Madden 26 is exactly what you expect out of a simulation football game. It has high quality graphics, crazy animations, and smooth gameplay. Madden 26 includes franchise, ultimate team, superstar, online head to head, and quick play game modes. Franchise is exactly what you expect. You pick a team, create a coach, and manage your roster. Ultimate team is a regularly updated mode where you get player cards through packs that are earned or purchased and includes both current and former players. These player cards aren’t to reflect a players actual skill, but the overall of the newest cards increase as we progress through the NFL season. Superstar is a mode where you create your own player choosing between Quarterback, Half Back, Wide Receiver, Corner Back, or Linebacker.

First I’m going to go over what EA did right with Madden 26. The visuals of this game are noticeably higher quality than Madden 24 (I didn’t buy Madden 25). Players used to need a superstar ability on their quarterback called Hot Route Master to put receivers on routes like a corner, but no more. Every quarterback now has access to extra hot routes regardless of development trait. Franchise mode has new breakout scenarios for players and the new coach points system attempted to improve on previous ways of upgrading your coach. The simulation in franchise also goes much faster than it used to. What used to take a few minutes to simulate a season now only takes what feels like 30 seconds. If you decide to actually play your games in franchise, you’ll highlights of other games from that week that are being simulated as you play at half time.

Now onto what went wrong. Often times you’ll get either really lucky or really unlucky with what animation you get. Your safety can look like he’s about to get an interception and either completely whiff, or the ball might warp through or around his hands. Sometimes there are very unfavorable animations as you’re getting hit. Just the other day, I was around the 50 yard line and tried to throw to my tight end as I was about to get sacked. Because of the animation, the ball went flying 100 feet in the air and out the back of the end zone, which caused me to get a safety. Over all, the game is pretty good, but sometimes the physics engine just has no clue what to do and some crazy animations happen. So if you’re looking for a super realistic Madden game, you’ll have to keep waiting.

Madden 5 Months Later - Was It Worth It?

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