Madden 25 Review – Flag on the Play

EA Sports thought they were being cute back in 2013 by naming that year’s iteration Madden 25 to honor the 25th anniversary of the series, so now we have our second Madden 25 in the series with the newly released game for modern platforms. While many sports franchises have been on the rise or at least stayed consistent good this generation, Madden has had a pretty rough go at it lately. There is always some hope that we might see an upward trajectory, but Madden 25 once again has a number of flags on the play.

10 Yard Penalty

As soon as you boot up Madden 25, you will notice just how snappy the menus are this year finally. This has been a major complaint by fans for years now, as the menu system has been consistently slow and laggy no matter what you did. In fact, this has been something that has been a problem with EA Sports games as a whole for awhile, so it’s great to see Madden 25 following the trend of College Football 25 by fixing this. The menu consists of a singular list of 10 items that you can scroll through easily to pick whichever game mode you are looking to go to. The only downside are the constant ads for Ultimate Team it felt like almost every time upon returning to the menu.

• Related Reading: EA Sports College Football 25 Review – It’s Back In the Game

Gameplay is always paramount to all other things in a sports game and Madden 25 once again delivers in that department. There are still the usual bugs and glitches that can happen, with online videos making it seem like they are much more prevalent than they really are, but this year’s game builds on what was already a very solid gameplay system that almost perfectly emulates the feel of the NFL in video game form. This extends across both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, with it being even further enhanced with the new BOOM Tech system.

The BOOM Tech system utilizes high-level physics-based tackling to make the game feel as realistic as ever. Whether your running back is trucking an opponent or a wide receiver is getting laid out by a safety to dislodge the ball, this system uses various player stats to figure out how the impact of the hit should be felt with 1-on-1 ball carrier impact, leading to various different animations that aim to be as authentic as we’ve ever seen in a Madden game. This does make a difference in the gameplay, but most players will probably not notice exactly how or the intensity of the difference if they had not been informed prior as it isn’t quite as noticeable as some past innovations we’ve seen.

Presentation has also always played a big part in this series, as the spectacle of the NFL is important to showcase here, especially in modes like Franchise. The level of detail in each stadium and the overall presentation is once again top notch, including upgrades to the sights and sounds around the league. This also includes two additional commentary teams with the duos of Greg Olsen and Mike Tirico and Brock Huard and Kate Scott joining Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis. Commentary has definitely been a bit stale in recent years, so getting some new blood in there to freshen it up was a wise move and makes the play-by-play much easier to enjoy this year. Upgrades to NFL Draft Night was also a great addition to the game that made it feel more alive.

While so many aspects of the presentation are fantastic, one area that the series and this year’s game still struggles mightily is with spectacle at times. When playing Franchise and you make it to the Super Bowl, you wouldn’t even hardly know it except for some of the intros, commentary, and the championship celebration at the end. Considering this is the pinnacle of your season, they really need to expand on this and make the celebration feel special outside of a short animation showing the players celebrating in confetti. This isn’t a game killer, but it’s something that fans have been complaining about for years and it still feels lacking once again in Madden 25.

The number of game modes offered in Madden has been pretty disappointing the last couple of years after having a healthy number of new options being introduced over the years, including some like the hit-or-miss The Yard mode. I even quite enjoyed the more story centric single player campaigns that we had for a few years such as Longshot. Madden 24 and now Madden 25 instead have sort of gone with a back to basics focus that features Quick Play, Superstar, Franchise, and Ultimate Team when not including the Training Camp tutorial mode. With a cutting down of game modes you would hope that the existing ones would be better than ever, but this year’s iterations feel like they are just spinning their wheels.

Quick Play is entirely as you would expect, letting you play with someone locally or in online head to head, along with being able to play the Pro Bowl. The only real interesting inclusion here is the Superstar KO mode that was introduced in the past that lets you draft a team of players and play with them. This mode is just as you remember it, so your mileage may vary on how much you actually enjoy it or not.

Superstar mode serves as the single-player story mode in the game where you get to create a player and play through their NFL career. This starts with the combine and leads to the aforementioned upgrade NFL Draft Night part of the mode, which I did quite enjoy. From there, you get added to the roster of your drafted team and start your career. Honestly, after playing College Football 25’s Road to Glory mode, which admittedly wasn’t the most feature-filled overall, Superstar mode just felt even more hollow than it does every other year. Sure, you get to play as your created player in their games and try to better yourself by increasing your stats by playing more. You can even import your Road to Glory character from College Football 25 into Madden 25 rather easily, which is an awesome feature to include.

The online integration in this mode with seasonal content is a big swing and a miss though, as they really should have left this mode as a strictly offline rather than turning it into a microtransaction-filled copy of what NBA 2K usually does. At least that is how that series has been going for awhile, but not too long ago Superstar was very different and now players have no alternative to experience without feeling like they are losing out on their player playing to their full potential and reaching career goals.

The interactions between your created player and the media or others is also really weird in this game. This is a problem that also comes up in Franchise with your coach, but the mock interview style this game employs is downright awful. Rather than actually feeling like you are controlling the player or coach in these interactions with the media, it takes such a hands-off approach that it feels like a total waste. The weird animation style used takes you completely out of it every time to where you don’t even want to bother with the interviews. What makes this worse is that we’ve seen this done much better in the past with Madden, especially during the years when they tried having a true story mode. I would even take the cringey style interviews of the past, and in other games than whatever this game was trying to do. When you continually have other franchises like NBA 2K that features a much more fleshed out and downright alive story modes, EA Sports needs to desperately step up their game. Even though it would be a little more excusable in the returning College Football series since these aren’t truly professional athletes yet, everything about the presentation and day-to-day in that game felt leagues above anything Madden offers in comparison.

While Superstar mode is a major disappointment, Franchise is at least pretty much what you would expect. Minus the weird interview styles, franchise is pretty standard from what you would expect to see in such a mode. You can start by selecting either an offline solo franchise or an online franchise with friends. Online franchise is always one of my favorite modes in the game and I’m glad that the developers have continued to show love to franchise as a whole for that reason. The default Franchise option is to serve as the Coach, while you can also run it as an Owner by adding more simulation style elements of management on top of the coaching.

Like most of the game, Franchise mode has not been overhauled or anything in Madden 25, but it did receive a few enhancements. Besides the previously mentioned NFL Draft presentation, Franchise has received improvements such as improved player progression logic and team roster AI, as well as a more seamless menu system in Franchise that allows for more seamless transition between games, roster management, league news, and more. It may not be in Madden 25 proper, but Team Builder has also been brought back through EA’s website where you can create your own teams, and bring them right into Franchise with ease. Giving people this level of customization is always great and is definitely worth talking about due to being able to be imported into the game. I am still hoping to see additional features added this year, as they have done in recent years throughout the season for Franchise, but the starting point is quite solid right now.

As in much years, there isn’t much to say about this year’s iteration of Madden Ultimate Team. This game mode is just as you think it will be, and there isn’t really anything new in it this year that will sell new players on it that didn’t like it in the past. While Superstar mode can still be enjoyed without the microtransactions, Madden Ultimate Team mode really cannot be enjoyed in its truest form unless you are shelling out real money to get more packs, especially if you want to be able to complete in the new Head-to-Head Ranked matches. I do enjoy that you can play the Solo Seasons in Ultimate Team against AI opponents to keep you busy, so you can at least give it a try if you want to see how you perform.

Besides these game modes, Madden 25 brings back Training Camp as always, which includes Mini Games, Team Practice, and Skills Trainer. The Skills Trainer is also a solid way to practice for newcomers or those wanting to refine their skills in various scenarios. Mini Games take that one step further by letting you try to earn the gold rank in each of the skill challenges between offense, defense, special teams, and the ever difficult Gauntlet run. Team Practice isn’t all that useful as you could just really play the computer in a regular match, but it can be good to try out some new plays or playbooks. Training Camp is something that most players will skip over, but I always enjoy my time with it for a little while at least.

Verdict

Many people have complained over the years about annual sports games just being reskinned roster updates and that is usually a bit of an exaggeration, but Madden 25 may be one of the best examples of that actually being true. While Madden 25 has what could be a great game at its foundation with the realistic gameplay and presentation, its serious flaws continue to hold the series back as in recent years. The core of this is the lack of anything that feels new or innovative to where most of the game feels stale and not offering much of anything new. When EA Sports has, for this year at least, the superior College Football 25 on the market, it’s hard to recommend picking up Madden 25 to play instead except for the diehards that must take their favorite team to the Super Bowl in Franchise mode once again.

Score: 7/10

Pros:

• Gameplay is as realistic as ever
• New commentary crews are very enjoyable
• Snappy menus

Cons:

• No new game modes
• Superstar mode is a bust
• Interview segments feel hollow

Madden 25 review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.

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