Madden NFL 25 Impressions | PS5, XBOX Series X/S, PC

[RogueHominid]

GR18, did they get the run/pass stuff right in the most updated version of 24?

[gr18]

Quote: Originally Posted by RogueHominid

GR18, did they get the run/pass stuff right in the most updated version of 24?

While I haven't played enough games of '25 to compare to '24,I would venture to guess there isn't that much of a difference.You get those games that tend to be normal and those that aren't.

I was simming the 1st half and playing the 2nd of every game which balanced out run/pass ratios.Supersim would tend to be 50/50 so if the cpu passed 2/3 of the time in the 2nd half you would be right on par.I understand many wouldn't want to do it this way but that's how I coped with it anyway...lol

[maolivio]

Impression:

EA Sports is a marketing company and they do marketing really well. They come up with some "new technology" almost every year and then they market the crap out of it.

Of course, the "new technology" doesn't work as advertised, just like the last "new technology" they marketed but failed to deliver on.

What EA really should do is just spend a year working on all the stuff that doesn't work properly and put a little pride into making a polished product for a change.

But it's probably hard to market "we fixed all the stuff that was broken in last year's game" as the new sales pitch.

Not buying Madden this year. The reviews are mostly terrible for a reason.

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor and Sword

Will give one quick impression. And will follow up in a few weeks after I give it more PT in franchise mode. 7.5/10 It’s pretty good. Not pleased out of the box the score ticker inside franchise is bugged and not working properly. That is just ridiculous. Especially since we reported it over and over. Visually the game is beautiful. It lacks soul. Like really lacks any kind of soul. CFB 25 is vastly superior in every way. Two totally different feeling games and that’s ok. My preference is CFB 25. I will get a cycle outta this latest iteration. And casually play franchise while I am hardcore loving CFB 25 which will get most of my attention. Oh an tackling is very hit or miss on Madden and absolutely organic and beautiful on CFB 25. Anyway enjoy.

Full Impressions 8/27/24

This was my out of the box initial impression 2 weeks ago.

I have since been able to sink my teeth into the game a lot more, tune my sliders and now I feel I can give it a fair review.


Gameplay - Now that I locked in my sliders and calibrated my tackle sliders, speed threshold setting with the new physics slider in the main menu I can say with confidence I barely ever see the WWE Shoulder pinball wizard tackling that was literally all over the field out of the box on default All-Pro. I mean it was so bad I was throwing up....but now? I am getting an extremely smooth, buttery display of wrap up tackles, stumbles, gang tackling etc. The animations are out in full force and without a doubt it's the best animating Madden I have ever played. I have seen a lot of amazing tackles, catches, throw angles....just visually a lot of eye candy.

I play as the Dolphins and that playbook is deep and filled with all kinds of motion and plays that I never used before. It's pretty impressive and a lot of fun.

CPU AI is still a weak spot for Madden. And when you compare it to CFB 25 it's pretty obvious that Madden must break away from the PS4/ONE console generation immediately for Madden 26 and rebuild the AI engine for this hardware. Now don't get me wrong......I am getting good games. But legacy issues still prop up and annoy me from time to time and it needs a rebuild. Adaptive AI on CFB is a real thing. Madden needs to implement it ASAP for future versions of the game.

Playing defense for has been solid. I have not had nearly as many of the "zone" issues that seem to be viral all over OS and other boards. I am simply not having a hard time defending. I am able to mix up my shells (disguise) and make on the fly adjustments. It feels completely playable for me and my streams show this. I stream all my franchise games and they have been wildly entertaining.

The CPU is running the football in a realistic manner for me. Color me crazy...I don't care but based on the scheme, context of the game and overall balance....teams are doing what I typically see on Sunday in all my tests games. I have had 2 outlier games out of 15 that I noticed a drastic imbalance that made no sense to me based on the score, situation and how I was defending where the CPU just up and abandoned the run. So....I don't have an answer for those who are vehemently bashing the game because the AI passes 75% of the time......I gotta tell you...the league has become a ton more pass happy and there are teams who are simply not balanced and some teams are and I have been getting great games. Perfect? Nope. Sometimes questionable? Absolutely.

Hyperbolic to the degree I have read....absolutely not in my experience.

Special Teams are definitely improved. I love the new kicking meter. The new kick return rules have sparked actual kick returns again which is a positive.

Presentation - This is an area that did receive some much needed love. It actually looks like a real broadcast again. I have not been able to say that since Madden 16. TNF, SNF and MNF have distinct looks and color palettes. The addition of two more teams in the booth was sorely needed and while the execution is not great the freshness and random assignment makes it a better experience. I do wish we could choose our teams for the games....but NBA2K which has different booths does not have that feature either.

Mike Tirico sounds wooden. Unfortunately he really sounds like he is reading lines vs calling a game. Greg Olsen on the other hand sounds pretty great. Kate and Brock sound like the C team.....Kate is definitely having fun but sometimes her forced over exuberance can be a bit much. I like Brock Huard. Fortunately I have barely heard Gaudin and Davis whom I have had enough of. If they replaced them for Madden 26.....it wouldn't be soon enough. I hope we get a much better A team for Madden 26. The good news is the foundation is now there to expand upon the multiple booths. Stat swipes are good.....I wish we had a lot more though. Also there are plenty of commentary bugs and the draft pick swipe is not showing up on screen.

As reported before the ticker is a complete mess. Also halftime stats are reversed showing receivers stats under the RB and RB stats under the WR. I mean EA....really? This is how we ship a game worldwide at launch when you tout revamped presentation? I find that embarrassing to be frank. And the ticker issues which really crush immersion because of the bugs is infruitaating because it was reported a ton on the BETA and it fell on deaf ears....now hopefully their first Update has a fix for those presentation gaffes. Because they are big warts on what is a nicely revamped presentation package.

Something glaring that is still missing is the starting lineups......man I miss that...and not the cartoon BS on Madden 17 and beyond...but the authentic ones like Madden 15 and 16 had.

Penalties and Instant Replay - PENALTIES ARE BACK. Like in CFB 25 we have flags and the sliders are highly responsive. So I am very happy about this. Instant Replay on the other hand is still the same "broken" experience. When oh when is instant replay which is unfortunately a huge part of todays game (yeah I hate it to be honest...it's ridiculous how literally everything is reviewed) and this is not represented well enough on Madden.

Franchise Mode - I am thrilled with the new Franchise Hub and menus......no really I LOVE THEM. I have all the information of all the goings on around the league at my fingertips and in the main page. I love the news stories now. They have quotes, stats and scores. The new draft board and revamped draft presentation (I have not gotten to that yet...I want it to be a nice experience for my first draft) is very welcomed. I am really digging the new scenario engine and scenarios!!! They are immersive, they show up on the news feed as well!. I have just scratched the surface with them so I look forward to discovering them all over the course of my Dolphins franchise.

Wear and Tear/Injuries/Progressive Fatigue - CFB has the Wear and Tear system and folks Madden needs to adopt this for franchise mode. While I am having zero issues with Maddens Progressive Fatigue and it absolutely works as designed (I never have disappearing players either for my team or the CPU) the wear and tear system needs to make it into Madden. We also 1000% need a simulated injury slider, and injury severity slider for both the Human and CPU like NBA 2K has. It is so long overdue. We need to see more of a variety around the leagues and more risk and reward for playing guys who are beat up. Now they have improved QB injuries occurring. I love seeing that because that is a big part of the NFL. QB's do get hurt every year and some miss the entire season.

Franchise mode overall feels more alive than it ever has since Madden 2005-2007 when we had the Tony Bruno show. There is plenty to do in terms of roster management, scouting and creating your draft board, checking box scores and stories, doing scenarios almost each week, scouring the waiver wire, checking other teams practice squads to poach. I am spending a lot of time with the much enhanced "Franchise Hub" then I have since Madden 2005-2007 which is considered the golden years of Madden franchise.

As far as CPU team management, and drafting.....I will report back after I complete Year 1 and see how each teams handles their rosters, pending free agents, actual open market free agency etc.

So I was able to discover the soul of this game......and it's in the new Franchise Hub which has a lot of creative heart and I can see the time and thought that was put into the hub, it's functionality and ease of use and it's design. I love it.


Audio/visual - Sounds are great. The stadiums, the hits and tackles all sound crisp and modern. Visually Madden is alway a feast for the eyes and this year is no different.

So after spending some real time with the game I can confidently say this is absolutely the best Madden I have played since Madden 16 which is my gold standard for game play in this series history and in many ways Madden 25 exceeds it.

The game still has it's typical short comings, warts and bugs out of the box. And I am getting tiresome of this being a "beta tester routine and then seeing things we report not being addressed before release. It is frustrating.

However I am also a "Madden" fan. I have owned every single solitaire console version of this game dating back to the very first Madden on the Sega Genesis. So I have indeed played them all....and have a long standing history with EA Tiburon being a consumer of their products. And being transparent here.....they have delivered most of the time. But have they delivered the ultimate Madden package yet since the golden years on the PS2/XBOX?

The PS3/360 period was a tough one......really tough. The series really fell on it's proverbial face back then and did not recover IMO till right before the PS4 generation with the then Madden 25 (Barry Sanders cover). I felt that game captured all the "fun" I always had with madden prior.

The PS4 generation IMO was hit and miss with a lot of miss. Madden 16 to me was the best place gameplay had ever been....on the field in being as close to a football simulation as we had gotten. And then it simply and slowly started veering away from authenticity to cater to a newer generation of twitter kids, MUT cards and Madden Bowl players. It's my opinion.....and there it is.

But then...starting with Madden 21 we saw a shift again back to realism on the new consoles. 22 was a step back.....23 a step forward, 24 a smaller step forward (disrupted by some awful patches IMO that killed the fun for me and I moved on quickly in October 23) and that brings us to Madden 25.

Franchise mode got a lot of love....it really did. It feels alive finally. Maybe it's me...maybe it's because I have dove into the deep end and am having so much fun? Or maybe they actually added a lot of QOL things and made the HUB feel like a living breathing league. I will go with the latter. They put some real work into franchise mode this cycle.

Another small quibble I have and I hope they can maybe patch it in.....why don't you allow us to simply choose the new Madden theme song (which is great BTW) in our EA tracks? Like why? While I have been able to find 28 tunes from the current soundtrack I can listen to in my franchise hub...there are times I just want authentic, old school theme music (NFL Films music where are you?!!) playing in the background while I look at my roster, check out stats, build and sort my draft board, look at other teams rosters, records, transactions, news etc.

EA......patch that ability in please. There are some older folks like me who want that!!!!! We have supported the game for decades.....do us a solid with the soundtrack. We are not asking much with that. You created a new theme, it kicks *** yet I only hear it at the start up screen and once I press a button.....gone.


If you are a Madden fan......you will really enjoy Madden 25. Once you lock in your settings and sliders it plays a great game of "Maddens" style of the NFL. It's simply not for everyone. They try to be....but the absolute haters.....will continue to hate.

Those of us who have grown up on Madden will be having fun with a much more robust franchise package.

I gave this a 7.5/10 out of the box.

Today it's an 8/10

If they fix some of the immersion breaking bugs in franchise with the score ticker, halftime and commentary gaffes and some OSD's about draft picks not showing up the game, tighten up some minor zone issues I have encountered in terms of pursuit (Speed Threshold at 95-100 cures a ton folks) it easily jumps to a 9/10 for me.

The last time I rated a Madden game this high was Madden 16 (9.5/10).

They did a really nice job here with playbooks, gameplay, presentation, franchise and I will be playing Madden 25 till next years release along with CFB 25 (9.5/10).

It's a heck of year to be a football game fan. I mean that.......there is a lot of fun to be had with both of EA's football offerings this year.

Go play....and dive in.

[The Gamer]

Great write up.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

[Retropyro]

I can't tell people if they should buy it or not.
Personally I've bought and played every Madden from 1988 to 2018.
I quit after 2018 in disgust and refused to spend a dime on the game again. I've played them all in EA Play though and never last more than a couple games before deleting it from drive.
When I tried Madden 25 last week ....I bought it.
Take that for what it's worth.

[timmg]

Tackling looks downright horrible. When players make contact it just don't look right

[Chubz]

Quote: Originally Posted by timmg

Tackling looks downright horrible. When players make contact it just don't look right

Agreed. I was hoping with the new physics-based tackling we'd see significant improvements in that area, but for every awesome tackle there are at least half a dozen that look ridiculous and just don't add up given the circumstances. I would even argue it's barely improved at all over last year's game, which is a real shame.

At this point I'm convinced this is a problem that will never be solved on current hardware. Maybe when the new consoles drop here in ~4-5 years we'll see a complete rewrite of the tackling/collision system that actually takes more of a strictly-physics approach (ala Backbreaker) rather than relying so heavily on animations. Who knows. I just wish the tackles/collisions didn't look like they fell out of a 10+ year old title. Those wonky interactions really do a disservice to the amazing lighting, stadiums, models, etc.