Madden NFL 25 review: Once more onto the field

More of the same, but a little bit better

EA Sports

Another year, another Madden NFL sports game. EA Sports has perfected the art of improvement through iteration with these annual releases, and its work with Madden NFL 25 is no different – which, along with glitchy new features, is part of the problem I had while playing Madden 25. This year’s Madden game is basically Madden 24, but smoother and more efficient, with better animations. On-field play is the cleanest and most detailed it’s ever been (well, minus the bugs), but everything else just feels like an afterthought.

I’ll start with Superstar Mode, which is fine. It’s mostly the same as in Madden 24, where you take a rookie all the way to the top in a relentless campaign of games, training rounds, and improvement quests. Madden 25 adds more targeted mini-games that cover a broader variety of positions and styles, which is welcome for its comprehensiveness, though I’m still not a big fan of the mini-games in general. 

It also introduces hundreds of quests that spawn depending on your performance on the field, and I’m a bit mixed on it. Having personalized challenges does give you something new to focus on aside from the usual stream of menus, matches, and training rounds, and improving your weak areas adds a welcome sense of accomplishment and progression at times. These challenges eventually just end up feeling like more busywork, though, more tasks to tick off the list so you can move on to the next set of tasks – and then the next, and so on until it finally ends.

I didn’t see it through to the end before writing my review, and I don’t plan on doing it afterward, either. 

Me looking at the wall of mini-games running my way / EA Sports

Madden 25’s Franchise mode follows a similar path. EA made some welcome improvements to scouting and management that give you more control over the recruiting process, though with draft night – the closest Madden 25 comes to capturing College Football 25’s energy – only happening once per year, the process quickly devolves into repetitive menu management. Coach customization is also deeper than ever, and you can actually create a female coach. It’s also easier than ever to completely bork your team morale and mess up conversations in public and with the team, which leads to frustrating consequences, including rating dips for the rest of the season.

Then there’s the Madden Ultimate Team mode. I’m not a fan of EA’s Ultimate Team modes or 2K’s MyTeam and their vicious monetization, which at times puts the likes of Genshin Impact to shame which is mostly the same as its previous incarnations but I will say the level of strategy makes MUT feel more fun and rewarding than Madden 25’s other modes.

The big thing MUT has going for it, though, is challenges. They’re highly specific and typically quite hard, having you complete, for example, a seemingly impossible comeback or a specific play on hard mode. The rewards on offer are worth the trouble, but what really interested me was how these challenges force you to play different ways, take bigger risks, and get creative in ways other that modes don’t. I would have loved to see this format used for Superstar’s quests or something other than having one of the game’s best features locked away in MUT.

That’s a lot of complaining about what Madden 25 does wrong, but there’s plenty it does right as well – just in smaller ways. If you’re keen on details, physics, and skill-based play, it’s hard to overstate how good these improvements are. Little animations unique to certain players make it like you’re actually playing a team of individuals with their own style. Hit stick play feels better than ever and rewards skill and learning, dynamic routes make for in-depth plays, and a suite of changes to plays – including how blocking and passing work – means you have a broader range of viable options at your disposal, so there’s a deeper element of strategy in planning each play.

Boom (tech) / EA Sports

EA touted Boom Tech as one of Madden 25’s biggest new features, an overhaul to tackle physics that, in theory, adds a layer of strategy to tackling. The idea is that when you tackle, and from what angle, determines how the action plays out. Sometimes, that idea makes its way down to reality, usually with solo tackles, and it feels brilliant when it works. It frequently doesn’t work, though, especially in group tackle situations, where models glitch and the outcome is just a mess. EA can probably fix whatever bugs are causing this in future updates. Launching with one of your major features in a half-broken state is not a good look, nor is it fair to the people working on the game and then having to scramble post-launch. 

The thing is, even without glitches – and there are plenty of glitches, not just with Boom Tech – these changes feel like minor updates to existing features, mostly because that’s what they are. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Madden 25 plays more like a definitive edition of Madden 24 than a new game. How influential this collection of changes is depends on you, and I don’t mean that in the usual sense of reviews being subjective. I mean, if you haven’t played a modern Madden NFL game in a few years, these features will probably seem a lot bigger and more groundbreaking than they did to me.

However, when you look at the care and attention that went into revamping College Football 25’s on-field play so it feels fresh and exciting – and is actually something new – it’s hard not to see Madden NFL 25’s catalogue of minor adjustments and wish EA gave Madden the same treatment. That’s not to say Madden 25 plays poorly. Bugs aside, it’s probably the best Madden has played and felt, but at this point, that’s kind of a bare minimum standard to meet.

Madden 25 is an apt representation of the broader games industry. The push for greater realism and immersion leads to some impressive achievements, but it comes at the expense of everything else, including a sense of ambition. Meanwhile, you’ve got EA College Football 25 over here with goofy mascots, over-the-top spectacle, and a greater sense of fun, and it isn’t afraid to do things differently in the pursuit of making play more interesting. There’s only so much you can do to make football play and feel more realistic, and once you reach that goal, you need to start looking elsewhere to make things worthwhile. Madden feels like it’s at that point, and I think for the sake of polish as much as creativity, EA needs to take more than a year between releases to get Madden back on track.

Score: 5/10

Version tested: PS5