On an afternoon in late July, Clint Oldenburg sits in his parked car, stares at his phone, and tells the honest truth about Madden NFL 23.
“We don’t want to have to sell it ourselves,” says Oldenburg, gameplay producer for EA Sports’ Madden NFL series, during a Zoom call with me. “We want our players to sell it.”
The latest annual release of the series is often accompanied by a marketing boost, reinforced by the allure of another real-world NFL season on the horizon. But even the biggest promotional campaign in history wouldn’t be able to generate the kind of organic excitement Oldenburg hopes to build around this year’s edition of the long-running and often criticized title.
“We want players who have played and receive the first copies of the game to say to all their friends: ‘I love this game. You have to get it because I want to play it with you,'” Oldenburg said. “In the end, this is the biggest compliment we can get: players say to other people, ‘You have to get this game.’ “
When Madden NFL 23 is released to the public this Friday, the world of the game will have a say. Before that happened, I dived into the state of this venerable series and the steps taken by the manufacturers to make radical changes to the latest edition.
After a decade and a half as the only NFL licensed football simulation video game, the Madden series clearly needed a kick in the rear.
Recent editions of Madden have been the target of online ire of fans. Over 5,000 reviews have been left on the Metacritic site of the PlayStation 4 version of Madden NFL 21, resulting in a user score of 0.3 out of 10; the PlayStation 5 version of Madden NFL 22 garnered 518 user reviews, resulting in a score of 0.6. In July 2020, players frustrated by the stagnation in the franchise mode of the series, which is a staple, vented on Twitter until the hashtag #FixMaddenFranchise started trending, as recorded by The Philly Voice.
I’ve been an avid gamer of the Madden franchise since Madden NFL 98, and while I’ve seen some fan complaints as being driven by nostalgia for previous versions of the game or, perhaps, a desire to generate influence on the internet by piling up, I can say that some publications have deserved the criticism they have received. The game had become obsolete in many areas, and although the graphics had improved (often dramatically), the mechanics and functionality did not progress at the pace one might expect, especially as video game consoles continued to evolve.
Over the past few years, EA Sports has been making changes to the Franchise mode, overhauling the scouting element and adding features like a playoff image, an online league history page, and updated business logic. The Madden series is the only licensed NFL simulation game on the market, and according to numbers provided by EA Sports, many people still seem to buy and play it every year – according to the company, until December 2021, it was the “best” -sales of sports properties in video game history in the United States, “while players collectively record over 10 million seasons and over 340 million touchdowns annually. But if the series is to achieve the kind of word-of-mouth success Oldenburg hoped for, bolstering its reputation will be key.
I’ve had the opportunity to play both a beta test and the final version of Madden NFL 23. And for me, the game shows that the series makes the leap needed to take advantage of the latest generation of consoles.
If Madden NFL 21 played like EA Sports pitch in the shallow pool waters of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S, and Madden NFL 22 played like a cautious walk to high water, Madden NFL 23 looks like an ambitious dive. in the Deep End.
“It was a big problem for us that we wanted to tackle”
‘That was a big one for us that we wanted to tackle’
Recent releases of Madden tended to include new features that didn’t live up to the promises suggested by their flashy and vibrant labels. On the same subject : Video games can change your mind for the better.
The difference to Madden NFL 23, however, is evident from the opening snap.
The central feature of this year’s edition is FieldSENSE, a brand new game system that builds every action on the pitch in all modes. Players have more control than ever.
Player models look noticeably different. They are completely redesigned and move with greater precision and agility, thanks to a motion control feature called 360-Degree Cuts. Hit Everything is a feature that allows defenders to connect with ball carriers from multiple angles with multiple players, increasing the chances of forcing a turnover or preventing an opponent from gaining additional yards. Skill-based passing gives players the ability to place balls where only their targeted pass receiver can reach them. The branching animations increase the variance in the action, increasing the chances that a Madden player will never experience the same game twice.
More importantly, the game is much more like real football.
“One of the most important things we heard from our fans was that they thought the game was, in their terms, based on animation,” Madden executive producer Aaron McHardy told me. “What we interpreted [from] what they meant by animation-based … is that they feel like, many times, the game was predetermined, because you were stuck in predefined animations. It was important to us that we wanted to tackle.” .
Throw a pass to a receiver with a nearby defender and you won’t be able to predict what happens. Gone are the all-or-nothing results – an interception or a completion, with little room for anything else – produced by these interactions in previous years. Instead, defenders have more viable options: go for the pick, dunk the ball, or attempt to free the ball from a catcher’s grasp. And these moves are finally effective.
Faced with third and scoring and interested in throwing the same back corner, prop fade, do you see your favorite NFL quarterbacks complete every Sunday? In Madden NFL 23 you can do just that.
“You’ve never really been able to hit that road in our game,” Oldenburg said. “Skill-based steps will allow you to do that, and so much more.”
‘We listen to our players’
To understand why these significant changes have not been made in previous editions of the game, one needs to consider the nature of the development cycle of an annual sports simulation title. As McHardy said, it’s like “squeezing the blood out of a stone in a short amount of time”. And it doesn’t leave much room for the kinds of huge improvements players often expect.
The development team has not ignored the requests and criticisms of the Madden community in recent years. To see also : Players see more cash as the NFLPA buys equity in Sports Data Labs. In fact, hearing McHardy say this is what drives much of the planning.
“We’re listening to our players, we’re scouring Metacritic, we’re scouring forums, Reddit,” McHardy said. “As Clint said, we have to have thick skin, because it’s partly ferocious. We know it’s because people love the game so much, so we can be thick-skinned and try to find those nuggets of truth. And we collect. all of this and we ask ourselves what we know about the game and what we think we can improve, and we put it all together and make lists. ‘OK, what are all the things we can look for this year with the time we have?’ …
“We know we have ideas beyond what we can accomplish in just one year, so how do we get to a full picture and what will be the most impactful thing that will satisfy most people in just one year? And make sure we’re not shooting. hello nowhere. That we know that everything we chase will make a significant difference. “
To make matters worse, in 2020, the Madden team ran into the same all-encompassing obstacle as the rest of the world: the COVID-19 pandemic. As operations moved from the team’s office in Orlando, Florida remotely, the challenges grew in scope. Add in the anticipated industry shift from the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (Gen Four) console generation to PS5 and Xbox Series X | S (Gen Five) later in 2020 and the climb has gotten steeper.
Due to supply chain problems, Oldenburg even had a hard time procuring a game development kit (hardware and software that developers can use to help them create games for new consoles) to work on the next generation version of Madden NFL. 21.
“When we started working on Gen Five, I think we had about six split in total across all Madden teams, and they grew slowly,” Oldenburg said, while noting that nearly all of the gaming companies were facing the same challenge. “To get my test kit, just to test the console version of the game, I had to go to the office … and I saw our IT tech had a Gen Five test kit sitting on his desk, and I said, ‘You can I’ll take it?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, ok.’ And that’s how I got my Gen Five test kit during COVID, because they were so hard to find. “
If the aforementioned challenges weren’t enough, the Madden team had another hurdle to overcome: they had been tasked with simultaneously developing two adjacent versions of the game that could be played on Gen Four and Gen Five consoles. Therefore, Madden NFL 21, the first to be available on Gen Five consoles, did not feature groundbreaking changes. Nor Madden NFL 22, except for the implementation of M Factors, which personalize the home environments of all 30 NFL stadiums by providing specific effects based on momentum changes.
However, the Madden team wasn’t just resting on their laurels. FieldSENSE has been in the works for some time now, and the Madden team has created it as a new foundation upon which to build and upgrade the game house for years to come.
“You can see how it all works together,” Oldenburg said of FieldSENSE’s impact on game changes coming to Madden NFL 23. “One thing that manager (John) Madden has always cared about the most has been the fundamentals. Something like FieldSENSE pushes forward the innovation that every game needs. But for our players and our game, this is just as important as the fundamentals. “
Hall of Fame coach and broadcaster John Madden has remained deeply involved in the development of the game that bears his name since its inception in 1988 through this upcoming title, sharing many conversations with Oldenburg about the game’s direction and other details. Madden’s death in December 2021 gives Madden NFL 23 an additional air of importance to those who create it.
Madden’s face was regularly on the game’s cover until Madden 2000, after which the company began picking an NFL player to star. For Madden NFL 23, the Madden likeness returns. The game will also include a “Madden Legacy” feature, which will allow players to use previous All-Madden teams in the original Oakland Coliseum.
This isn’t just another Madden release – it’s intended as a way to honor the man who promoted the love of the sport to millions of people.
Based on my experience, EA Sports is well on its way to achieving this goal.
The development team listened to a number of complaints about Madden NFL 22’s problems, from the overwhelmed quarterback’s scrambling ability to under-coverage areas that didn’t match what can be seen on the NFL courts every Sunday. In response, they added elements to properly perform coverage in Madden NFL 23 according to established real-world rules. They also tweaked players’ special abilities to make their immediate scramble attempts less effective and updated the pass run to reduce the time available to release a pass. As corner rusher and cornerback in real life increase in importance in the NFL, so will their virtual counterparts and play the ball more accurately.
“That’s great,” McHardy said, “because when you think about how people played the game last year and before, it was trying to get to the quarterback, and when the ball went up in the air, you’re changing and trying to look for wiretapping, which isn’t quite what should happen when you think about it. “
The goal of all of this is simple: to adjust and improve the game to bring it closer to real-world football and give players the control they want to decide the outcome on the virtual pitch.
“To be able to make that change, to give defenses the ability to find different ways out of the field, that was one of the goals when it came to agency and control …” McHardy said. “It really changes the way you are thinking of approaching defense, which is also reflected in game calls and many other things and brings a lot more strategy and chess match into the game.”
Gameplay improvements related to off-screen action are also heading in the right direction. EA Sports will include additional scouting updates in Madden NFL 23. Free Will Received More Depth and Variety; amateur general managers have to contend with individual AI. players who now bring motivation beyond the dollar. The development team reduced the size of the playbooks (some had come to include up to 440 plays) to improve artificial intelligence. play-calling and execution.
And with NFL teams clashing with precedent and conventional wisdom by swinging successful trades that rock the league landscape, Madden aims to keep up through yet another improvement in business logic.
“Some of these NFL trades that are made, there isn’t, like, a chart that anyone can follow to figure out what the logic is,” Oldenburg said. “So as real life continues to evolve, the franchise mode will continue to evolve along with it.”
Evolution appears to be the key word to move forward, especially during the Madden NFL 23 lifecycle. Collaboration could be another, considering EA Sports has opened a player hotline to contest ratings of their favorite players. EA Sports told me it has received over 7,000 calls from players contesting the ratings, opening another line of dialogue between the company and the consumer.
‘The rest comes in the proof in the pudding’
‘The rest comes in the proof in the pudding’
Unlike in years past, based on what Oldenburg and McHardy have told me, EA Sports has no plans to run to mountaintops to sell Madden NFL 23 to the world. The company knows the player base is too wise at this point to take the printed copy on the back of the box as canon. See the article : The gaming industry is being united by some of its most overlooked talents. Instead, they will notify their players of the new features and leave the verdict to them.
“We have made an effort to start reducing the hyperbole we use in our communications, in our messages about what we are building,” Oldenburg said. “In the past, every year we used to write, ‘This is the best X ever’ or, ‘This is the best in the franchise’s history.’ We made an effort to say: “It’s not up to us to decide, it’s up to the players to decide”.
“Just tell the players what exactly you’re offering and let them decide how good it is for them, and I think that, too, starts paying a head start. Because if you go out and say, ‘This is the best thing ever,’ the only thing anyone can really say better is, ‘No it’s not.’ “
“If we keep doing it year after year, when we tell people what we’re building into next year’s game, we hope they’re excited about it,” McHardy said. “The rest comes in the proof in the pudding.”
It’s still a video game, so things won’t be perfect. There will definitely be release week bugs (which are sure to be caught in viral videos) and there will still be areas that players will want more from. But after years of review sites complaining about the lack of significant and potentially transformative changes in Madden, the latest version finally fulfills at least some of those wishes.
Now, as McHardy and Oldenburg say, it’s up to the Madden player to decide if this game really lives up to the hyperbole of the past.
“They should go get this game because it is our tribute to manager Madden,” said Oldenburg, “and he will play completely differently than anything you expect in Madden’s last couple of years.”
NFL + gives you the freedom to watch LIVE off-market pre-season games, local and prime-time LIVE regular and post-season games on your phone or tablet, the best on-demand NFL programming and more ! Wherever you are, that’s how football is played! Learn more about NFL +.
Why wouldnt John Madden fly?
However, Madden admitted in 2008 that his fear of flying predated the accident. It was actually caused by claustrophobia. “I didn’t like getting on planes before,” Madden said, for NBC Sports. “I had claustrophobia and it got worse over the years.”
Why doesn’t John Madden like to fly? The soccer legend said his fear of flying stemmed from claustrophobia, although many believed it was due to the California Polytechnic State University football team plane crash on October 29, 1960. Madden graduated from Cal Poly in 1958. and had friends who died on the flight.
When did John Madden become afraid of flying?
Flight Aversion However, it wasn’t until 1979 that he had his first panic attack on a flight originating from Tampa, Florida; he never flew on a plane again. Madden, however, once stated in an interview that his fears weren’t about turbulence, flight, or height, but mostly about claustrophobia.
Why did John Madden travel in a bus?
According to the Sports Illustrated story, Madden loved the fact that the bus gave him the opportunity to see seldom visited parts of the country.
Did John Madden get in a plane crash?
The university canceled the last three games of the 1960 season. Hall of Fame coach John Madden, a Cal Poly alumnus who played for Mustangs during the 1957 and 1958 seasons, was afraid of flying, which was commonly attributed to the accident, even though he said it came from claustrophobia instead.
Is Madden 22 still free?
Currently, Madden 22 costs 20.99 across multiple platforms, so getting it for free is a steal. EA Play membership costs $ 4.99 per month if you are not currently registered. The good news is that with your $ 4.99 subscription, not only will you get Madden 22, but loads of other games that you can play for free.
Is Madden 22 Free Now? Each month, Amazon Prime Gaming members get access to tons of free games, and the month of March is offering players the premium EA Madden NFL 2022 title for free.
Is Madden 22 free on Xbox?
Play Madden 22 Trial Now with Xbox Game Pass One of these appears to be a 10-hour EA play trial with full access to most of their major titles, and that includes Madden 22. The Madden 22 Trial Version includes full access to the game, but with a caveat that after 10 hours of play, you will need to purchase it to continue playing.
Is Madden 22 included in EA Play?
EA Play * members will receive more Madden NFL 22 when the game enters the Play List on February 17, 2022. EA Play members can also give their Ultimate Team a major boost with the EA Play Supercharge Pack, featuring eight players. elite to help dominate the pitch!
Is Madden 22 free on PS4?
Now you can download Madden NFL 22 for free on PC, PS4, PS5 and Xbox.
Why is my Madden 23 trial not working?
If the trial expired error still appears, try restarting your Xbox and possibly restarting your router. That way, you’ll have a clean start when you try to launch Madden 23 Early Access. If that doesn’t work, sadly, you’re out of luck until EA Sports fixes the problem.
Can I play Madden 23 early with EA Play? Players who subscribe to EA Play or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate can request a trial version of the latest Madden before the game is released.
How do you get Madden trial?
The trial version of Madden 23 is available exclusively to EA Play subscribers on PlayStation, Xbox and PC. Players can go to the PlayStation Store, Steam or Microsoft Store and look for the “Play Trial” option to launch it. EA Play is also included with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
Whats the earliest you can play Madden 23?
The NFL season is here and this month football fans can get into the game early with Madden NFL 23. EA Play members will have a 10-hour early access trial of the game on August 15th – three days before release! Offer starts at 7:00 am PT on August 15, 2022 for EA Play members only.
