have been a big departure.

Whether any of the sequels would in fact be set in Rome was, however, the subject of debate. “Part of the conversations that were happening were about what it was that people were liking about Ryse,” Yannick Boucher, who served as one of the original game’s project managers, tells IGN. “Was it the Roman thing specifically, or history more generally? Do we stay in Rome, or go to some other empire?”

“I was super stoked to do a Viking game,” recalls Peter Gornstein, Ryse’s art director and director of cinematics. For one, the opportunities were endless: a game about Vikings could have taken players on raids along the English and French coasts, the shores of Newfoundland, and even the city of Constantinople, where they served as bodyguards to Byzantine emperors. It was also uncharted territory – at least back then. The History Channel’s Vikings TV show was still on its first season, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla nearly a decade away.

“It would have been great to explore a part of history that a lot of people didn’t yet know about,” says Gornstein.

Other settings that were reportedly considered included feudal Japan – Hanenberger mentions a number of events that interested him, including the failed Mongol invasions led by Kublai Khan, the arrival of European merchants, and the civil wars of the Sengoku period – as well as the Ottoman Empire, which defeated the Byzantines in 1453.

Not everyone was on board with leaving Rome. As Boucher puts it: “Some felt like we had just set the foundations for this IP, and now we were already diverging a bit. A lot of people were super keen on Japan, unsurprisingly. But that’s not like going from Rome to Greece. It would have been a big departure.”

Hanenberger thought of several ways to connect and justify expanding settings. Thematically, for example, the franchise could come to explore the question of “how empires rise and fall – and why.” He also considered tying each installment together narratively, with characters and events in one game linking back to another. Each story could be set in motion by that of the previous installment, like dominos. Or, you know, history itself.

Rhyming With History

Had those planned sequels happened, they would have featured a more open-ended design than the original Ryse. “When we talked about correcting some of that game’s weaknesses,” says Boucher, “changing the levels was among the first things that came up, as most of them were basically just a straight corridor.” The vision at the time was not far off from God of War 2018: not quite open-world, but not completely linear either.

The team also thought about introducing new game mechanics, many of them cut from or left out of the original Ryse due to time constraints, including vehicle navigation and a PVP multiplayer mode (Son of Rome ended up having both solo and co-op PVE where you fought off waves inside the Colosseum).

Microsoft told us it was the most cohesive and well-thought IP pitch they had ever seen.

The anonymous employee tells me they would have liked to have made single-player combat more dynamic. In parts of Ryse, when you venture into Britain to crush the rebellion of Queen Boudica, you advance in testudo formation, raising your shield alongside your fellow soldiers to form an impregnable barrier. In the final game, gameplay is limited to shielding yourself from enemy fire and returning fire of your own – all with the press of a button. “Our original plan was that you’d be able to leave and reenter this formation at will,” they say, “fighting enemies on your own and then returning to position when you feel like doing so.”

The sequels could have played around with other real-world military tactics, like the Parthian shot (where cavalry soldiers feign a full-speed retreat, only to turn around and firing arrows) or Kakuyoku (a Sengoku-era formation where a single defensive line turns into a pincer movement, attacking the enemy from both sides).

One area where the sequels would not diverge from the original Ryse was aesthetics. Son of Rome was not historically accurate, but it did aim for a certain emotional or psychological accuracy. As Gornstein puts it, they did not try to present Rome as it was, but as how it might have appeared to someone “who lived in a village somewhere, five hours away. To someone who visited the city for the first and only time in their life, everything must have seemed completely overwhelming.”

“It’s the same sensation as when, in the game, you go to York and Dover,” Hanenberger adds. “Those cliffs are awe-inspiring. That’s what we were trying to capture, and would have wanted to capture going forward.”

The original game wasn’t just larger-than-life, but also veered into the supernatural, with two seemingly mortal characters – Aquilo and Aestas – revealed to be gods, playing a secret game with people as their pawns. This supernatural element, says Gornstein, would have continued in the sequels, mapped onto different religions and mythologies. As in the original, though, their presence would have remained subtle, pushed into the background.

Ides of March

When Hanenberger and Gornstein pitched their franchise plan to Microsoft, the response was enthusiastic. “They told us it was ‘the most cohesive and well-thought IP pitch they had ever seen,’” Hanenberger recalls. “It all seemed to go very well.”

Until it didn’t.

According to the employees who spoke with IGN, the sequels to Ryse were never formally cancelled. Instead, work on the franchise simply stopped after the original game underperformed both critically and commercially – an outcome that perhaps could have been avoided had the developers not been required to finish the game before the launch of the Xbox One.

Ultimately, the reason the Ryse series ended up in limbo is because Crytek refused to sell the IP to Microsoft. The conglomerate no longer wanted to finance the franchise if they couldn’t buy the rights, while Crytek – to this day a privately owned company – wouldn’t work on something that somebody else owned. As a result of this impasse, the two parted ways, and Crytek switched focus to other projects.

For those who worked on the game, feelings towards Ryse are bittersweet. “The last month, I worked 30 days straight,” Boucher remembers. “Then we breathed a sigh of relief, only to get hit with a 60 on Metacritic.”

At the same time, working on Ryse taught them valuable lessons that they took with them as they went on to work on titles like Hitman, Battlefield 1, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

While Ryse didn’t make the impact that Crytek had hoped for, it still sold more than a million copies upon release. Over time, the game also grew a dedicated cult following that loves it for everything the developers got right. As someone who counts himself among this following, I think I speak for many when I say that wherever this franchise would have led, I would have followed.

Tim Brinkhof is a freelance writer specializing in art and history. After studying journalism at NYU, he has gone on to write for Vox, Vulture, Slate, Polygon, GQ, Esquire and more.

Bethesda was hit hard by this week’s Xbox layoffs, with cuts to The Elder Scrolls and Fallout developer Bethesda Game Studios, Doom developer id Software, and The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios, among other parts of the business.

A Maryland WARN Act notice shows 213 employees were laid off from ZOS's office in Cockeysville, MD, and 166 from ZeniMax Media Inc. in Rockville, MD, for a total of 379. 96 staff who worked at id Software's office in Richardson, Texas, were cut, alongside a further 40 remote roles. While it’s difficult to pin down exactly what the affected staff were working on at these studios because there are blended teams across Bethesda locations, the WARN numbers undoubtedly make for difficult reading.

The restructure at Xbox — 1,600 staff lost their jobs on Monday, with another 1,600 to go over the course of the next 12 months — has called into question the future of not just the studios Microsoft has on its books, but the quality of the games it’s working on. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s strategy is clear: studios will collaborate more closely from now on, with a focus on bigger franchises such as Halo, Minecraft, Candy Crush, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls. As revealed by IGN this week, in an email to Bethesda staff sent following Sharma's memo on Monday, Bethesda boss Jill Braff said the layoffs and change in strategy “reflect the realities of our industry and business – and our responsibility to ensure Bethesda is operating from a more stable foundation.”

"To be successful in the future, we need to change course,” Braff continued. “We must strengthen our business, return to sustainable growth, and ensure we can continue investing in our franchises and our players. I know that doesn't make a day like today any easier.”

But what does that actually mean for Bethesda going forward? Without naming games, Braff said “to best position Bethesda for future growth, we are shifting from a planning model primarily centered on what's next for each independent studio to one that focuses on our strongest franchises and determining the content roadmap that best serves our players and Bethesda as a whole.”

“From there, we’ll align the right talent, technology, and resources across the organization to deliver on those priorities,” Braff added.

While Xbox sorts its new strategy out, remaining staff are left to wonder if they will be next as part of future rounds of layoffs. After all, Microsoft still has over 1,000 Xbox staff to cut before the end of its financial year. It is an anxious time across Xbox, as it is across the wider video game industry.

The Elder Scrolls 6 — what’s happening with it?

This week, IGN reported on concern expressed by staff at BGS that the Xbox layoffs would have a "substantial and cascading effect" on the development of The Elder Scrolls 6. Morale took a hit, we heard, and there were fears of future development crunch. The Elder Scrolls 6 is reportedly at least two more years away from release, despite being announced in 2018, and there are fears it could even be delayed.

"There is a fear that we are going to be replaced by cheaper, contracted labor, or we will hire folks to replace them that will need to be onboarded (our tools are proprietary, other devs aren't going to know how they work) resulting in more delays, and we'll need to crunch to make up the time," one Bethesda developer told IGN.

"We've all been very excited and hyped for TES 6 and this has had a crushing effect on morale," said another staff member. "We were already running a tight ship and are worried about this delaying the game (though a final release date was not yet chosen as far as we know)."

Meanwhile, the BGS union, OneBGS, plans to march outside the studio’s four offices (Rockville, Austin, Dallas, and Montreal) on July 15. In a note sent to IGN, the union said 35 positions at BGS were cut in the U.S. and at least 12 more in Montreal, Canada.

“Microsoft and BGS are trying to frame these 35 cuts as an ‘entrepreneurial change in the scope of business,’ claiming they are transitioning from a ‘studio-based business model to a franchise-based model’ to dodge their legal obligation to bargain the decision with us,” the union alleged. “We completely reject this corporate wordplay. Changing a title on a PowerPoint slide does not erase our legal right to a say in our working conditions.”

As OneBGS sets out to apply pressure on Microsoft to negotiate how these layoffs will impact staff, work on games continues, even under such difficult circumstances. A source familiar with Bethesda’s restructure expressed confidence in BGS’ continued ability to develop The Elder Scrolls 6, and insisted the studio's plans and ambitions for the hotly anticipated RPG remained the same, despite the layoffs.

Anything can — and usually does — change during video game development, so it’s impossible to say now if The Elder Scrolls 6 will suffer a delay, either internally or publically. But as it stands, the game is said to be on track, even if being on track means it’s two years away from release.

Fallout 5, Fallout 76, Fallout Shelter, and a Fallout game from Obsidian, with more Fallout to come

Bloomberg has reported that Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment is now working on a new Fallout game having suffered from the Xbox layoffs itself. Bethesda is said to be working to support Obsidian on development of this Fallout game. It is a clear signal of intent: Sharma wants Bethesda to do more Fallout more quickly.

A source familiar with the plans told IGN that there are several Fallout projects in development across Bethesda and its partners, including Fallout 5. It feels ridiculous to consider Fallout 5 right now, but Bethesda development chief Todd Howard has spoken openly about it coming after The Elder Scrolls 6, and has confirmed that it will take into account the canon events of the Fallout TV series. The intention is very much for Fallout 5 to be released, eventually.

The “live” Fallout project is Fallout 76, which IGN understands remains a significant operation, and there are no changes to that development team’s plans as of yet. A source said Fallout 76 still has hundreds of developers working on it, and the multiplayer game retains millions of players.

Meanwhile, Fallout Shelter is alive and kicking. And of course, Amazon’s Fallout TV show continues, with Season 3 filming now. The existence of a Fallout 3 remaster is an open secret at this point.

Sharma’s new drive for collaboration across Xbox studios on its biggest franchises applies to Fallout, as you'd expect, and the Obsidian Fallout game is a part of that. And there is a lot more Fallout coming from BGS, too. The question is, how fast can new Fallout projects be turned around?

Concern over The Elder Scrolls Online

One game that has undoubtedly been impacted by the Xbox layoffs is The Elder Scrolls Online, whose development roadmap was forced to change as a result. It’s unclear exactly how many staff directly working on ESO were cut, but there is justifiable concern about the fate of those who remain, as well as the game itself.

A source familiar with the situation at the studio told IGN that ZOS is supporting the new season model for ESO while also looking for ways to collaborate more closely with BGS to support the Elder Scrolls franchise as a whole, which sounds to me like helping get The Elder Scrolls 6 out the door.

What next for Starfield?

Following the announcement of the Xbox layoffs, fans were quick to point out that Starfield was absent from Bethesda's priority list. Starfield largely failed to meet fan expectations upon its 2023 launch, and subsequent updates and expansions haven't really moved the needle. Still, some of the game's more hardcore fans had hoped that Starfield would go on to at least get more expansions, and maybe even a sequel, establishing itself as Bethesda's third franchise. Sources told IGN that there are no changes to the current Starfield roadmap, and the team is still working on updates and content. What that means exactly, remains unclear. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is reportedly in the works.

Hope for Arkane and Marvel’s Blade to survive

Microsoft has said Arkane Lyon studio management had begun a consultation with the Works Council in France to "review potential strategic options.” Le Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV), the French non-representative independent video game workers union, told IGN it was waiting for an internal meeting between studio leadership and worker representatives to learn more.

The situation with Arkane Lyon, developer of Deathloop, could drag on for some time, leaving staff facing an anxious wait to discover their fate. But the hope is the studio will eventually find a buyer, as Hellblade developer Ninja Theory and State of Decay developer Undead Labs have done, and that Blade will see the light of day.

IGN understands that prior to this week's layoffs, Blade was on track for a reveal early next year and a release Q4 2027. IGN has asked Marvel Games for comment but it has yet to respond.

id Software hopes to make great games again

Today, Doom developer id Software issued a statement responding to the layoffs, saying it was now at the staffing level it had back when it made the much-loved 2016 Doom reboot. It also insisted it was still capable of making “great games,” and pushed back on the suggestion that there’s essentially no-one left at the company working on id Tech, the game engine it and fellow Bethesda-owned studio MachineGames uses to build their games. Xbox confirmed to IGN that "there are dozens of people working on id Tech across multiple locations," and that previous reports that there was only one person left in Texas are "inaccurate."

Here’s the statement in full, posted to id Software's X / Twitter page:

Thank you all for the support this week.While our studio was impacted, those changes were spread across teams. We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we're known for. The team today is about the same size we were when making Doom 2016. We have always had a flat studio where everyone is a maker, and we will remain true to that philosophy moving forward.We are focused on supporting each other and the team members impacted. We're going to keep building the great games and tech that have defined us for the past 35 years, and we're looking forward to seeing you at QuakeCon this August.

While id Software currently has no announced project following the release of Doom: The Dark Ages and its DLC, IGN understands that the studio is prototyping a number of potential projects, with the belief it is still capable of building its own games. According to GamesBeat, id was formulating new game ideas, such as a John Wick-style original IP, a new Perfect Dark game, and a multiplayer / co-op Doom game, before the layoffs hit.

MachineGames safe for now

MachineGames was unaffected by this week’s layoffs, with Wolfenstein 3 in the works. But as a European studio (it’s based in Sweden), it may face cuts further down the line, cuts that would have to abide by local labor law, leaving staff looking over their shoulder even as they build a new shooter. A sequel to the well-received Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, however, remains up in the air, despite it setting up another entry.

Big questions remain for Bethesda, and for Xbox

Xbox staff have been on the receiving end of a bloodbath this week. By Asha Sharma’s admission, it is “the most significant restructure in Xbox history.” Microsoft’s gaming business faces profound questions it must answer over the next few years, not just on its ability to grow profit, as Sharma has said Xbox must, but on its ability to make hit games and grow Game Pass. Some are speculating that Microsoft could sell Xbox off, spin it off as a wholly-owned subsidiary, partner with another company to run it as a join venture, or sell parts of the business to the highest bidders. Then there’s the hardware “crisis,” which could see the next-gen Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, cost north of $1,000.

Could The Elder Scrolls 6 launch alongside it?

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

UPDATE 6:03 p.m. PT: EA has confirmed plans to remove "all paid progression options from Road to Glory and Online Dynasty" in EA Sports College Football 27 after players launched the CFBPlayNotPay campaign against offline microtransactions.

The publisher announced plans to respond to community feedback with a statement posted on social media. It's a decision that will see the changes go into effect starting "tomorrow morning," July 11, 2026, just five days after College Football 27 launched in early access for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X | S July 6.

EA says "an unfortunate side effect" of the removal of the paid progression options in question is that those with existing College Point balances will no longer be able to use their points in Road to Glory or Dynasty. The note encourages players with points to apply them before the changes go into effect.

Many players in the community, including content creator Bordeaux, have already thanked EA for pulling paid progression from the game. You can see the publisher's full statement below.

Happy College Football 27 Launch Week

Thank you for your continued passion and for the incredible response to College Football 27.

We love this game and this sport. College Football is and always will be about the sights, sounds, pageantry, traditions, and atmospheres of Saturday. In College Football 27, we aspired to deliver the deepest experience to date with all-new Dynasty Blueprint, new positions in Road to Glory, and the best College Football gameplay yet. However, your feedback on Road to Glory and Dynasty is that we've missed the mark with the introduction of paid progression options. This was added independent of deeper mode progression with the aim to give players more choice, but what you've said is that they're not adding the value we intended.

Tomorrow morning, we will remove all paid progression options from Road to Glory and Online Dynasty. An unfortunate side effect of removing paid progression is that players that have College Point balances in their wallets will not be able to apply the balances in Road to Glory or Dynasty – so jump in between now and then and apply your points!

Our goal for live service plans in CFB28 and beyond will be to deliver valuable features and content with greater transparency and communication.

We're moving fast to respond to your feedback in-game so stay tuned for follow-up communications next week where we'll take you through more design details and share our goals for College Football 27.

We love this game. We love this community. We love college football. CFB27 is our third and best CFB ever and we can't wait to see you on the field.

- Your Dev Team #CFBGoPlay

An update from the College Football 27 Team. #CFBGoPlay pic.twitter.com/00b4TZrlPR

— College Football 27 (@EASPORTSCollege) July 11, 2026

ORIGINAL STORY: EA Sports College Football 27 has launched to "Mostly Negative" Steam reviews as fans revolt against pricey microtransactions in offline game modes.

The latest in EA's line of College Football video games immediately came under fire when it launched for early access on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X | S July 6. It all stems from the removal of features for the Road to Glory and Dynasty modes in favor of microtransactions that range from $9.99 to $149.99.

In College Football 25 and 26, offline versions of these modes allowed players to customize their experience by using settings to boost XP gain. In College Football 27, EA has gutted those settings, replacing them with the option to spend real-world money to increase things like a player's coach level.

As outlined by content creator Bordeaux, who has helped push the #CFBPlayDontPay movement, this year's College Football entry asks players to spend as much as $100 to reach the max coach level of 100. The fact that these options were added without much of a heads-up, with some content creators alleging that microtransactions were not mentioned in pre-launch builds, has only made matters worse.

"It makes me sick that you spent years building up community trust, saying that this was our game, this is all for us," Bordeaux said. "Nobody, not a single person out there was like, 'What would make our game better? What would make me want to play College Football more? Oh, I know. Being able to buy coach levels. Being able to buy upgrades for my player that is now way too slow to upgrade.'"

As controversy strikes, players have gone to the one place that allows them to make their voices heard: the Steam reviews section. Online conversation surrounding College Football 27 since launch has been consumed by this community campaign as it seeks to push EA to walk back microtransactions and bring back those in-game XP modifiers. Now, just 22% of the reviews for College Football 27 are positive, earning it that auburn Mostly Negative marker.

Not only is almost every creator speaking out, but so is your entire community

I’m extremely proud with how everybody has come together #CFBPlayDontPay pic.twitter.com/pJvhHsuRuB

— Bordeaux (@bordeauxyoutube) July 9, 2026

Dusted off an old friend today. How far we’ve come yet how far we have fallen #CFBPlayDontPay pic.twitter.com/WBEqBofk1u

— 🎱 (@LegacyOcho) July 9, 2026

"#CFBPlayDontPay," one review said. "Adding microtransactions to offline Road to Glory & offline Dynasty modes is insane. I will never spend another dime on any future CFB games if this is not reverted. Happy this one came to PC but this will be the last. Thanks EA for ruining what another game franchise! Greedy mfs."

Steam user ShaqOatmeal agreed with Bordeaux – in terms of raw gameplay, the 2027 College Football entry is exceptionally well-made. That didn't stop them from leaving a negative review.

"However, due to EA having biblical levels of greed and their response to all the backlash introducing microtransactions to offline game modes I will not be recommending this to anyone," they explained. "EA needs to be stripped of their exclusive rights to produce these games and let it fall into the hands of another publisher that won’t **** its casual player base over. They’ve been doing this microtransaction BS for YEARS on Madden and now they’re starting with CFB. It’s unacceptable. If you haven’t already bought the game don’t buy it now."

EA did eventually respond to the backlash, saying an upcoming patch would include new XP settings in Road to Glory and Dynasty. For the latter, players can expect new options that allow for up to 1.5x XP, while experience earned in the latter will be tied to the difficulty levels. What might seem to a walking back has done little to quell concerns.

imagine being 8 years old and loading up College Football 27 to play out a career in Road to Glory

you put in on Freshman difficulty, because you are EIGHT, and you are punished with less XP gains than people who play on Heisman

Now you hate College Football games for the rest… https://t.co/jNTsYpYyWO pic.twitter.com/U6iD9M2qKB

— Bordeaux (@bordeauxyoutube) July 9, 2026

Can’t wait to spent $80 to buy a non-physical copy of a game I don’t actually own so I can boot it up and be heavily incentivized to pay more money if I want to experience key features like leveling up my player.

The future of gaming looks bright! #cfbplaydontpay https://t.co/6qndFp9c15

— Clokus (@ItsClokus) July 9, 2026

Those new XP options seem to be slower than what was previously available, and some choice wording makes it clear that players will be discouraged from trying out easier difficulties. Bordeaux and the countless fans supporting #CFBPlayDontPay said they aren't backing down, with many hoping EA opts to remove microtransactions entirely.

"This is the phrasing that just sets me off," the content creator said regarding EA's confirmation that disabling player Wear & Tear would affect XP gain. "This is an offline – an offline Road to Glory mode – why the f**k are we worried about offsetting the gameplay advantage? Read between the lines. We all know what the actual reason is. We know where this is headed in the future if things don't change, if things are not reverted."

As negative reviews pour in and accusations of pay-to-win microtransactions in single-player modes mount, it's unclear if EA has any plan to walk back its strategy in a way that will make players happy. For now, many are asking disgruntled fans to be thoughtful about where they direct their calls for change.

"Devs did good but removing a feature and making people pay to replicate it in an OFFLINE mode is the most awful, EA thing to do to this game," another Steam review said. "#CFBPlayNotPay"

The thing that @EASPORTSCollege doesn't understand about Dynasty and Road to Glory #CFBPlayDontPay pic.twitter.com/qIjEPVr4E7

— Bengal (@BengalYouTube) July 9, 2026

I am a CUT player but i stand with my dynasty and road to glory brothers! I am not buying another pack until microtransactions are removed or the XP sliders are added back into Dynasty/RTG #CFBPLAYDONTPAY

— Dyl (@Dyl_TV) July 7, 2026

"Before I continue to rip into EA, I'm ripping into the higher-ups, here," Bordeaux said in his initial video. "I'm not ripping into the devs. It is not the devs' fault. It's not their decisions that are leading to these microtransactions. It's someone higher up that is saying, 'We need to make more money. Let's get more revenue out of this. Maybe Ultimate Team in CUT (College Ultimate Team) isn't cutting it because no one cares about College Ultimate Team.'

"But I'm not blaming the devs. The devs did an amazing job, and that is the part that sucks to me the most. This is the best game they have put out. It's not even close. There is the least amount of bugs – there's still a couple huge ones, and I am sure they'll get to it – but the devs cooked. The devs did a good job, and it is all going to be overshadowed because of this microtransaction slop that they've put in."

IGN gave EA Sports College Football 27 a 7/10 review. We said, "This season ain’t gonna knock anybody’s socks off, and both Dynasty and Road to Glory have leaned hard into spreadsheet management this year, but smart on-field additions to an already good game make College Football 27 worth suiting up for once again."

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).