Gamer’s Review of EA Sports Madden NFL 26

Each year at a new Madden release, I tell myself not to bother buying it. Yet it happens like clockwork; I give in to the hype, end up throwing my money into the air, and, as expected, weeks later, my disc begins collecting dust just like the previous year. It’s the same thing with Madden NFL 26. EA has released it as a brand new revolution in the world of football, but after a few playing hours, you find it almost the same as last year’s game, just with a fresh coat of paint and a full price tag.

Let’s begin with Franchise mode, which I usually enjoy the most. In fact, Owner Mode is taken away so that you cannot even adjust prices of tickets, concession stands, or stadium renovations. Honestly, I used to dabble with those things sometimes, and it feels a little empty without them.

The good side is that the Franchise interface is pretty neat nowadays. I could easily move around menus and not feel lost. Coaching skills actually matter more this year, too. So you unlock different abilities as your coach progresses, and those abilities can degrade or upgrade based on how you play. I like that they’ve added some risk-reward here. Adds pressure, but exciting.

One more point I liked was the weekly game plan screen. It shows all stats of your players, their injuries, opponent tendencies, and mismatches, which helps your planning on play sheets. Speaking of play sheets, they’re a new addition to Madden 26. The playbook doesn’t change, but gives some plays a nice boost. The more you upgrade them, the stronger the boost, so it’s like a mini-RPG system inside football, which is nice.

So does your coaching staff. Coordinators and trainers now have their own abilities: the trainer helps ease the burden of injuries, while the coordinators balance out weaknesses. Fun mixing them up, but the downside is that scouting still operates with shackles just like before. Scouts now all come with one-star, two-star, or tristar ratings. You’d think there should be some kind of system by which you could upgrade your one-star scout into something better, but nope. You just get to replace them with another one-star. Feels plenty dated and painfully limiting.

Superstar Mode got a little upgrade, though not nearly to the level I was hoping for. Same old plays, same combine drills, just the same basic creation of your player. There’s not a lot of customization.

Pre-draft interviews might have been slightly better this time with questions that actually matter, but the same broken draft logic remains. I saw the Falcons draft themselves a quarterback in the top 10 even after having selected Michael Penix Jr. in the first round just a year ago. Just stuff that makes it not so realistic.

The new feature here has been termed “Circle of Influence”. It is engaging fans as well as teammates and coaches through little activities such as podcasts or autograph signings. Very personal, but in terms of variety, I still feel like the Superstar Mode is reaching into the same hole as it has for about twenty years. Back in the old Madden games, there were training camps, agents, and even chances to appear in movies and commercials. That was the stuff that made it feel alive. And compared to this, stars feel pretty bare-bones.

Gameplay is always a dealbreaker. First off, Madden 26 feels almost smooth. Player movements are better than for a long time. Sharp passing and catching animations look crisp, but then the same old problems show up.

Clumsy, clumsy running game. The longest handoff animation from quarterback to running back makes it impossible to read the gaps before they close. Definitely a sore point in football: tackling. Gang tackles fail to capture realism, and when several defenders pile up, things get messy in animation. Sometimes a player will wrap around a ball carrier, but then subsequently falls the wrong way as a result of animation overriding true physics. It breaks immersion.

On the bright side, though, the lighting and textures are beautiful. Great stitching on jerseys was reflected on helmets and very sharp on cleats, while the stadium feels very much alive with the audience and atmosphere. But then you notice that snow does not interact with the players, wind barely has any effect on passes, and dynamic lighting, which was in College Football 26, is missing. It seems like EA did half the job.

Once again, the presentation is weak. Weekly recaps are nothing other than small clips that cannot compare with stringing-set awards and injury reports appropriate for Player of the Week. Bare, even, is playoff mode.

Commentary isn’t exactly great, and hearing the crowd isn’t exciting. Plus, the stadium atmosphere is dead. On the other hand, the good part about the soundtrack this year is that they mixed old classics and new hits. So I kind of enjoyed the variety with hip-hop, rock, and pop tracks much more than usual.

This is my honest opinion: Madden NFL 26 is not a bad game, but neither is it a great one. It lies in the middle of the spectrum. The new features in Franchise and Superstar Mode make this game a little fresher, but it cannot justify spending $70 for it.

Playing with friends was fun for a while, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was nothing but last year’s Madden improved by slight changes. EA has clearly put money into Ultimate Team with its microtransactions and has neglected the rest of the game.

If you are a true fan of football, you will likely still get it; otherwise, if it was looking for something really big, this is not it. Maybe Madden 27 will pick up on some of these features so that we finally get something worth keeping around for more than just a few weeks.