Like EA SPORTS College Football 26 before it, the name of the game this year is authenticity. To be completely fair and honest, this is probably the biggest focus every year for AAA sports games. But again, like College Football 26, what actually makes the focus on authenticity important is the way it affects gameplay.

NFL atmosphere doesn’t come close to the pageantry of college football, but it does have a vibe. The presentation of an NFL broadcast is absolutely huge. When it’s football season, FOX NFL Sunday’s theme music absolutely fires me up. Madden has its network jingle and while it isn’t as timeless, it’s still been around long enough to feel inherently Madden.

Madden also brings in stadium traditions like what College Football has for the teams with such history. If you’re a Seahawks fan, you can expect the 12th Man flag raised. Vikings fans can expect Randy Moss to blow on the Gjallarhorn. And yes, the “bang bang” fans can expect Joe Montana to blare that annoying foghorn.

As Seen On TV

Getting back to the broadcast presentation a little bit, Madden 26 does two things I really like–though one is broken and has been broken for a while. To give Primetime games that special feel with the presentation, the game includes three separate packages for Thursday, Sunday, and Monday Night Football. They aren’t using Amazon, NBC, or ESPN’s score bugs or visuals, but they definitely have that almost theatrical primetime feel. Charles Davis and Brandon Gaudin, Kate Scott and Brock Huard, and Mike Tirico and Greg Olsen also come back as separate commentary teams. The multiple commentary teams thing started last year, and this is something I had been wanting for years. That said, I want more. I know Kevin Harlan is doing NBA 2K, but they need to find a way to put him in here. I’m not a fan, but Joe Buck and Troy Aikman would definitely be welcome.

Another thing that I’ve wished for in regards to the presentation is a better halftime show. EA Sports simply outdid themselves with the halftime show and the brand new Weekly Recap both found in Franchise, hosted by Scott Hanson. Not only are scores and stats from around the league shown, but actual highlights from those games are also shown, even if they were completely played by the CPU. The problem is, at least on PS5, after the halftime show is over, the game freezes. It’s so bad that you actually have to turn the PS5 off and on to get back into the game. I’ve heard this not be the case for several people, but I think this is something for players who use multiple teams in one franchise. That said, Weekly Recap works great.

Presentation Affects Gameplay

The game’s presentation impacts the gameplay on the field in two ways. The most obvious and clear of which is in the weather. In previous Maddens, it was mostly cosmetic. While the snowy and rainy games definitely look better than ever, they actually do impact play quite significantly now. If you’re playing in a blizzard, you’ll have trouble seeing receivers downfield. A lot of throws can go nowhere in bad weather. Even running the ball in a downpour is a risk because of more frequent fumbles and players slipping.

The last thing about presentation I want to talk about might not be part of the presentation. Madden 26 features brand new, AI-driven QB DNA and Coach DNA. AI? While I hate that in most instances, it makes sense here. Josh Allen is a freak of nature with a big body and big arm who can deliver punishment with his throws and his legs, so he’ll definitely run if there’s no better option downfield. We all know about Dan Campbell and how he has Detroit go for it on everything under 4th and 5. My first game even came against the Lions, and I lost in All-Pro because they kept converting 4th down. That was annoying. It changes the way you play, and I don’t hate it because these are worthwhile factors that actually are real puzzles in the league.

Madden’s Real Meat

Let’s move on to the real meat of Madden. I’m not talking about six-legged turducken, though that sounds delicious. I’m talking about what makes people play Madden. While there’s a whole mess of modes to play, the main ones people care about are MUT and Franchise. I’m not going to talk about MUT, because I think MUT sucks and it’s one of the things that’s ruined the industry. I get that it pays all the bills these days, but that’s not why I pay for Madden. I’d argue this is a reason why Madden might as well go free-to-play. and we all know I’m not the only one that thinks that.

Last year’s Franchise Mode was a big step forward. The problem was the reason why it was good, great even, was because they brought back a lot of old stuff and then called it new. That’s on brand for EA. This year’s Franchise Mode doubles down on so much, and it absolutely feels different in mostly great ways.

Minigames: the good, the bad, and the ugly

One of the old things brought back and called new was the minigames that allowed you to upgrade some of your players’ attributes. It’s great that they’re here, but not all of them are good, and to make matters worse, a lot the bad ones brought back were made worse.

One of my favorite Training Camp games since they started doing these is Rushing Attack where you have to score as many touchdowns as possible against the AI. In addition to weird obstacles, the lead blocker seems to miss the majority of his blocks on outside runs. I don’t typically complain when games are made to be hard, but when we’re talking about playing minigames to earn the right to upgrade your guys, I don’t see why they made them so unapproachable and some even unplayable. There’s a WR game where you have to get open and catch passes in the redzone, and the AI QB often just throws the ball away when there’s no pressure. It’s bizarre.

Coaching Carousel

Now let’s talk about what’s good in Franchise; it’s a hardcore RPG again. This time around, it’s centered around your head coach who you can have be an offensive genius, a defensive mastermind, a coach that specializes in development, or one of the actual 32 coaches in the NFL. From there, you can customize the look of your coach before getting into the real stuff and leveling him or her based on the coaching archetype you chose.

Development and attribute trees are way different than they were last year. Once again, they’re based on your coaching archetype, and they also work as more of a loadout. Your offensive, defensive, and special teams coordinators now matter, and your training staff gives you some control over injuries thanks to the Wear and Tear System brought from CFB26.

Get As Much As You Put In

To my own detriment, I actually didn’t pay too much attention to loadouts, but now that I play in a competitive online league, I can tell you I’m mindful of it now. The cool thing about being in such a competitive league is that I’ve been soaking up a lot of information I didn’t about know about these changes like a sponge.

It’s easy to skip Training Camp because the minigames are frustrating. It’s easy to skip Weekly Planning because it just doesn’t seem necessary. The truth is you need those minigames because it’s the easiest way to control which players develop. You need Weekly Planning because aside from player development from season to season, you can also manage fatigue, injuries, and in-game performance boosts. Injuries are especially important now that they’re dynamic. In previous Maddens, you knew when a player was coming back and when not injured, they’d be fresh every week. Now this is always a worry, much like it is in the real game.

Stick Skills

At the end of day, none of these features would matter if the football part of Madden was weak. Its gameplay quality year-to-year is debatable. Still, if you’ve played any Madden over the last decade, the main mechanics haven’t changed much. It’s not perfect, and while a lot of it is user error (I suck at kicking), there are still improvements that can be made. The improvements they made this year show some promise, though.

Madden took CFB’s dynamic substitutions and interception mechanics, and I couldn’t happier. At that, while Madden maintains its slower feel compared to CFB, which I like, dynamic substitutions just make sense. Needing a defender to see the ball to make an interception is a welcome change. It’s also great to be able chuck the ball downfield once in a while since CIT really feels like a force multiplier when combined with SPD.

That said, masters of Madden should have little no trouble absorbing the game. All the hot routes and changes you can make to the line of scrimmage are still there. It’s still easy to separate the pro players from the rest of the crop. Lining guys up and seemingly using the Konami code before the snap is (a sick) art to be respected.

Verdict

While Madden NFL 26 is far from perfect, this is the best we’ve had since 2005. There are issues like defense feeling impossible to play and EA picking the worst kicking system. I’ll admit that those are more me problems than anything else. Aside from all that, I don’t remember the last time I’ve had this much fun playing Madden as an adult.

I have to credit that to the team working on EA SPORTS College Football. Gamers and NFL fans who love Madden will always point at EA’s NFL monopoly. CFB26 being great seemed to light a fire on the Madden team, and I sincerely believe it’s better for it. Here’s to internal competition making games great.

Score: 8/10

Review code provided by Electronic Arts. Reviewed on PS5.