Something that continues to come up right now on the forums as we move towards the full reveal of EA Sports College Football 25 next month is the import draft class feature and whether you’ll be able to import draft classes from EA Sports College Football 25 to Madden.
Nostalgia is powerful, and it’s working overtime on the forums right now because this import draft class feature continues to come up. Its inclusion in EA’s next set of games is a total mystery, and I’m personally dubious about its chances of making it into this year’s game. I don’t say that to be negative, just logical. I’m not sure if the licensing agreements EA has with college athletes will allow them to appear in anything beyond the college game.
It goes beyond the potential legal issues as well. We remember importing draft classes with such fond memories (and it was a great feature), but that feature did not exactly work right by the end of things either. The irony is the last version of Madden we got to use the feature in was Madden 25, only that was the version that came out in 2013 (and was named Madden 25 to tie in to its 25th anniversary). Whatever Madden ends up being called this year, it’s a full-circle moment that we’re getting EA Sports College Football 25 back to sync up once more with Madden 2025.
But with Madden 25, the “old” franchise mode system had been tossed aside for Connected Franchise. That had various knock-on effects all over the place, but it really messed up the import draft class feature when bringing over draft classes from NCAA Football 14. You can even see major issues with the feature if you go back to NCAA Football 13. I won’t go into all the bugs, but basically the continuity between the games was a bit messy. Really good players would go undrafted and various other things would make it so you had to do a lot of work to make the classes make sense between games.
Regardless, this is why nostalgia factors into things here. People absolutely want this feature, but also what they want back is a certain feeling. When this feature was truly special, it really caught hold during the PS2/Xbox era. That’s the golden age of football games, and it’s what a lot of older players still look back on and hope to get back to one day.
We’re never getting that back (sorry!). I’m not even trying to be pessimistic when I say that, it’s just how nostalgia works. The memory is always going to be more powerful. At least, that’s how someone who grew up reading The Great Gatsby or seen The Wheel, an iconic episode of Mad Men is prone to think about these things.
But that’s also the point. Iconic features like this are about more than just the feature. Import draft class is like Sounds of the Show or carryover saves in MLB The Show. They’re features that in a vacuum not everyone notices, or uses, or cares about but they signify something more. They are special and unique. And when they’re gone or don’t return, it’s the proof that “things used to be better.” And look that’s a complicated phrase because it goes back to the nostalgia, but that’s how we end up going in a circle here.
Not everything that gets cut or doesn’t return is created equal. Certain things just matter more. And even if the import draft class feature was largely bugged and not very usable by the end of its run in NCAA Football and Madden, it still mattered. And it’s not enough to just take your Road to Glory player and import it into the Madden career mode. No, it needs to be a full-on feature.
We’ve had this poll going on OS showing that at least some folks have no interest in buying just Madden this year. They’re either going to buy both football games or just EA Sports College Football 25. But with the import draft class feature in the game, more say they would buy both games. That’s the sort of data that matters.
Whether users want to continue to build the stories they’ve created in the college game or just want the realism of having the real top college players make it into their franchise modes, people on OS are hungry for this feature in a way they’re not for other features that would impact their game-to-game experience much more.
In short, being able to import a draft class just matters more. It would be one of the ultimate signs that EA is taking this endeavor very seriously and wants to at least try to make everyone remember that golden era of football video games once more.
