There’s a new Madden game coming out, and with it a new set of bells and whistles that will either delight or disappoint fans of the long-running franchise.
It seems like this year’s game has some pretty big jumps in gameplay. There are timing-based catches that aim to add another level to battles for a jump ball in the air, and the weather now changes over the course of a game, as opposed to being simply set to “Rain = On.”
As for the biggest off-the-digital-field features, they can be found in franchise mode. As Herb Scribner at Axios notes, Madden 27 “turns you into a news junkie,” with breaking news cards flashing and a ticker across the bottom of the screen to make the league you’re playing in feel more alive. Per Scribner, the new game “features a new franchise mode based around an AI ‘persona engine’ that creates headlines and article cards that represent decisions gamers need to make.”
That’s right folks, sports journalism jobs aren’t even safe from the AI takeover in the Madden universe.
Jokes aside, the feature seems meant to shake up some of the more potentially monotonous aspects of the game, with Scribner writing, “Instead of completing a checklist of tasks as the owner of a team, gamers need to click on the headlines and make decisions around a media narrative.” Makes sense.
Beyond the in-game news system, the persona engine is also used in a revamped free-agent period, giving players personalities with different goals and values regarding money, years, and guarantees in a new deal.
Since the turn of the millennium, the NFL has worked to become a year-round league with free agency, the combine, the draft, and the annual schedule release all taking up calendar space between one season’s Super Bowl and the start of the next campaign. The fact that so much of modern Madden involves managing a team’s salary cap and offseason needs is the strongest evidence yet of the league’s success in that goal.
There is at least one news man safe in the Madden-verse, as RedZone’s Scott Hanson is back as one of the voices in the game to host weekly wrap-ups for those playing in Franchise mode with updates from around the league.
Another update Hanson delights in sharing in one of the game’s trailers is that, for the first time in Madden history, real coordinators will be on the sidelines for each game.
This feels a bit like the time Mark Zuckerberg excitedly announced the addition of “legs” to the metaverse, but to any huge Davis Webb fans out there, this game’s for you.
Madden 27 will be widely available on August 13.
About Tyler Lauletta
Tyler is a editorial contributor at Awful Announcing, with previous stops at Sports Illustrated and Business Insider during his career covering sports in digital media. He is, begrudgingly, a Truster of the Process and general Philly sports sicko.