Madden NFL 26 Review

While never a huge american football fan, I was looking forward to reviewing Madden NFL 26. The last two Madden games I played was ’09 in 2008 and then reviewing ’18 way back in 2017. I’ve always enjoyed the gameplay, so having the opportunity to dive back into this sport genre was a no brainer for me. Let’s see how things stand up.

As every Madden, or EA Sports game for that matter, the game is jampacked with game modes. First up is the Ultimate Team Mode. UT mode is where players can come up with their own fantasy teams by collecting players and building your dream roster. You’ll earn new players completing challenges and opening won card packs. Competing against A.I. or other players will upgrade your players’ skills. And playing in online tournaments and seasons will reap big rewards.

Then there’s Franchise mode. In this mode, you’ll take control of an NFL team and make decisions that will bring the Super Bowl home. Not only will you have to decide and choose your roster of players, but you’ll also have to call the plays, depth charts, salary cap along with the player related events such as drafts and trades. Players who love to micro-manage their teams will have a blast here. Very in depth and detailed. You’ll also be given the opportunity to take to the field and play the games; either specific moments, offensive only, defensive only or the full game.

Afterwards there’s Superstar mode where you create your player and start from the bottom to reach the highest of heights in the world of (american) football. You’ll do training camps, then pre-season and jump move into the season. For every match, you’ll play only your player’s sequences; the rest of the match will be automatically played.

To help out through your career, you’ll have different people, with whom you’ll need to maintain a positive relationship. Whether it be fans, your sport psychologist, agent; just to name a few, you’ll be prompted to do certain activities in between matches to maintain and increase your relationships. Things like attending interviews, work on plays or do extra physical therapy time which will increase your relationships with certain people, while having a down or neutral effect on others.

As you successfully perform actions during your sequences, you’ll earn point which will increase your score. This will allow you to unlock new skills or perks such to improve your player’s performance and skillset. In between games, you’ll also have the option to train different actions via mini-games.

Then there’s the simplistic game modes; Online where you pick a team and go head-to-head with other players online and test your skills. Quick Play allows you do play a game against the A.I. or a friend; thankfully, if you have to go during the middle of a game, the game will suspend itself allowing you to resume. This also includes the Pro Bowl and Superstar KO.

Training Camp is the ideal mode for newcomers to get a grasp on the game or if you’re a skilled player needing to brush off the rust from the previous year, this is where you’ll learn the basics or take your skills to the next level. As far as Creation Center goes it lets you download community made things such as teams, you can also edit rosters, uniform and playbooks.

Akin to other EA Sports games such as NHL, the game offers a myriad of accessibility features. If you’re a newcomer to the game, you can set it on Casual so it’ll give you a chance to understand the minutiae of the sports, but without feeling like you’re getting destroyed. You can even choose a more Arcade-y experience. And obviously returning players can step up the difficulty and aim for a more realistic approach. The game controls great; the controls are tight and responsive. And using buttons to match players on the field makes it really simple to throw at the right person.

The game looks great; the details, the players, the movements, the fields. There’s absolutely nothing wrong here, except the fact that the visual upgrades get minimal as year go by to a point where we’ll plateau unless they manage to scan every player and transfer them directly into the game. Oddly enough, while they spotlight a player that made a something noteworthy, instead of a picture of the player, it’ll be a placeholder card. On the audio side of things, the developer did a great job reflecting the atmosphere. The commentators are on point and the soundtrack is an eclectic mix of rock and hip hop spanning from the mid-1990s (ex; Green Day “Basket Case) to current music (ex; Kendrick Lamar). There’s a bit of shit nuggets peppered through it (looking at you HARDY), but if you don’t spend too much time menu-ing, you won’t hear most of it. And yes the tunes are censored, so hearing only 1 out of 2 words in 50 Cent’s In Da Club makes you question why you’d want to include vulgar songs in the first place.

One of the nuisance here is when you launch the game. While returning players will be familiar, newcomers will get lost as it brings you into a sorta tutorial about Ultimate team. If you’re a newcomers or casual player, this is really irritating and cumbersome because I couldn’t find a easy way to get out of it; I had to reboot the game. Also when playing Superstar mode, depending on the position you chose, the camera angle differs from the regular matches and is a bit jarring and confusing at first.

I played as a quarterback and no matter what happened, the camera stayed glued to my character; so when I threw the ball, there were a lot of instances where I couldn’t from my POV if the dude would catch the ball or not. Also the constant online requirement of always having to be connected to the EA servers/Internet renders Xbox’s most valuable feature, Quick Resume, useless in most game modes.

Madden NFL 26 is an enjoyable and incredibly complete package. There’s something for the long time fans while there’s enough for newcomers with proper accessibility features to give players a chance to adapt to the gameplay. But as with any sports games that release on a yearly basis, where’s the innovation? Where’s the big changes that’ll make dropping £69.99 for a game that feels like previous entries. If you’re a die hard (american) football fan that knows all the stats, then this is a no-brainer. If you’re a casual player and haven’t played a Madden game in a few years, then this package will bring you up to date.