Madden NFL 26

Madden NFL 26 is the best Madden entry we've had in years. While it suffers from some lackluster modes and long loading times when navigating menus, it also offers an immersive and engaging football experience, and one that surpasses its college counterpart.

EA hasn’t reinvented the wheel, but their latest NFL outing still managed to impress me. Every mode, except Ultimate Team, has been enhanced with more engaging systems and streamlined features. The presentation feels livelier and more dynamic, with a welcome dose of college football DNA. Unfortunately, sluggish load times and a few poor interface choices continue to plague the yearly series.

Madden NFL 26 finally pairs the series' great on-field gameplay with a destination mode thanks to an impressive Franchise makeover.

Madden 26's presentation and franchise improvements are authentic, fantastic, and worth a sustained play. It's still narrowly edged out by the fun and flair of College Football 26, but the gap between these sibling games is closing, inch by inch.

Server issues at launch aside, and with the loss of cross-play noted, Madden 26 is a very solid port of one of the best outings for this franchise in recent memory. Yes, you'll need to get used to a drop in the frame rate to 40fps on Switch 2, but it's a reasonable downgrade in order to get this type of game running as well as it does on a portable machine. It really is a very close match in all other ways to other consoles. For newcomers, this is one of the best Madden games I've played in terms of teaching you the ropes, and for the returning hardcore, the improvements on the pitch, and wit...

There’s always room for improvement, but it’s hard to overstate what a leap Madden NFL 26 feels like both on and off the field.

For all its highs, Madden NFL 26 still stumbles over familiar hurdles. Bugs and unpolished animations occasionally disrupt an otherwise strong experience. Game logic can break, with random offsides or crashes. Menus remain clunky and prone to glitches, and some Superstar mode choices simply don’t register. Ultimate Team continues to be heavily monetized and feels predatory at times. That said, Madden 26 makes strides in authenticity and strategy. Smarter superstar behavior, improved playbooks, more realistic weather effects, amazing soundtrack, and enhanced presentation all contribute to a sol...

There is enough depth to Madden 26 that makes it an experience worth the update. It still is not as strong as the CFB franchise, but it is making strides in the right direction.

When an NFL player is entering the final year of their contract with a team, they have a tendency to overperform, going above and beyond their previous effort in an attempt to net themselves the best possible deal in the upcoming offseason. That's exactly the vibe I got from Madden NFL 26. I’m not here to speculate on the status of EA’s NFL rights deal, but to share that this year’s Madden was developed like the studio had something to prove, even if it doesn’t all land.

During each NFL offseason, front offices work to add the pieces necessary to field a better team than the year before. Sometimes, despite making all the right moves on paper, things just don’t come together the way they had hoped. Similarly, the Madden NFL franchise looked to have a terrific offseason, adding several exciting features to its long-running formula, but sadly, despite various important improvements, Madden NFL 26 falls well short of being championship caliber.

Once again, Madden NFL 26 overpromises and underdelivers. The new updates to Franchise mode and the general gameplay are nice, but let's be honest: the core issues are still there. This is a house with a shoddy foundation, only excelling at delivering a disappointing football experience. It's the only game in town for the NFL, so there's sadly nowhere else to go. I'll still probably begrudgingly play on occasion, but only when I want to enact revenge after the Patriots lose.

It’s that time of year again, every sports game is releasing their latest installment that promises to evolve and innovate on last year’s experience. With tickets available for a not very reasonable price to see the Vikings play in London, I figured why not just jump into Madden NFL 26 instead and enjoy the experience from home. That’s certainly what the idea was with this year’s game, I just can’t promise that everything went to plan right from the get go.