It’s almost time for Madden 26 to hit the general public, with early access players already getting their hands on the game, and that’s exciting news not just for those eager to make the upgrade but for players of past editions, too. With Madden NFL 26 ratings now available, it creates the opportunity for custom roster builders to make the most EA-accurate updated rosters to date. That’s good news for players looking to have a crack at the 25/26 NFL season without dropping the cash for the annual official roster update that is a new Madden game.
Can You Play With Madden NFL 26 Rosters In Madden NFL 25
Yes, albeit not with officially released rosters care of the folks at EA. That doesn’t mean you can’t still recreate what’s going on in this year’s game in prior years, however, as converting your in-game rosters from last year’s to this year’s is as simple as finding and downloading a custom roster file with the updated rosters and ratings.
How To Download And Use Madden 26 Rosters in Madden 25
If you’re ready to check out the most updated rosters possible in Madden 25, here’s what you need to do to find, download, and activate your Madden 26 rosters:
- Go to the Download Center: From the main menu, navigate to the Creation Center menu, then select the Download Center option from the main window. This will take you to the online library for all user-created content, which allows you to download and customize nearly everything about your Madden experience.
- Search for updated rosters: In the download center, use your shoulder buttons or keyboard to navigate to the Rosters tab from the available created content categories. Choose to search by keyword, as the top rosters with keywords like 26 in them are unlikely to be featured on the opening screen.
- Search for Auuuuuustin_05’s roster: In the search box, enter “Madden26UpdatedDraft” to search for your updated roster. Auuuuuustin_05’s roster is popular among the Madden reddit community and an excellent option for getting accurate representations of the current NFL rosters in last year’s edition. Make sure to check the name of the creator when selecting your roster, as multiple other rosters use this same naming structure. Select “Download” from the resulting pop-up box and make sure you allow the roster to fully download before backing out.
- Load your rosters in: Back out to the top Creation Center menu and navigate to the “Load/Delete Files” option. Open this and select your recently downloaded roster and load it as the active roster file for the game. One common error players make with custom rosters is not completing this step, as simply downloading a roster to your console or computer will not activate it and will mean your game stays on default rosters.
- Check then tweak your roster if desired: Navigate to “Edit Rosters” in the Creation Center menu to ensure that the game has correctly loaded your new roster. If desired, you can also make edits to the state of the roster to reflect any changes that have occurred since the roster was last updated.
- Start a new game or franchise: Congratulations, your Madden 25 game is now running with updated rosters to better match the Madden 26 experience. You can now boot up a play now or start your next franchise with all the updated rosters and ratings you desired!
Keeping Your Rosters Updated Through Multiple Madden 25 Seasons
If you choose to play a franchise with updated rosters, one of the first options you have is to load your own preferred draft class instead of allowing the game to generate its own class. Just as you used custom rosters to build your Madden NFL 26 roster in Madden NFL 25, the Creation Center is an excellent way to keep your franchise simulation as accurate as possible to the real world.
Draft class designers work just as hard as the roster builders, only they focus on creating rookie classes to import into your franchises. Instead of navigating to the Rosters tab in the Download Center, you can navigate to the Draft Classes tab and search by Draft Class year to find and download custom draft classes. Remember that draft classes are named by their graduating year, so for your 2025 NFL season, you want to have the 2026 draft class, and so on for future years.
With both a custom Madden NFL 26 roster to start your franchise off and several years of future draft classes ready to keep you stocked with the next several seasons of future stars, you can run your Madden NFL 25 franchise mode as true to real life as possible for several virtual seasons to come.
