For years, single-player gamers have been more or less feeding off scraps when it comes to offline modes in the Madden series. Franchise Mode has more or less stagnated over the last several years, and more or less becomes broken as in-game years pass. Superstar Mode — Madden‘s equivalent to a career mode — has seen just as little in terms of innovation as well, with users constantly calling out how shallow, repetitive, and limited the mode’s experience is. Essentially, Superstar Mode has boiled down to this basic formula for years now: Get drafted, play games, sign contracts, repeat. To be frank, it’s an incredibly boring affair, which is wild considering that football is very much an interesting sport with interesting metadrama that keeps fans hooked. But, if EA is to be believed, Madden 26 will be introducing some much-needed changes to this formula.
Over the last few weeks, EA has incrementally provided information about the litany of gameplay changes that will be coming to Madden 26. And now, they’ve released a deep dive into all of the new features and refined systems that will be coming to Superstar Mode this year.
How Superstar Mode In Madden 26 Differs From Past Iterations
As has been the case, EA dumped a lot of new information about Madden 26 Superstar Mode in its deep dive, way too much to tackle all at once. But there were two things that caught my eye when reading through it the first time: The way one’s career can begin, and the consequences that come with poor performance.
For years, Superstar Mode has felt very much “same-y” with each new game. It has essentially boiled down to a simple loop, with only a few obstacles thrown in here and there:
- Get drafted
- Play games
- Improve attributes
- Repeat
It’s far from the most immersive experience in sports games, and it has been stale for longer than I care to mention. That said, one thing that stood out to me initially about the promises for Superstar Mode this year is this: Starting as a backup.
Sure, in real life, some rookies are immediately thrown into the deep end. But many times, especially with rookie quarterbacks, they spend the first year or so of their NFL career on the bench behind a veteran. Aaron Rodgers — easily one of the best to ever do it — spent the first three seasons of his career in Green Bay behind Brett Favre. The experience and lessons he received as a result of his sitting back and watching likely provided him with a wealth of information and knowledge before he ever got an opportunity to start. And the idea of doing this in Madden 26 is an intriguing concept. Obviously, there are several ways it can be mishandled and botched from a developer standpoint (not progressing when not playing would be unwise), but I’m glad it’s there. Not every football player is ready for the NFL at first, even if they were studs in college.
Another thing I found intriguing was the prospect of a player being benched. In past years, it seemed the only way you could miss time in a Madden game was if your player got an injury. Otherwise, you were free to fail at your own leisure without any real incentive to improve. This year, Madden 26 promises a new feature that will require players to meet objectives set forth by their coach. Should they not meet these objectives, getting benched is a possibility.
Getting benched sucks. But as the gameplay deep dive points out, several players have been benched in the past before experiencing a resurgence. It even mentions recent examples such as Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, and Geno Smith, all highly touted quarterback prospects who, for one reason or another, lost their starting job at their first team, only to move on later and prove they can ball out when it the proper environment and conditions.
At first glance, these might seem like small changes. But in a sport so rooted in week-to-week decisions, they are anything but.
