It seems like that NFL fans find a reason to complain about EA Sports’ Madden video game with each year’s edition. But this year, especially, fans are fed up with the product.
EA Sports has an exclusive licensing deal to make the NFL video game — a deal that was renewed this year — so without competition driving product improvements, users have generally been faced with minor refreshes on an annual basis instead of complete overhauls.
Madden 21, though, seems to be different. And not in a good way.
We’re about a week into Madden 21‘s release, and we’ve already seen some hilarious glitches hit social media. There was one game where the 49ers were playing on a completely unmarked field.
Grounds crew get fired, @EAMaddenNFL? pic.twitter.com/GzHqJAaTqJ
— Gaming Humor & News (@VGFGamers) August 31, 2020
And there were examples of actual gameplay getting impacted.
Madden 21’s glitches are here and they are just as infuriating as the ones in the past pic.twitter.com/kOFoIrTPQC
— Going Deep Podcast (@goingdeep) August 30, 2020
Love the new ball physics in Madden 21. 😄 #NFLdropEA pic.twitter.com/PJ6xGZJerI
— Will 郭 (@GuoBlue) August 31, 2020
It comes down to EA Sports asking fans to pay $60 for slightly refreshed versions of the previous year’s game.
This problem has persisted for years. As great as Madden 08 was, you can pick up Madden 07 and not notice much of difference.
Speaking of not seeing much of a difference, this side-by-side comparison of Superbowl celebrations between Madden 17-20 is very sad. #nfldropea pic.twitter.com/nbP5minXnr
— Nomar Mendoza (@TheNomarMendoza) August 30, 2020
But even last year, Madden 20 was at least received well critically. The users still hated it. But Madden 21 is getting ripped by both critics and fans.
Metacritc’s aggregate score from the critics has Madden 21 at a 62 — compared to last year’s favorable 79. The user score for Madden 21 is a historically low 0.4 out of 10 (!!!).
That, as of now, would be the lowest-ever user score on Metacritic, coming in slightly worse than Warcraft 3 Reforged‘s 0.5.
That’s not where the Madden franchise wants to be heading at all. Not even more sweat in next-gen games will be enough to fix it.
