It looks like Madden NFL 26 has taken a note from the College Football team. Making a football game that is easy and comfortable to play certainly trumps any sort of gimmick that typically comes with sports games. And let’s be very honest here, the Madden franchise has had its share of gimmicks.
This year, EA Tiburon has started to focus back on the fundamentals of the game. More balanced run/pass, a great running game component, and the quarterback controls for the game this year are primo. Does it still have some ways to go before it gets on the same level as CF? Yep, Madden NFL 26 still carries its share of flaws, but the innovations outshine them.
So, go get that Cleveland Browns jersey you always wanted to wear, and let’s get going on this review of Madden NFL 26.
Modes, modes, MODES!
The modes in Madden NFL 26 are what you expect them to be, though the polish on some of them shines brighter than others. The main modes of play this year are Franchise, Superstar, and Ultimate Team. And we all know what rules the roost when it comes to this game, Ultimate Team. We’ll start there.
Ultimate Team
The ultimate team mode has two very distinct personalities that are sure to piss off some players this year. It is still built for the folks who must have everything, even if it means spending an enormous amount of money to get there.
I remember a student of mine, a former NFL CB, who got into a deep discussion about gaming and microtransactions with me in regards to the Madden franchise. He told me that one year he spent nearly $1900 maxing out all his MUT players in attempts to take down nearly everyone he played against online. In the end, he learned that overall ratings of 99 didn’t guarantee wins. I would say lesson learned, but I’m sure he still is going the same route.
While I’m not a huge fan of pay-to-win, I understand its significance for hardcore players out there. Sports fans are a competitive bunch, and getting ahead of the game against other actual players is typically the name of the game. When it comes to Madden, that starts and ends with MUT.
So, why would I think that these folks would be pissed off? Well, MUT is incredibly accessible at the ground level for us nobodies who just enjoy playing the game. I ran with the Deluxe Edition of this game during my review, and I immediately acquired some of the best players on the field thanks to that choice. I had access to Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley right out of the gate. Instantly, I was thrown into impossible-to-beat mode, like I was some veteran on the field who had been playing MUT for decades. Truthfully, I’m generally terrible at MUT, don’t take in the statistics, and don’t use a lot of balance when it comes to selecting offense and defense. My choices usually start with the name of the player, and if I know them, their overall rating. Everything else is generally ignored. While that hasn’t worked for me in the past, this year it seems to be spot on. But this year, it was good players with great overall numbers that seemed to dominate my opponent right from the get-go, and it made me feel oh-so special, maybe even a badass.
Now, I’m not saying that I would go up against a pro and take them down with ease, not at all. What I am saying is that this year’s Madden NFL game has given me a leg up without the effort of earning it. So, what can you make of that? Well, it does help terrible MUT players, like myself, and gives us a chance for success. It also means that there is false good competition ahead of the pros, which is probably going to piss them off a bit. Again, a competitive bunch who worked hard to get good at this game. It almost seems like an unfair advantage. That’s because it is.
Overall, I’m happy with that even balance built into MUT. It makes it accessible for more players, which means the payoff is a lot sweeter for those who haven’t had a chance to enjoy the mode. It will certainly sour on some pros who are used to dominating us lowly users.
Superstar
There’s a lot to like about the Superstar mode in Madden NFL 26. While I still think that it has a tinge of dullness to its branching narrative, as obvious choices are obvious, it does more right than wrong in its execution.
Starting with the ‘right’, the game looks and feels a lot smoother when your player gets drafted and finds the team of their dreams (or nightmares, GO BROWNS). Your player will have a mix of chatting with random people in his sphere, an important element this year, keeping up with goals, training, practice, and on-field execution. All of these you have seen before, and all of them work just a bit smoother without taking the player too much out of the action.
Now, what I didn’t like about Superstar is how it treated pre-draft execution. While the branching narrative of Superstar was fine, again, just a bit dull at times, getting into the combine and showing off your wares is a clunky task. The combine is important because it sets the tone with the contract, and which team is going to draft you when. To ensure your place on the early part of the draft board, you must complete a bevy of activities that make you stand out. The combine makes you go through a flurry of different challenges that include a track & field 40-yard dash, weightlifting, a challenge that tests how fast you can stop and cut to avoid contact, a standing still long jump, and a passing demonstration, if you go in as a QB.
Most of what the combine offers, especially that passing demonstration, is just hard to get used to. I tried each one of the above twice, as my connection to the EA server was severed at the end of the first set, which forced me to do it again, and what I found is that I never got better. Listen, I’m not bad at video games. I have had decades of experience with them, and I understand what to correct when I get it wrong. Ask ‘websites that I won’t name’ during my Black Ops II review event years ago. We (Digitalchumps) and the other indie sites kept wiping the floor with them during MP. Kill me once, shame on me. Kill me twice, not a chance. Eventually, we were handed off to go against Treyarch because some sites were complaining. Yeah. Let’s move on.
I digress! Getting back to Madden NFL 26, I was shocked when my 40-yard dash was worse, the weightlifting didn’t go beyond what I scored the first time around, and I still stunk it up at QB-throwing target practice. The latter of which I simply didn’t understand what the hell the game was asking me to do to get my wide receiver placed in the spot where I needed to throw the ball. It was irritating and clunky, and I simply wanted to get through the combine and be drafted by the Browns, an option you can choose.
Once out of the combine and into the draft, I was offered a small contract by the Browns due to my poor performance(s). Once on board, the game was far easier to handle. I did so well that my guy, Don Johnson, eventually replaced the Dragon (Joe Flacco) on the field because I set and achieved my week-to-week goals and got better. So, combine is a bit ‘bleh’, while the rest of the Superstar mode is nice and smooth.
Now, in the nitty-gritty part of the Superstar mode, it was nice to see player attribute details that you could improve as you got better. The option to train with a choice of how hard meant that you could work on specific aspects of the player’s game. Madden NFL 26 also took on a wear-and-tear aspect that allows you to see how the game is gradually affecting the health of your player. The smaller details and backend helped to make the Superstar mode fun and a bit more detailed than expected. It was certainly smoother than it has been in the last few installments of the franchise.
Speaking of franchise…
Franchise
Fun. The Browns went undefeated. Super Bowl 2025. Browns champs. Need I say more? Well, I will.
The Franchise mode showed off a few aspects of the other modes. The wear-and-tear meter reared its head, as did the team needing to train and get better. While branching narratives were absent, as this was simply just playing out a season, the game showed how much it had improved with the control scheme.
Before we get into that, just know that you’ll like the Franchise mode, as it brings the goods, and even the team accuracy (even if your team sucks).
Overall, the modes in this game are deep, fun, and flawed. They seem to work far better than previous Madden NFL games, and that’s a credit to College Football for showing that simplicity and smaller details make it all matter.
Controls are primo
They are primo. My problem with most sports games not named MLB The Show or College Football is that comfortable controls are generally pushed aside to make way for wacky gimmicks to make sports games more than they should be. Thankfully, EA Tiburon went back to the drawing board and made potentially the most accurate and comfortable controls I can remember in recent years.
Starting with the QB, when I was playing as Joe ‘The Dragon’ Flacco in Franchise mode, moving him around the pocket, getting his passes to hit their target accurately was intuitive. Moving the thumbstick one particular way while pressing a certain amount on the throwing button meant that I could put a ball exactly where I was expecting it to go. It was such a mindless and seamless movement that I never felt like the game had cheated me; rather, if the ball missed its target, I had cheated it. The QB controls just felt good, and I can’t remember the last time I felt that way about a Madden NFL QB experience. Maybe during the QB cone days? I just enjoyed cheating with that option. Such a crazy-ass option to add to a game. I miss it.
Anyway, throwing the ball was smooth. Running the ball was equally as good. While the Madden franchise has slowly improved RB movement and made the controller-to-player translation a lot more natural each year, much like the QB controls, this year’s controls for RB were just seamless. I specifically loved the way your RB could cut with a small flick of the thumbstick, which made hitting the hole in the defense a lot smoother. It felt like a game of football, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Heck, Jerome Ford broke the all-time single-game and single-season RB touchdown records because of the controls. I understand this is a parody of real life, but I’m wishing the best for Ford this year and hope he achieves the greatness I laid down for him in Madden NFL 26. Anyway, RB controls were primo.
On the defensive side of the ball, the good controls translated well. Breaking through an O-line was a breeze, and even if it wasn’t, because some teams have great O-lines, the game still felt like it was emulating a good deal of real football. Heck, even tackling made sense and was a breeze, as switching players to go tackle a RB rolling outside was much easier to handle, and more importantly, natural in its movement. Breaking passes up in the secondary was equally as good. The game just went with your expected movement.
Ultimately, the controls for Madden NFL 26 were some of the best to date. They helped settle me into the experience, and I enjoyed them thoroughly.
Those hiccups
Well, there aren’t many, but they exist in the game. For example, the combine previously mentioned needs to be improved. It felt messy and almost an afterthought. That must be adjusted next year, maybe even expanded to make it feel like a true draftee experience. That must be corrected.
I think in MUT, there must be a little bit more difficulty for everyone getting into the game. While it did feel balanced, I think it felt too smooth for a doofus like me to excel in. Make it a bit more challenging, and improve aspects that show off the talents of the pros, while making it still accessible to us newbies. Not a huge deal, but the pendulum might have swung a bit more in newbies’ favor than in the pros for this year’s game. There’s something just not right about that.
Finally, make the Superstar mode a bit more immersive with branching dialogue. I think that EA Tiburon is certainly on the right track with it. The details they put into the players and what was borrowed from the College Football series were evident and well-placed, but the devs should look at a game like F1 that has done a wonderful job of perfecting the branching dialogue aspect of the game. It is seamlessly implemented and works well with the career mode of that series.
These complaints don’t outweigh the good this release of the game has accomplished. This is one of the most functional and fun Madden NFL games that I have played in years. I hope they continue to go in that direction.
On that note, let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Madden NFL 26 from developer EA Tiburon is on the right track thanks to some nearly perfect controls that make for a more immersive experience. On the mode side, there is still some work that needs to be done to improve some aspects of Superstar, as well as balancing out MUT a bit more.
