Madden 25 Review – Moving the Sticks

Madden 25 on PS5

We’re seeing an injection of fresh life into this year’s Madden thanks to the return of college football with EA Sports College Football 25’s release. The college football franchise comes off an 11-year hiatus, tying nicely into Madden 25’s pro football package. But the return of college football can only do so much for Madden 25, as this year’s experience feels more like a mechanical iteration from past entries rather than a comprehensive overhaul.

Surprisingly, the biggest innovations in this year’s Madden are found in nitty-gritty gameplay details rather than in modes or presentation. EA has been proudly campaigning its new BOOM Tech physics suite; a physics package that incorporates realistic tackles and individualized player movements. By extension, the iconic Madden Hit Stick has been re-engineered so that you can control your tackles through risk/reward hit timings. I’m a terrible tackler in these games and even I found the Hit Stick timings to be intuitive and fun to pull off, even if it sometimes resulted in the carrier breaking through a poorly timed hit.

Thanks to the new physics suite, carrying the ball finally feels like it has some depth this year. You can set up combo jukes and spins through the right stick, and the overall movement feels more nuanced thanks to the physics overhaul. AI is improved, with a carrier’s center of mass and footing determining their balance and stability. Calculations like torque and rotation angles are all formulated into the enhanced physics suite to create more varied and realistic movement. As a personal anecdote, I can’t help but chuckle at the mountain of linemen squirming around to fumble the ball out of the carrier’s hands.

Players move individual pieces of their body per these new physics calculations, and it shows by the ragdoll-like movements after every hit. These newly enhanced physics do a great job of overcoming the rigidness and predictable player movements from previous games.

Unlike tackling and running, the passing game has remained largely untouched from previous iterations. I still enjoy leading receivers with passes and influencing whether it’s a bullet or lob, though the level of control still lags behind older sim-oriented titles like ESPN NFL 2K5.

That said, this is the most skill-based Madden we’ve seen in years, thanks in part to the new Hit Stick and physics. Player stats and abilities add that role-playing element to compliment the skill-based package nicely here, with skill trees for every team member and a perk system for each role. What’s even better is you can customize just how skill-based or RPG you want the experience to be through the extensive settings. Under the Player Skill tab, you can adjust a meter from 0 to 100 governing how accurate QBs are, reaction timing of catches, and a host of other parameters to make the experience as stat-dependant or skill-based as you wish.

Of course, if you really want a role-playing experience, Franchise mode supplies that in good measure. I like the option to only play certain highlights of games, but I wish you could decide when to step in and play. Sadly, there’s still no way to watch a game play out in real-time and take control of players when you wish. You either play a full game or select highlights of said game with little manual input.

Thankfully, the strategic gameplay here has improved thanks to retooled playbooks and new pre-snap tools. You have more defensive options with disguised coverage shells, while offensively, you can lengthen route stems to crack through coverage holes. Franchise Mode still has a long way to go before it can match the depth of, say, NFL Head Coach, but it is iterating little by little to get more sim-like.

On the presentation front, Madden 25 feels just as sterile and boring as it has in the past. The underwhelming Storylines interspersed throughout Franchise and Superstar do little to add to the intended liveliness and immersiveness of being a coach or star player. Storylines in Franchise mode consist of binary yes/no questions from a stiffly animated defensive coordinator or off-screen media interviewer. There’s no voice acting, of course, with large text font with mismatched colors functioning as the ‘dialogue’ between characters.

These Storylines feel like they have the budget of a browser or mobile game and don’t add much to the experience, other than the stat boosts from your answers. If NFL 2K5 could inject personality with a fully customizable crib and voiced media segments, why can’t EA do it with Madden with today’s tech? Likewise, the menus serve a purely utilitarian purpose with a clinical and clean UI completely lacking in style and personality.

One big upgrade with this year’s presentation is the addition of two new commentary teams. Yes, that’s right, eight long years of the Gaudin/Davis duo are finally at an end, kind of. Gaudin and Davis can still be your main cast of broadcasters if you wish. The three broadcast duos can be set to shuffle or you can manually select which ones you want on or off. The two new teams consist of Mike Turico/Greg Olsen, and Kate Scott/Brock Huard, and let me tell you, it’s a huge improvement over the old ones. I still heard plenty of repeated lines throughout my time, despite the supposed 42,000 new recordings, but EA has promised to add more recordings throughout the year with updates.

Superstar Mode gets the benefit of importing your player from College Football 25. Even though Madden doesn’t do anything to specifically recognize your college career, it’s still cool to finally live through a player’s journey from college to the Super Bowl. The character creator is pretty barebones, with only a handful of head templates and hairstyles to choose from, though it is nice to see some sliders for things like jawline etc. There’s a host of Abilities and Skills that you can allocate for your Superstar player, and for the first time, you can customize starting skills and physical ratings for a more tailormade experience.

Similar to my disappointment with player Storylines, the NFL Draft and Super Bowl additions feel underwhelming and insignificant. Yes, they added a Rogel Goodell model that greets your superstar character into the NFL, and even went so far as to give your character custom-tailored suits for his media appearances. But these moments still feel too sterile and binary due to the lack of voices and boring dialogue font.

I do like the occasional live-action Maddencast videos that comment on pivotal moments throughout your superstar’s career. Sure, they don’t say your name outright, but the charisma of the crew and that feeling of being discussed on a live broadcast is a nice immersive touch. 15 new minigames join this year’s Madden, most of them carried over from EA Sports College Football 25. Even though this year’s Superstar Mode is largely untouched from previous years, I still had a blast role-playing as my rookie quarterback from college through an NFL career.

We’re at the end of the review and Ultimate Team hasn’t been mentioned yet, and that’s because there’s not much new here to comment on. You build a dream team from the ground up through a lengthy and substantial grind. There’s still a lot of depth to be had here with plenty of stats, skill trees, and training that you can do to improve each player. I still lament that Ultimate Team and Superstar remain online-only modes requiring integration with an EA account. Just as well, the monetization is as egregious as previous years. The MUT Coin virtual currency is used to purchase player cards, XP Boosters, and just about anything else they can find to nickel and dime the player.

Madden 25 offers a really solid football package for those who missed previous entries. There are a lot of smart improvements to the running and defensive game, and the physics overhaul is noticeable. These gameplay upgrades help Madden 25 stand out as one of the most mechanically impressive football games in recent memory. While I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing matches, the slight additions to each mode didn’t feel as substantial as was advertised. And the awkward voiceless ‘Storyline’ scenes ring hollow, despite their good intentions to add immersion. Madden 25 is a solid game with some much-needed mechanical improvements, but the modes feel largely the same as last year.