Madden NFL 26 Gameplay Deep Dive
Hello Madden fans! Football season is right around the corner. Training Camp is on the horizon and every team starts with the new hope of the season to come. We’re kicking it off with a deep dive into all the new gameplay features and improvements you can expect in Madden NFL 26. The full Gameplay Deep Dive is available over at the Gridiron Notes on the Madden NFL 26 website. It covers a lot of info, so be sure to check it out when you've got the chance. I've included some highlights below: Built from Sundays Gameplay in Madden NFL 26 is all about bringing you closer to the NFL, while providing ultimate control and performance on the sticks. We're powering our playcall AI with years of NFL-coaching data that will make our gameplay smarter and more rewarding. We're expanding and replicating signature styles of NFL players and coaches that you can see and feel. Not only that, our team is continuing to focus on the fundamentals of the sport for more depth and gameplay balance. No matter how you like to play, there’s something for everybody and it starts with this year’s three core gameplay principles: Signature Identity - Dynamic gameplay experiences that pay off the unique, signature styles of the teams, players and coaches fans know and love, no matter what modes you play. Through Quarterback DNA, Coach DNA and Football Weather, each game will feel like its own rewarding challenge, authentic to the exclusive identities of the NFL. Community Requests - Madden NFL 26 is built for all of our different types of players, and we want you to know that we are listening. Whether it be searching social media, watching players play and stream, or having direct conversations, we value the feedback and are leveraging it to improve the experience by delivering a number of your wishlist items. Foundational Football - A never-ending pursuit of perfection in the fundamentals of the sport - Blocking and tackling, passing and catching - driven by our players’ desire for authentic, balanced gameplay mechanics and strategic depth. Signature Identity Our goal for Madden NFL 26 is to make each Sunday feel different, and each game feel rewarding. Each time you play a game, whether it be vs. the AI, vs. another user, online or offline, you should feel immersed in a rewarding challenge… a strategic chess match… an overall NFL experience where the unique identities of the teams, coaches and players have a meaningful impact on how the game is played and the wins and losses. This is what makes the NFL so insanely popular and exactly the experience we are aiming to deliver. Madden NFL 26 is delivering this ‘signature’ experience through Quarterback DNA, Coach DNA, and Football Weather. QB DNA The NFL Quarterback is the most iconic position in all of sports. As we continue pushing the ball forward with signature styles in Madden, we saw an opportunity to completely re-imagine the performance of the position. What we mean when we say ‘performance’ includes all of the following: visual quality, signature behaviors, improved AI, and new mechanics. Thus, we are delivering significant enhancements across each component that makes up a QB’s DNA in our game so that they play, look, and feel iconic. Coach DNA Another way we’re bringing to life the unique signature identities of the NFL that fans know and love is Coach DNA. This is a set of features that delivers on the real-life tendencies and styles of each NFL head coach. Running the same set of plays against similar CPU schemes to get easy Ws are in the past. To be successful, you’ll now need to gameplan and strategize differently depending on your opponent. Data-Driven Coaching is an example of how Madden 26 is truly being built straight from Sundays. We use decades of NFL playcall tendency data to train a predictive machine learning model. This new innovation allows you, the gamer, to ask: What would Andy Reid do? What would Dan Campbell do? The way our model answers those questions makes each game feel like the chess match of the NFL that we all love to watch unfold every week. This new playcall model will make Coach Suggestions and AI playcalling more dynamic and true to each real-life team by finding the play the head coach (or his staff) would call given the game situation. Things like down, distance, score, clock time, timeouts, personnel, field position, and even the weather conditions are used as filters to sort through all the available plays in the playbook and narrow down to those that best match what each team would most likely call in the given situation. You’ll see AI-controlled teams make these dynamic playcalls when playing against them. The Dan Campbell-coached Lions will aggressively go for it on fourth down more than anybody else; the Nick Sirianni-coached Eagles will use RPOs and Zone reads to play the strengths of Jalen Hurts. For your own playcalling, Coach Suggestions will be powered by the data-driven model, so if you want to compare what you would dial up vs. what the real-world head coach would, you can see that play in the Coach Suggestions tab. Football Weather “THAT’S Football Weather!” is one of the many quotes from the great John Madden himself. He exuded pride in the historic and unique link between extreme weather conditions and NFL football. Madden NFL 26 is delivering a set of features under this name - Football Weather - that combines the visceral nature of the weather look and the significant impact it has on gameplay. We’re bringing this experience right to your front door with an overhaul to weather visuals and intensity, coinciding with gameplay impacts to increase the realism of having to gameplan for the elements. We’ve made changes to all of our previously supported weather types, and have added heavy snow with fog and heavy rain with fog for Madden 26, all of which will be felt on the field as much as seen. When playing in the elements, you will have to adjust your gameplan based on how extreme they are. When playing in heavy fog you’ll be battling visibility in the passing game, just like an NFL QB. Players can slip when making drastic cuts, WRs can lose their footing when releasing off the line, linemen on both sides of the ball can lose their footing during their get-off and more. This is all dependent on a player’s Change of Direction (COD) rating and how much precipitation is in play. The way players run will feel different due to the penalties to their Speed (SPD), Acceleration (ACC) and Change of Direction (COD) ratings, as most athletes are not as explosive or smooth when running in heavy snow or rain. It will also be harder to kick and throw, with penalties to power and accuracy. You’ll see more broken tackles, tackles that slide on the wet field, dropped passes and fumbles, all driven by player ratings and their team’s home climate. The gameplay weather system is so detailed that players from cold-weather teams will not be as impacted when playing in the snow. Teams like Buffalo, Chicago, Green Bay, Cleveland, and Philadelphia, that play in the snow frequently, will perform better than teams from warm weather climates. Teams such as Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Jacksonville will experience heavier movement penalties. To simulate the balance of the NFL, cold weather teams also will experience faster rates of fatigue when playing in the heat. Teams used to playing in the heat will fatigue at a slower rate than the traditional cold weather teams. All of this is driven by improvements to the simulation side of weather. Precipitation is variable, wind has a wider range, and all of this affects the in-game visuals as well as the impact to each player’s performance. All Football Weather is not created equal and each game will present a different challenge to overcome. Foundational Football + Community Requests As a transition into our Foundational Football innovation, we wanted to call out a few specific features that came straight from the community wishlist. Why? We want our community to know that when you give us feedback, we listen. Madden is a game made for football fans, by football fans and there are significant changes coming to Madden 26 directly thanks to your input. In this section we’ll break down the most-discussed gameplay elements on social media from Madden NFL 25. Player Movement Player movement encompasses both speed and responsiveness. Instead of having two very different sets of locomotion across Madden and College, we will have alignment between both games on a central tuning set that captures the best of both College and Madden. It’s built on giving players ultimate control and responsiveness in change of direction, acceleration and decelerations, while also still maintaining authenticity in top-end speed, which have been finely tuned to match the speeds of today’s real-world top athletes. So no matter where you play, a 4.2 is a 4.2. The differentiation between NFL athletes and College athletes will be driven by the differences in how players are rated in Speed (SPD), Acceleration (ACC) and Change of Direction (COD) for each game. This is in direct response to player feedback that was very clear about expectations, citing the faster movement from College Football 25 felt more fun and responsive. In fact, in social media posts where College and Madden were compared, almost 40% mentioned player movement. To further test this out, we held a special playtest in Madden NFL 25 with our Madden Design Council community leaders who reinforced the community’s sentiment on faster movement speed. This change was overwhelmingly given a stamp of approval by the vast majority of players that tested it out. We are beyond excited to deliver this change to you in Madden NFL 26. Depth Chart Positions In 2025, NFL players are more dynamic than ever. The positional designations of 20+ years ago are often outdated. Madden NFL 26 is modernizing position listings across depth charts. This has been a long-time community wishlist item and also been a longtime desire of NFL players across the league. Updating our depth charts means there’s one NFL position that will finally be represented accurately in our game: The Long Snapper! J.J. Jansen fans, rejoice! We have finally made the long snapper position a primary depth chart position with a long snap rating. That’s just the start. Our depth chart positions in Madden 26 will also include new primary positions for Edge (LEDG & REDG) and SAM, MIKE and WILL linebackers, and a secondary position for Nose Tackle (DT archetype as well) and a new Gadget player (Think Taysom Hill or Deebo Samuel). These depth chart changes have been a long time coming, we’ve been working on this for more than two years. The reason it took time to get this done was all the logic that needed to be overhauled to support new positions. Draft logic, free agency, trades, development, progression, and much more will reflect these new position listings. This deep franchise logic is also why this feature adds depth and strategy to roster management in so many places. The Gadget player unlocks unique formations and plays in playbooks, and allows you to use just about any player you want in that position. Regardless of which player you want to use in special packages, there’s a matching ratings formula to go with it. Finding and developing edge players across 4-3 and 3-4 defensive fronts will be more authentic. You won’t have to frequently change positions between DE and OLB when you change your scheme. Mike and Will backers will be used in both schemes with the Sam being used only in the base 4-3 formations. Don’t forget to keep a good long snapper on your roster to avoid some slow or even bad snaps. As you play through your franchise or build your Ultimate Team, the increased positional depth will make for more scheme variety and more interesting decisions about how to fill out your rosters. That’s still not all. There’s a very unique player entering the league this year via the NFL Draft who plays both sides of the ball. Jacksonville’s Travis Hunter has forced us to revisit the assumptions the game makes about positions. We’ve removed certain restrictions on depth charts so that you can have Hunter starting at both WR and CB if you choose (along with any other WR or CB). Get creative with your personnel and use WRs and CBs as you’d like, but be ready for Wear & Tear to make it a lot harder for them to be successful if they’re playing every snap of the game. Hunter will have some benefits exclusive to him though. He’s the first Rookie we’ve ever made custom abilities for (deservingly so), and his unique abilities will make it so the impact from Wear & Tear will be far less than anybody else trying to play both sides of the ball. Pass Coverage There are very few core gameplay features our community cares about more than pass coverage. Coming off of the considerable amount of conversation about zones in Madden NFL 25, the team has made coverage more realistic to what we see in the NFL for Madden NFL 26. These efforts included hiring a Super Bowl-winning former NFL defensive backs coach to our design team. His expertise in combination with the expectations of our core players resulted in a variety of improvements on the backend of the defense. Two of our main areas of emphasis were Cover 4 and Man coverages. Cover 4 New 4 Strong Trips & Bunch Logic: For route concepts that send a back out of the backfield to a trips side, we’ve added a new ‘Push’ check to our Quarters and Palms coverages. This dynamic adjustment ‘pushes’ or bumps the coverage over to the Trips side and forces a man match on the receivers as they get into their routes. Rather than relying on spot drops to cover four threats on a side, this check makes defenders more intelligent about which receivers to leverage and less likely to blow the coverage when #4 becomes #1. Updated ‘China’ call: We’ve revamped the ‘China’ call concept in our quarters, palms and three-match coverages vs. combos where the #1 WR runs a short route (like a drag or smoke), and the #2 WR goes deep (like a streak or fade). We have improved the techniques of the DB’s to allow the CB to quickly leverage the deeper route and the flat defender to handle the short route. Deep Half We’ve improved the AI of our deep half defenders so that they reach their landmark quicker and with more urgency as they gain more depth. Players should feel more confident using Cover 2 coverages which aligns closely with the current NFL trend of non-traditional Tampa 2 coverages. Man Coverage The first improvement to man coverage is a new defender cut reaction system. Based on the ratings matchup of the players and leverage (discussed below), this system will allow receivers to create separation more authentically and have a better variety in the amount of separation. When a receiver wins on their cut, the defender can lose balance, allowing for a window to make a big play. Lockdown man corners, though, won’t be so charitable in the space they allow. Leverage Matters More. The leverage of the defender is going to play a much more significant role in receiver openness than in the past. The base win chance formula is still the Man Coverage (MCV) rating vs. Route Running (SRR, MRR, DRR) rating. The leverage side of the defender, however, will have a significant impact on the outcome at the cut, as well as the amount of separation the receiver can gain. If the defender is aligned with outside leverage at the snap, the receiver will have a much lower chance to win on a cut to the outside, and even when he does, the amount of separation gained will be far less than if he’d cut to the inside. This can mean just a step of separation when winning vs. outside leverage, vs. 2-3 steps of separation when making a cut in the opposite direction. Leverage will also play a bigger role when matching from a zone coverage. Defenders will be more intentional with their man leverage point based on the rules of the zone coverage they are matching from. If the zone calls to take away the outside, when they match into man, they’ll stay in an outside leverage position, which will make the coverage stickier vs. the concepts it aims to take away. We know man coverage is a delicate balance. It doesn’t take much to make it either too overpowered or not really viable. We’ve added on a few improvements to how individual defenders will play the ball for better coverage balance. To reduce the frequency of ‘psychic INTs,’ we’ve refined the logic for when an AI-controlled defender can attempt a catch. If he isn’t facing the ball, or hasn’t turned his head to see the ball, he won’t be able to attempt a catch at all and will instead play the receiver for a catch knockout more often. You’ll also see far more variety with new swat animations. There will be far more animation coverage for when defenders try to swat the ball from many different angles. Going even further, here’s a list of additional improvements coming to pass coverage driven directly from community feedback: Increased touch height for swats to give defenders more balanced reactions to high-ball throws and deep RAC catches Improved midair interaction logic for defenders so that the interactions look and feel more realistic and situation-specific, especially vs. high-ball throws; for users, it improves the effectiveness of using the ‘Play Receiver’ mechanic. Zone drop and Custom Zone flat zone defenders will now sprint instead of back-pedal to their desired depth when set to 20 yards or more, which makes them play with more urgency and allows them to get to their spot faster. Cover 3 Sky, Cloud and Hard flat plays now play ‘country cover 3’, which means that the underneath defenders will play zone spot-drop zones regardless of the offensive formation. To give players full control in scheming up vs. 3x1 formations and Bunch, all of the Cover 3 Match and Buzz coverages will play Skinny and Skate respectively, which will allow the defense to match up better to the popular routes (like Flood or Verticals) on the 3-receiver side. The ‘skinny’ check is the match principle in Cover 3 Sky where the backside Hook-Curl defender will be responsible for the vertical route from the #3 receiver on the trips side. Custom Zones Last year we introduced custom route stems, which players enjoyed because of the creativity it allowed on offense. This year, the direct defensive counter of Custom Zones are in play. Custom Zones allow you to tell your zone defense exactly where you want them to cover. The control scheme is similar to custom stems - bring up the hot route menu for an individual defender in pre-play, hold down LB/L1 and move your zone coverage up or down. You’ll even see the playart update in real time. When you have dialed it in to your liking, simply release LB/L1 to lock it in. If you have a zone drop activated via Coach Adjustments, the Custom Zone commands will override the Coach Adjustment when in conflict. Route Commit In man coverage, leverage is of the utmost importance. The new Route Commit feature will reward you for learning your opponents’ tendencies. Route commit is different from shading in that it’s a high-risk guess with big rewards if you are correct. Is your opponent beating you on the corner route? Route Commit one (Y/Triangle to bring up coverage adjustments, then A/X to pick an individual receiver) or all of your defensive backs (RB for Defensive Keys) in man coverage to look for outside-breaking routes to lock it down. Beware that any in-breaking routes will be lost by your defenders and potentially leave them wide open. Don’t want to risk so much? Then just shade your defenders via the traditional shading mechanic, which gives them leverage to defend the routes you think are being run and take on less risk (but also less reward). With route commit and shading, easy-to-read opponents can get shut down with your adjustments at the line of scrimmage if you can pick up on their playcall habits. Physics-Based Gameplay A year ago we brought you the introduction of our newest version of physics-based gameplay, Boom Tech. This brought players more control, delivering on your feedback about tackles feeling too predictable or scripted. That vision has not changed in Madden 26 and physics is still a huge part of our future for all the same reasons. We’ve expanded our physics-driven animation technology to other tackle types, but before we did, we knew we had some issues to clean up after a year of learning and hearing from players. First, we’ve done work on tackle alignment to significantly reduce instances of tackles triggering without the players making full contact. This also meant fixing issues with ball carriers being impacted by physics without really being hit. We’ve also worked on maintaining momentum after contact by reducing how frequently the system would look to trigger falling animations. Now, we’re avoiding scenarios where the ball carrier would change direction while falling to the turf. An additional issue players surfaced was ball carriers getting back to normal locomotion too quickly after contact. This could feel abrupt, or look like the ball carrier wasn’t impacted by the contact. Just like with the momentum tuning, the team adjusted how much the ball carrier will look to branch to locomotion and when he does, the branching will be later. Once we solidified the foundation of our physics system, we then started expanding it to additional tackle types including Catch Tackles, Stiff Arms and Trucks. All three of these interactions are now driven by physics in addition to the Hit Sticks and Cut Sticks from ‘25. The timing-based skill mechanics from last year’s hit stick revamp have been expanded to all one-on-one tackle interactions. These include Strip-ball tackles, cut sticks, lunge tackles, wrap tackles, swatting catch tackles and wrap catch tackles. Players will feel more control and more rewarded in determining the outcome of any tackle. If you time a catch tackle perfectly, or even better, a hit stick at the catch point, you can expect a much better chance for a catch knockout. Timing mechanics aren’t just for defense. Truck and stiff arm tackles are also now timing-based skill mechanics. Increasing your chance to break a tackle or run over a defender is determined by your stick skill when the ball is in your hands as much as it is when you’re on defense. We’ve also added a new user-driven mechanic called ‘reach-for-sticks.’ When close to the sticks or the goalline, hold the RS up to attempt to reach the ball out of the tackle. If the ball carrier’s arm is free to reach out and the input is received before the tackle is complete, you’ll get a reach. AI-controlled players will reach the ball out based on their awareness (AWR) ratings. This does carry a bit of risk however, so be careful reaching the ball out in a crowd, because if the ball carrier gets hit while reaching for extra yardage, he will have a higher chance of fumbling. We’ve added more than 700 new tackle animations for launch, with more planned for Title Updates. Some of the new animations you can expect to see are: Wrap Catch tackles for DBs at the catchpoint who aren’t big hitters ‘In-Range’ lunges, where the defender is near the ball carrier and doesn’t have to leave his feet ‘Unprepped’ hit sticks, which are more explosive hit-stick interactions meant to capture those moments from Sundays when the ball carrier is not quite prepared for the big hit A variety of the aforementioned ‘reach for sticks’ mechanic Wear & Tear Another addition coming to Madden NFL 26 is Wear & Tear, a system that tracks any contact a player takes over the course of a game, and inside of Franchise and Superstar over the course of a season. Its primary purpose is authentically managing your players’ workloads, which will bring risk to repetitively using the same plays or the same players over and over. It’s a real-life football solution to a video game problem. As discussed by the College Football team, it comes this year with Dynamic Subs that can be done seamlessly during preplay, and a full suite of customization sliders for Franchise players. You’ll read a lot more about the Wear and Tear system in the Franchise & Presentation Deep Dive coming in a few weeks. Block Steering Our latest innovation coming to the trenches in Madden NFL 26 is built on the back of our animation-branching technology that also helps power our physics-based gameplay. Block Steering is a new mechanic on the defensive side of the ball that keeps you in control of your player, even when engaged in a one-on-one block. As the name suggests, it gives you the ability to steer the interaction. With Block Steering, you’ll find it puts more control in your hands and better reflects the physics and ratings of the players involved in the interactions. The first application is right in the trenches, when you’re controlling a defender and get engaged right off the snap. Instead of flicking the stick to attempt a shed move or disengage, you’ll now have additional control on the LS to steer the blocker into the backfield, or side-to-side, like a bull rush in the pass game, or using the ‘butt-and-press’ technique in the run game. The amount of movement you’ll have of the block depends on the player ratings and the momentum, size, speed and position of the two players when they get engaged. The second application is more for the second level of the defense. When running laterally to make a play to the outside, or trying to get downhill to fit a gap on defense, you’ll now keep your direction and momentum when you get engaged in a block. Instead of feeling like you’re getting snatched or held, with no way to control your movement, you’ll still have LS control to move the blocking engagement, and again, the amount of movement is based on the ratings and momentum of the players involved. Block Steering isn’t just a benefit to user control, however. AI-controlled players will have the ability to fight for control over gaps, resulting in better gap control and more stingy run defense, which will improve execution for both your AI teammates as a user, and your AI opponents. Leverage System We're improving how blocking works to make it feel more realistic and help you trust what you see when running the ball. Smarter AI will now look at leverage (who has the better position) to decide which blocking animations happen and who wins those battles. This new leverage system knows what leverage is desired by a blocker and defender when they get engaged (based on the design of the play and/or any adjustments made to the play), and then based on the ratings match-up and pose of the players, can use all of that to inform the selection of the animation so that you can easily see which player - the blocker or the defender - wins the gap. For example, if the offense wants to run a zone run in the B-Gap vs. a 3-technique defensive tackle, the Guard is attempting to get his head to the playside of the 3-technique so that he can win the B-Gap. But the 3-technique is not supposed to get reached unless he’s playing the inside gap, so he desires to win the B-gap to force the running back into a different lane. Based on the ratings of the guard and D-tackle, and their body positions at the point of engagement, the proper animation will trigger that will put either the blocker or the defender in the gap with the other struggling to try to take it over. Whichever player has head leverage in that gap has a significant advantage in winning the gap. If the blocker wins, the defender will have a harder time shedding into the B-gap, or steering into the B-gap, and the ball carrier will be able to have confidence that his guard will hold the B-gap long enough to burst through it. But if the defender wins the gap, he’s likely to push his blocker into the hole or quickly shed to make a play. Given all the blocking and defensive improvements coming this year, understanding leverage is a way to set yourself apart. The leverage battle might fly under the radar, but mastering it will pay dividends. When you utilize it effectively, you’ll put yourself in a position to generate those Saquon-like highlight reel runs. Pass Block Mechanics The only people who care more about pass protection than a Quarterback are Madden players, and for that reason, we have a litany of improvements coming to increase the authenticity and control of protecting the QB. First, we’ve added unique pass protections to each passing play in the playbook data. Each pass block scheme is available in the pre-play adjustment menu. Half slide left/right, full slide left/right, empty and base are now applied appropriately to passing plays and are on by default, which you can see by looking at the coach cam play art. Protections are set to fit the original design of the play, so be aware of them when you make hot routes. For example, plays with only five blockers are set to ‘Empty’ protection by default, so if you hot route your RB to block without changing the protection, your tackles will still dual read. To make it easier to interact with the new pre-set protections, we’ve added some new tools. The first is a new pre-play mechanic called ‘unTarget Defender.’ Similar to the ID the Mike mechanic, this allows you to tell your line to IGNORE a player rather than target him. This is a useful mechanic to bust out against somebody who likes to hover the LB over a Guard or Center and then drop into coverage. If you know the LB is not rushing, direct your line to ignore him and he will be removed from the count. Next, Protection on the Fly functionality allows you to easily switch the direction of your protection with a flick of the RS. Use the new Untarget mechanic with a RS flick up, without having to bring up the adjustment menu. This new functionality will allow you to be quicker in making blocking adjustments at the line. In addition to new tools, we’ve made a visual upgrade to the dropback passing game with all-new pass block locomotion. In the past, we’ve relied on strafe and dropback movements to simulate how pass blockers move, which are unique to offensive linemen. This year, we’ve captured a complete new set of exclusive locomotion that only pass blockers use, which makes our offensive line look more realistic and athletic in their pass sets as they build the pocket around the launch point. Dropback protection is only half the battle in today’s NFL. Playaction pass is a big part of the passing game for every team. We’ve also improved the blocking in the play action game. With the new block targeting system we introduced in Madden 25, every core run scheme in the game uses scheme-specific rules to modify targeting to account for as many defensive fronts as possible. This year, we’ve extended that same run block targeting to play action pass, along with new logic and animations, so that the play action will look exactly the same as the run it's trying to simulate. You’ll see the line reach blocking the defense on bootlegs, unblocked backside defenders using the skate technique while deciding whether to play the run or the pass and seamless run block double teams to bait linebackers. To dive even deeper into the trenches, there are some pass rush updates, too. First, the stamina thresholds that controlled how many moves could be performed per play have been removed. Instead, each move will cost a dynamic amount of stamina based on the defender’s pass rush move ratings. We’ve also changed the functionality of the R2/RT input so that holding down for the acceleration burst gives you speed you want AND different sheds and counters that are more explosive, like faster wins, but carry risk of burning through stamina quicker on passing downs or when using pass commit. Think of this as an ‘Effort’ mechanic, of which the new Gas Guzzler trait has been built around. Lastly, we’ve reduced the amount of pass protection strength relative to the blocker resistance bars that dynamically grow or shrink for pass blockers to allow for more balance in the battle of the trenches. Defensive AI Improvements In Madden NFL 26, we put emphasis on defensive AI in all facets of the game, even on top of what we’ve already discussed with respect to pass coverage. We think our players will always find offense, so we’re starting off the Madden season with a much more aggressive defense. To improve our run fits, we’ve done a comprehensive analysis of the data driving gap responsibilities for each play and made them more consistent across the board. There will be less guessing where your defenders are going to fit, which you can see in coach cam playart. You’ll also see run fit defenders far more aggressive getting downhill. When good defenses fit the run, they are trying to build a wall at the line of scrimmage and beat the blockers to the point of attack. That’s exactly what we’ve done to improve linebacker and safety behavior in the run game, as you will see them aggressively get downhill instead of waiting too long to get blocked. The majority of the gap assignments have been designed to be sound vs. RPOs. A and B-gap defenders will also be more aggressive in playing the run first. The C, D and E-gap coverage defenders will look to play the pass first if their first key runs a route, but will play the run if they read a block. Keep in mind, as mentioned with Realtime Coaching AI, we now use playcalling and adjustments just like a user would to defend repetitive plays! Superstar Abilities Superstar abilities (aka Passive Abilities) that impact outcomes will no longer have any built-in guarantees to them, which is another change that players have been requesting. So instead of guaranteed or nearly guaranteed outcomes, you’ll instead see increased chances, close to 50%, when the specific conditions of each ability are met. Hot-Spot Celebrations To bring more control and excitement to our celebrations, you’ll now have movement control after scoring a touchdown, where you’ll have a window of time to either sprint or jog with your player and get to one of nine ‘hot spots’ along the boundaries of the end zone. Each Hot Spot will house unique celebrations that trigger based on where the celebrating player is. You’ll see shadow boxing with the goal post, totally legal fake dunk attempts near the crossbar, celebrations that interact with the crowd and even more signature content to name just a few. All in all, there are 20 solo celebrations plus numerous animations across all the Hot Spots. You’ll be able to view the celebrations that are equipped to each button combo in the pause menu ‘Celebrations’ tab. To make the celebrations look as realistic as possible, we created more than 4,000 elements. Modernized Skills Trainer If you're a gamer that wants to know more about the mechanics of Madden or hit the lab to refine your stick skills, we’ve completely rebuilt the Skills Trainer experience for Madden 26. Leveraging the power of our Mini Games tool, we’ve made learning the mechanics more fun, seamless and overall a more enjoyable experience. As a bonus, we did a comprehensive audit of every gameplay mechanic in the game, and have a drill for every single one that is available in Madden 26. There are 130 new tutorials in total covering: Ballcarrier Mechanics QB Mechanics Receiver Mechanics Option Mechanics Offensive Preplay Mechanics Tackling Mechanics Coverage Mechanics Defensive Line Mechanics Defensive Preplay Mechanics Kicking Mechanics Returning Mechanics Every question or theory you’ve ever had about on-the-field button presses can be answered, and the new user-friendly menu allows you to filter through all of this content to immediately see tutorials for mechanics that are new or changed in Madden 26, so veterans can return to form in record time. Finally, just a few more updates we want to share with players: We now have the ability to tune gameplay without the need for a client update. This will allow us to be more agile and respond to gameplay feedback faster. Gameplay tuning primarily deals with any type of success chance, reaction time, timing windows, etc. that can be safely modified during the season. The full route tree is available by default in passing hot routes That was a ton, we know. Can you tell we’re passionate about this? Thank you for making it this far, we can’t wait for you to pick up the sticks soon! Madden NFL 26 is a commitment to the soul of football. We simultaneously went back to the basics and innovated authenticity. As you probably noticed, many of the changes we outlined are community-driven. They’re direct reflections of the feedback you’ve given us, so please, keep it coming, because together, we are football. Madden NFL 26 is Built from Sundays, but most of all, it’s built on your feedback, fandom and passion. These are just some highlights from the full Gameplay Deep Dive. Be sure to go check out the full article when you have the chance! MVP Bundle Pre-order* the MVP Bundle by August 14 and receive: Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition Madden NFL 26 3 Day Early Access 4600 MUT points Bundle Exclusive MUT Item Early Access Solo Challenges MUT Season 1 Elite Player Item (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items) MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item Franchise Coach Ability Points Super Star Legendary XP Boost Player Card Exclusive Item College Football 26 Deluxe Edition EA Sports College Football 26 3 Day Early Access 4600 CUT points Bundle Exclusive CUT Item Early Access Solo Challenges CUT Top Prospect Pack (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items) CUT All Hands Pack (choice of 1 out of 2 items) Dynasty Coach Points Road to Glory Skill Points Deluxe Edition Pre-Order Pre-order* the EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 and receive: 3 Day Early Access 4600 MUT points Early Access Solo Challenges Limited Time: Season 1 Elite Player Item (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items). Pre Order by July 24th. MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item Franchise Coach Ability Points Super Star Legendary XP Boost Player Card Exclusive Item Standard Edition Pre-Order Pre-order* EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 today and receive: MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item Franchise Coach Ability Points Super Star Legendary XP Boost -- Madden NFL 26 launches worldwide on August 14, 2025. Pre-order the Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition and play early. Conditions and restrictions apply. See disclaimers for details. Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and the EA Forums. [Source]Madden NFL 26 - Franchise Deep Dive
Hey football fans, The Madden NFL 26 Franchise Deep Dive is live now! We've included some highlights below. Be sure to check out the full Franchise Deep Dive for more details. Coach Creation In order to make sure your coach feels like you, they need to look the part. Custom coaches got a massive overhaul, with 200 new heads to choose from when creating your coach. There’s also a ton of new gear exclusively for custom coaches. With more than 50 new shirts, 15 pants and 40 shoes, you can make more than 30,000 combinations to wear on the sidelines. Choose Your Archetype Every coach in Madden NFL 26 will fall under one of three distinct archetypes: Offensive Guru, Defensive Genius or Development Wizard. As a created coach, choosing your archetype will be the first decision you make and will impact how you evolve and develop as a coach. This choice will dictate not only the abilities you start with, but also the abilities you will unlock as you progress in your career. As an Offensive Guru, the entire unlock path will consist of offensive-minded abilities and the same goes for the Defensive Genius where its unlock path will be centered around defensive-minded abilities. As a Development Wizard, the unlock path will primarily be a mix of off the field abilities and gameplay abilities. All existing coaches will also fall under one of these three archetypes and the abilities they possess will be tailored to match their real-life counterparts. When it comes to coach progression, each coach now has a level from 1 to 50. If you create a coach, you’ll begin at level 1. As your career advances and you reach higher levels, you’ll unlock new abilities and ability slots (we’ll talk more about those later). To level up, you’ll need to earn Coach XP. There are a few ways to earn it, but the main method is through completing goals. In addition to Season and Career Milestone goals, we’ve added in-game goals. These let you and your coordinators earn XP weekly based on what happens during your games. After each week, you’ll see a summary of your completed goals, how much XP you earned, and how close you are to your next level. If you level up, you’ll also get a special tab that shows off any new unlocks you've earned. Coach Abilities Metagame New to Madden NFL 26 are Coach Abilities. Coach Abilities have been built to reflect the authentic skills, traits and characteristics displayed by NFL coaches on a weekly basis. Abilities are split into two types: Gameday Abilities and Season Abilities. Gameday Abilities do exactly what the name suggests. They impact your team directly during games and influence gameplay in unique ways. We’ve made a focused effort to ensure these abilities do more than just boost attributes. They’re designed to affect actual gameplay moments and interactions. That said, if you’re the kind of player who likes to give a specific position group a stat boost before a game, don’t worry, there are still coach abilities that offer traditional attribute increases. When it comes to Gameday Abilities, there will be 46 different abilities at a launch, including 22 offensive and 24 defensive Abilities. Utilize the Trimmed Edges ability to give your offensive tackles an increased chance to win against various pass rush moves. Equip the Sure Hands ability to give your receivers a higher chance of catching passes or counter it defensively with Mr. Dream which gives your defenders an increased chance of knocking potential catches loose. Or if you’re looking for a game changing hit, equip my personal favorite ability Hitamus Stickamus to give your defenders a higher hit stick timing window and increased chances of forcing fumbles. When it comes to Season Abilities, there will be 28 at launch and they are tailored to the off the field aspects of franchise mode and will be heavily based around player progression, scouting and building your staff. Looking to fast track the development of your players? Use one of the many Practician abilities to gain an increased amount of Training XP. Need a leg up on the upcoming draft? Equip the Scout’s Honor ability to hire more Tier 3 scouts or the Stud Finder ability to gain scouting percentage boosts on all quarterback prospects. Here are a few more examples of some Season Abilities: Head of the Class Tier I - Coaching Staff earns 10% More XP Tier II - Coaching Staff earns 20% More XP Tier III - Coaching Staff earns 30% More XP Tier IV - Coaching Staff earns 50% More XP Coaches with this Ability: Mike Tomlin, Mike Macdonald, Mike Vrabel and Dan Quinn Fit Finder Tier I - Reduces Archetype Unlock on Prospects to 15% Tier II - Reduces Archetype Unlock on Prospects to 10% Tier III - Reduces Archetype Unlock on Prospects to 5% Tier IV - Unlocks a Prospects Archetype Immediately Coaches with this Ability: Sean McVay, Jim Harbaugh, Dan Campbell and Nick Sirianni Tiers & Ability Progression Every Coach Ability in Madden NFL 26 consists of four tiers. As an ability progresses tiers, the effects of the previous tiers stack and the ability becomes more powerful. Abilities can be progressed in two different ways: Upgrade Goals and Staff Points. Each tier of a Gameday Ability will have an Upgrade Goal and completing the goal will unlock the next tier and its effect. However, it goes both ways. Part of becoming a great NFL coach is not only building a team that can be successful but the other, arguably more important part, is sustaining that success. When designing this feature, we wanted to ensure that the replayability was high and that there wasn’t a distinct ceiling where you could no longer progress as a coach. Enter Knockout and Mastery Goals. Each tier of an ability has both an Upgrade Goal and a Knockout Goal. The Upgrade Goal helps move the ability up to the next tier, while the Knockout Goal can do the opposite. If the Knockout Goal is completed before the Upgrade Goal, the ability will drop to a lower tier. For example, if an ability is at Tier 1 and its Knockout Goal is met first, the ability will be removed completely and must be repurchased to unlock it again. This reflects how coaches evolve throughout their careers, trying new strategies and adapting. Ultimately, their success on the field shapes how they’re judged. That’s the idea behind Knockout Goals: if you can’t turn an ability into real in-game success, it may be downgraded or lost. Lastly, there’s the final part of the progression system, Mastery Goals. Once you upgrade an ability to Tier 4, the Upgrade Goals shift into Mastery Goals. Each tier has its own Mastery Goal. When a Mastery Goal is completed, that tier becomes permanent. So, if you finish the Tier 1 Mastery Goal, Tier 1 of that ability is yours forever and can’t be lost. If you complete the Tier 4 Mastery Goal, the ability becomes fully mastered and can never regress or be removed. Upgrade, Knockout and Mastery Goals will come in two types: Game Goals and Cumulative Goals. Game Goals are things you can achieve in a single game, for example, an Upgrade Goal might be ‘Get 4 Passing TDs in a Game’, while the Knockout Goal could be ‘Allow 5 Sacks in a Game’. On the other hand, Cumulative Goals track progress over time. For example, an Upgrade Goal could be ‘Pass for 300 Yards in a Game Twice’, while the Knockout Goal might be ‘Allow 3 Sacks in a Game Three Times’. Progress on Cumulative Goals carries across weeks and seasons, and only resets when an Upgrade or Knockout condition is triggered. Build the Perfect Gameplan The Weekly Strategy part of Franchise mode has been completely redesigned, with a big focus on Coach Abilities. During development, we set out to fix one of the biggest issues with the old coach talents system: it didn’t put enough weight on actual strategy. In the NFL, it’s not just about how many tools a coach has, it’s about how they use those tools to solve the challenge in front of them. Our goal with the new Weekly Strategy was to capture that chess match and make each decision matter more than ever. When you first jump in, you’ll notice three different types of loadouts: a Staff Loadout, a Playsheet Loadout and a Trainer Loadout. Think of the Staff Loadout as your weekly gameplan. It consists of up to six slots, and the number of available slots depends on your coach level. A well-established coach like Andy Reid will start with all six slots unlocked, while a created coach begins with just three. Each slot can be filled with either a Gameday or Season Ability from any member of your staff. At the start of each week, your loadout will be automatically filled with suggested abilities based on how your team matches up with that week’s opponent. If you have a strong run game, you’ll likely see more run-based abilities recommended to help take advantage. If your defense has weak spots and you're up against someone like Patrick Mahomes, you’ll probably see more pass rush and coverage-focused abilities. These suggestions are designed to give you a helpful starting point, but ultimately it's up to you to choose how to prepare. You can adjust your loadout however you like each week. On the right side of the Weekly Strategy screen, you’ll see a matchup panel that breaks down how your team compares to your opponent in various areas, along with the impact your abilities are having. You’ll also find a set of scouting cards that highlight key opposing players, current injuries, individual and position group matchups, and even a breakdown of the opponent’s coaches and their top abilities, giving you insight into how they might gameplan for you. A few additional things to consider when filling out your staff loadout: For the Staff and Playsheet Loadouts, you can use any ability from your Head Coach, Offensive or Defensive Coordinators. The Upgrade, KO and Mastery goals mentioned above will only be active if an ability is equipped in the loadout for that week. While gameday abilities can be used interchangeably week-to-week, season abilities will differ and be unique in that they must be used for a certain period of time. When equipping a season ability, that ability and its effects will become locked into your loadout for a certain period of time upon the completion of Weekly Strategy. This creates an additional layer of strategy based on your team makeup, upcoming schedule and more. If you’re a rebuilding team or headed into an easier stretch of games, you may be able to sacrifice gameday abilities in lieu of trying to get a leg up on the draft via scouting abilities. To avoid potential exploits, some season talents that are scouting and focus player related will not take effect until the weekly following when they are equipped. Coordinators Finally Matter As crucial as head coaches are, their coordinators play an equally vital role in a team’s success. If you’re an offensive-minded coach, your defensive coordinator essentially becomes the head coach of your defense, the reverse is true for defensive specialists. Coaches like Sean McVay, Todd Bowles, and Andy Reid are known for focusing on one side of the ball and leaning heavily on their coordinators to lead the other. That’s exactly what we aimed to reflect when assigning abilities to coordinators. If you’re an offensive guru, your only access to defensive abilities will come from your defensive coordinator, making them a key part of your weekly strategy. You can go all-in on offense and try to win every game in a shootout, but as the saying goes: defense wins championships. A strong defensive coordinator gives you more tools, better options, and greater impact. The same logic applies to defensive masterminds. Offense is still necessary to win games, and a skilled offensive coordinator could be what separates a good season from a deep playoff run. We’ve built teams with this mindset, making coordinators more important than ever. You’ll see a variety of coordinators, some experienced veterans with more and higher-tier abilities, and others who are younger with fewer, lower-tier abilities that improve as they develop. As a head coach, you’ll need to think strategically about how to use your coordinators to cover your own weaknesses and balance your team. Just like head coaches, coordinators have their own set of in-game goals that reward Coach XP when completed. Their abilities can progress, regress, and even be mastered, adding another layer to your team's growth and success. Playsheets Playsheets have been mentioned a few times already here and you’re probably asking yourself: what exactly is a Playsheet?! Think of Playsheets as mini playbooks you can bring into a game to expand your base offensive or defensive playbook. From the emergence of the Wildcat in 2008 to Andy Reid breaking out Rose Bowl Right Parade in Super Bowl 54, for years we’ve seen NFL Coaches bring unique concepts to gameday. That was a huge inspiration behind this feature. Playsheets are treated just like gameday and season abilities in that they will also have four tiers. The first tier simply unlocks the playsheet while all subsequent tiers provide attribute boosts to your players while running those plays in-game. Playsheets also follow the same progression model that coach abilities do. Each playsheet tier will have an Upgrade and Knockout condition that controls how it progresses or regresses. Playsheet abilities can also be mastered. Here are a few examples of some Playsheets you can utilize in Madden NFL 26: West Coast Playsheet Based on the classic scheme that rose to prominence in the 1980s, the West Coast playsheet focuses on ball control, rhythm and high-percentage passing concepts and features a myriad of runs and passes from Near and Far formations. Tier II - +3 Pass Block, Pass Block Power and Pass Block Finesse for all offensive linemen when running playsheet plays. TIer III - +3 Short Route Running and Catch in Traffic for all Wide Receivers and Tight Ends when running playsheet plays Tier IV - +5 Short Accuracy for all Quarterbacks when running playsheet plays Coaches with this Playsheet: Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, Jim Harbaugh and Matt LaFleur Wide Empty Playsheet Utilizing five wide receivers and every inch of the field, the Wide Empty playsheet will spread the defense out to the max, stressing defensive backs and forcing them to cover every blade of grass. Tier II - +3 Short Route Running and Medium Route Running for all receivers when running playsheet plays. TIer III - +3 Catching and Catch in Traffic for all receivers when running playsheet plays Tier IV - +3 Medium Accuracy for all quarterbacks and +5 Pass Block, Pass Block Finesse and Pass Block Power offensive linemen when running playsheet plays Coaches with this Playsheet: Andy Reid, Jim Harbaugh, Kevin O’Connell and Kellen Moore Run N Shoot Playsheet Another classic scheme popularized in the late 80s and early 90s, the Run N Shoot Playsheet features both the Pistol - Trips Open and Singleback - Spread formations. Nicknamed “The Lonesome Polecat” this playsheet focuses heavily on spreading defenses out using a halfback and four wide receivers. Tier II - +3 Pass Block and Run Block for all offensive linemen when running playsheet plays. TIer III - +3 Short Route Running and Catch in Traffic for all Wide Receivers and Tight Ends when running playsheet plays Tier IV - +3 Short Accuracy for all Quarterbacks when running playsheet plays Coaches with this Playsheet: Sean McVay, Shane Steichen, Brian Callahan and Kellen Moore Heavy Sets Playsheet Tip the scales with the Heavy Sets playsheet. A run-heavy set of plays out of formations like the Split T, Shotgun - Heavy, Maryland I and the Power I. If you’re looking to pound the rock and grind teams out, this is the playsheet for you. Tier II - +3 Carry and Break Tackle for all Running Backs (HB/FB) when running playsheet plays. TIer III - +3 Run Block, Run Block Finesse and Run Block Power for Tight Ends when running playsheet plays Tier IV - +7 Run Block, Run Block Finesse and Run Block Power for all offensive linemen when running playsheet plays Coaches with this Playsheet: Dan Campbell, Jim Harbaugh, Nick Sirianni and Kevin Stefanski As mentioned earlier, just like you have a Staff Loadout to set each week, you’ll also have a Playsheet Loadout to configure. The Playsheet Loadout includes four slots, and the number of available slots depends on your Coach Level. The playsheets you equip here will carry into the game and work alongside your base offensive and defensive playbooks. During the game, your selected playsheet formations and plays will be smoothly integrated into the playcalling menu. You’ll also see a dedicated Playsheets tab within that menu. This tab will show all the specific playsheets you brought into the game, allowing you to quickly access any of your playsheet plays, organized by their playsheet. Additionally, you’ll be able to view the active playsheet tiers, along with a full statistical breakdown showing how well each playsheet play has performed in actual gameplay. Managing Your Staff From the Coach Central hub (more on that soon), you’ll get a full view of what each staff member brings to your team. Track their Goals to level them up, or view their Abilities to see how they can impact your team on gameday. You can also spend Staff Points to unlock abilities earlier, allowing you to shape your staff to fit your exact strategy. If your current staff doesn’t match your vision for the franchise, you can head into the Coach Carousel to find someone who does. At certain times during the season, you’ll also be able to fire your staff and browse available replacements. . To help guide those decisions, a new metric called Job Security has been added for all coordinators. This value updates based on how your team is performing and whether the offense or defense is trending up or down. A higher value means more stability, while lower values suggest you might want to consider a change at the next opportunity. It’s not just you making these moves, CPU teams will be using the same mechanics to build their own NFL dynasties. Everything described here is part of their decision-making too. That means your top coordinators might be hired away for head coaching jobs. Nothing’s guaranteed. The CPU is playing by the same rules, using the same data, and chasing the same goal: building a winner. Coach Central + Approval Rating With so much new content for staff, it needed a new home. Coach Central is the hub for your entire coaching team and their abilities, playsheets, and progression. From the Overview Tab, you’ll get a quick snapshot of your coach and staff. You can check their unlocked abilities, edit your custom coach, and view both your coordinators’ Job Securities and your own Approval Rating (a new way to track how you're performing as a head coach). Strong relationships are essential to being a leader in the NFL. Your Approval Rating reflects how well you manage key groups: the GM, Coaching Staff, Players, Fans, and the Media. Each week, their opinions shift based on how your team performs. If you’re winning, your rating goes up. If things go poorly, expect it to drop. This system gives you a real-time view of where you stand as head coach. At the end of each season, coaches are judged based on their Approval Rating. The same rules apply to both user and CPU coaches. If your rating is too low and your support is weak, you might find yourself out of a job. If you do hang on, your Approval Rating carries into future seasons. A rough year can put you on the hot seat, forcing you to bounce back and rebuild trust with those key groups the following season. In the Abilities and Playsheets tabs, you’ll find everything available to you and your staff. Unlocked items are organized into categories: Offensive, Defensive, and for abilities specifically, Progression, Staff Building, and Scouting. You’ll be able to see which abilities and playsheets you’ve unlocked, what tier they’re at, and your current progress toward their upgrade or downgrade goals. You can also use Staff Points to skip upgrade goals. Keep in mind, Mastery Goals can’t be bypassed, those still require success on the field. The Upcoming and Locked sections show abilities and playsheets you don’t own yet. You can still preview and purchase them with staff points. Upcoming abilities are part of a staff member’s unlock path, meaning they’ll earn them as they level up. Locked abilities, on the other hand, won’t unlock naturally. If you want early access to an upcoming ability or want to give your coach or coordinator more variety, you can spend staff points to unlock it and make your staff more unique. Lastly, the Goals tab shows how to earn the XP and staff points needed to grow your coaching staff. In-Game and Seasonal Goals provide short-term and long-term targets to hit. If you’re a head coach, there’s also a Narrative Goals tab that tracks the promises you’ve made in your Coach Storylines. These affect your Approval Rating and play a role in shaping your coach’s personal storyline. Coach Storylines Your story begins on day one. As a new coach, your journey kicks off with an opening interview, giving you the chance to shape your first chapter. This is where you set the tone, defining who you are and how you plan to leave your mark. From there, your story unfolds. The impact of your Staff, their Abilities, and how different groups view your performance all play a role in your path forward. For instance, Coordinators may approach you with their Gameday Strategy. If you dismiss their input or make poor choices, their trust in your leadership may decline. But if things go well, they can earn XP, and even unlock or upgrade their abilities. When things are going your way, morale stays high and the experience is positive. But if support starts to fade, the tone shifts. Players might hold meetings without involving you and the Media won’t hold back. Player Traits Facing off against an AI QB in Madden NFL 26 is going to feel different than it has in the past. The gameplay team has completely reengineered how AI players behave on the field by introducing a brand-new system of player traits. At launch, Madden NFL 26 will debut 50 unique player traits, designed to capture the decision-making logic behind CPU-controlled athletes. These traits don’t affect gameplay outcomes directly. Instead, they shape how individual AI players respond to game situations, helping them feel more distinct and true-to-life in their play styles. Each trait is rooted in authentic NFL data to ensure authentic behavior you see every week in the NFL. For instance, Josh Allen is assigned the ‘Run Over’ trait, making him more inclined to power through tackles instead of sliding or stepping out of bounds while scrambling. This is backed by the fact that over the past two seasons, Allen has led the league with 54% of his scrambles resulting in 3+ yards after contact. When we generate Draft Prospects, they’ll all have these new traits, too! While the spotlight this year is on quarterbacks, the trait system applies across all positions and will continue to grow beyond launch. This new traits framework adds depth and personality to every player, helping bridge the gap between CPU and human competition. Whether you’re going head-to-head with an AI QB or building your gameplan around your opponent’s most dangerous player this week, the system ensures every player plays like you’d expect them to. Opposing Coach DNA and Real Time Coaching AI One of the most exciting ways we’re bringing the personality and style of the NFL to life in Franchise Mode is through the introduction of Coach DNA. This feature captures the distinct strategies and behaviors of every NFL head coach, making each matchup feel more authentic and unpredictable. Gone are the days of exploiting repetitive CPU playcalling — now, success demands real preparation, adaptation, and a deep understanding of your opponent’s coaching philosophy. At the heart of this innovation is Data-Driven Coaching, a powerful new system built directly from nearly a decade of real NFL data. We've trained a machine learning model on years of playcalling tendencies across the league, giving rise to a predictive engine that mirrors how actual coaches make decisions in the heat of the moment. It allows you to step into a true-to-life simulation and wonder: What play would Andy Reid call here? How would Dan Campbell handle this fourth down? Madden now answers those questions with strategic depth. This model powers not only the AI’s in-game decisions but also the revamped Coach Suggestions system. It dynamically adjusts recommendations based on contextual factors like down and distance, score, time remaining, field position, personnel on the field, timeouts, and even weather conditions. Each CPU-controlled team now calls plays with a personality that reflects its real-life counterpart. You’ll notice the Lions under Dan Campbell playing aggressively and taking fourth-down risks, while the Eagles under Nick Sirianni lean into RPOs and zone reads to complement Jalen Hurts’ strengths. Even your own playcalling experience will reflect this evolution. When browsing the Coach Suggestions, you’ll be shown what the real-life head coach would likely call in that same situation — giving you a chance to test your instincts against theirs and sharpen your strategic edge. Real-Time Coaching AI (RTC) also significantly advances Madden 26’s schematic depth by providing players with an authentic NFL strategic experience that dynamically evolves throughout each game. Defenses can now disguise their intentions through delayed safety rotations, pre-play defensive front adjustments, and precisely timed blitz packages. This evolution forces players to carefully read and react post-snap. Detailed NFL Coach Archetypes further amplify this realism, closely mirroring the strategic philosophies of actual NFL defensive coordinators. Teams like the Vikings and Chiefs aggressively pressure quarterbacks through blitz-heavy schemes and disruptive pass-rushing techniques. Other teams like to disguise coverages, like the Eagles that primarily play defense from a two-high coverage shell, or the Steelers that operate from a one-high look. AI-controlled teams will be utilizing diverse personnel groupings, blitz adjustments and disguises to create confusion at the line of scrimmage. With the dynamic nature of the RTC system, every game you play should feel more rewarding and strategic, while displaying the signature identity of the team you’re playing against every week. Wear and Tear System Madden NFL 26 adds a new feature called Wear and Tear—a system that tracks every hit a player takes in a game and accumulates those impacts across the season. It’s designed to reflect real-life player health, forcing you to manage workloads realistically. Relying too heavily on a few players—like giving Derrick Henry 40 carries or running Lamar Jackson 30 times—will carry consequences. Inspired by ideas from the College Football team, Wear and Tear launches with Dynamic Subs, letting you make on-the-fly substitutions during preplay, and full slider customization for Franchise mode. After each game, players recover some health, but not always fully—especially if they accumulated a lot of Wear and Tear in last week’s game. Early in the season, this might not be noticeable. But as the season goes on, Wear and Tear builds up, making player management more important if you want a healthy squad for the playoffs. Don’t expect to win back-to-back Super Bowls with Saquon Barkley at 60% health. Spread the touches during the season to keep stars fresh and help backups develop. In the past, injuries also came with a fixed number of weeks for recovery. That’s gone. Now, when a player gets injured, you’ll see a range of weeks instead of a set duration. This change adds suspense and forces you to make more thoughtful decisions as the season unfolds. Longer injuries will show broader recovery windows at first, but as time passes, that range becomes more precise. This mirrors how real-life recovery works and adds another layer of realism to your Franchise experience. The system keeps you engaged all season long, helping you plan better as you gain clearer information week by week. Dynamic Injury Status Injuries also now behave more realistically, with statuses that evolve over time based on various factors. A player’s condition might improve—or get worse—week to week. This change builds on the existing Weekly Strategy and Training system, adding a new layer of unpredictability to player availability. Wear and Tear directly affects our new weekly player statuses —Out, Doubtful, or Questionable. Before simulating training for the week, you’ll see each player’s current status. Players who are Questionable or Doubtful have a chance of being ruled ‘OUT’ after training if you don’t let them rest. Now you can rest players individually instead of only adjusting training by position group. This allows more strategic decisions—whether to sit a star or keep them in full pads. After training, you’ll immediately see updated statuses and XP gains. You’ll also see a player’s status update and you’ll get the final word on whether they can go this week or not. Trainer Role & Abilities Don’t worry—we’re giving you more tools and support to help manage Wear and Tear. Your Trainer plays a key role in keeping your team healthy through Trainer Abilities. These abilities can boost how much players recover each week, lower the chance of in-game injuries, and improve the odds that injured players will be cleared to play. Just like Coach Abilities, you’ll choose which trainer abilities to activate each week in Weekly Strategy. Whether it’s during practice or on game day, your trainer helps you make smarter choices to protect your roster. You’ll now have more control than ever over player health. Decisions like how hard you train and when to give players rest days will have lasting effects. Having the right Trainer on staff can be the difference between a healthy lineup or a team battling injuries all season long. A New Layer of Realism Our new Wear and Tear injury and health management system adds real consequences to every decision, bringing more realism, immersion, and depth to Franchise mode. Every game, practice, and rest day counts—and the choices you make will impact not just your season, but your entire organization for years to come. Broadcast Packages We’re thrilled to finally give our players the experience of three primetime broadcast packages in addition to our new Madden package. Each of the primetime packages is composed of premium assets with a different look, sound, and feel for Thursday, Sunday, and Monday night games. The inclusion of four different broadcast packages is beneficial for the variety of sights and sounds you’ll see and hear as you play from season to season. For example, you’ll immediately notice the score bug as one of many visual elements with a distinct look for each package. We’ve also included custom broadcast graphics for pregames, drive starters, and touchdowns. There’s also package-specific wipes for players and teams. One of our favorite things we created for each broadcast package is an NFL bumper that precedes a game. The stunning visuals and authentic music are complemented by the Super Bowl’s annual PA announcer, Al Roach. When you hear Al say, “EA SPORTS welcomes you to the following presentation of the National Football League,” you know it’s almost gametime! Last year, we introduced 3 commentary teams. This year, we assigned each one to a primetime package: Thursday Night = Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis Sunday Night = Mike Tirico and Greg Olsen Monday Night = Kate Scott and Brock Huard As you make your way through a season, what you hear about a QB taking the field from Greg Olsen’s perspective will be different from the games assigned to Brock Huard or Charles Davis. For non-primetime games, the commentary team will be chosen at random. One of the most memorable and distinct elements of our primetime packages are the theme songs. We composed a specific version for each one of them. Our custom audio elements are also delivered in the details, like the specific sound designs you’ll hear for the various banners and wipes. Halftime Report The wait for highlights from other games… It’s almost over! You’ll see highlights from across the league in the Halftime Report, bringing the world around you to life in Franchise mode. It doesn’t end with CPU highlights. For the first time in any NFL video game, you’ll also see your friends’ highlights appear at halftime in a multi-user online league. When a friend’s highlight is chosen for the show, their customized Player Card will appear on-screen. If it’s a highlight from a game with two other players in your online league, you’ll see each of their player cards. One of the most exciting elements of our Halftime Report is the host, Scott Hanson. Who could be better to speak about games around the league than the beloved host?! Scott’s energy and enthusiasm for football elevate the experience as he brings context to matchups throughout the season. A personal favorite is when he calls out National Tight Ends Day in Week 8 when a touchdown is scored by , you guessed it, a tight end. Additionally, our broadcast package theme songs serve as the foundation throughout the halftime show, giving the experience an epic feel. Weekly Recap We extended our ability to show CPU highlights in the Halftime Report to our Weekly Recap. This new feature is available on-demand in the Franchise hub as a way to experience highlights from across the league. Just like the Halftime Report, the Weekly Recap will also include highlights from other players in your multi-user online league. You’ll also get to see your own highlights as well. It’s our way of bringing sights to the stats. Scott Hanson also hosts the Weekly Recap, sharing insights from matchups across the league. Early in the season, you’ll hear details mentioned such as a first-year head coach notching the first win of his NFL career. Midway through a season, Scott will call out the teams that are extending win streaks, identify the squads trying to bounce back, and call attention to the matchups with playoff implications. As the calendar reaches December, you’ll hear about the teams clinching spots in the postseason and the others already looking ahead to next year. You’ll see the Weekly Recap become available in the Franchise hub after you complete your first game of the regular season. Football Weather In Franchise mode, we’ve fine-tuned the weather in every city, from Buffalo to Miami to Seattle, so you’ll experience the kinds of conditions you’d expect in real life. Whether it’s a sunny day in LA or a snowstorm in Green Bay, the weather will feel authentic to each location. We’ve reworked everything from average temperatures to precipitation rates. If you’re heading to Buffalo in January, it’ll feel just as tough as it does in real life. This year, weather isn’t just a visual feature, it’s deeply woven into gameplay. We’ve completely overhauled how the weather looks and how it plays. Every existing weather condition has been enhanced, and we’ve added brand-new dynamic environments like heavy snow with fog or intense rain with fog. When the weather shifts, your strategy needs to as well. Dense fog will reduce visibility, making it tougher to read the field and execute passes—just like it would challenge a real NFL quarterback. Slippery conditions impact every player: receivers might stumble off the line, linemen and defenders can lose footing during explosive moves, and quick cuts might not land cleanly. All of this is tied directly to a player’s Change of Direction (COD) rating and the strength of the precipitation. Weather isn’t just a backdrop, it’s a game changer. Prepare for an experience that will test your skills and ability to adapt your strategy to conquer the unpredictable elements. Rain, snow, and wind will test your skills like never before. Watch as Speed (SPD), Acceleration (ACC), and Change of Direction (COD) are put to the test, just like real-life athletes facing tough weather. Kicking and throwing become high-stakes, with power and accuracy potentially compromised by the conditions.. You'll witness more dramatic moments when catching or running the ball including fumbles, broken tackles, and sliding hits—all influenced by player ratings and how well a team can adapt to that kind of climate. Get ready for some wild and unpredictable action! That’s right, climate familiarity now plays a role. Teams used to cold weather such as Buffalo, Chicago, Green Bay, Cleveland, and Philadelphia will perform better in the snow, experiencing fewer penalties to movement and traction. In contrast, warm-weather teams like Miami, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, and San Francisco will have a tougher time in icy conditions. But when it’s scorching hot, those same cold-weather teams will fatigue more quickly, while heat-acclimated squads maintain their stamina longer. All of this is powered by a major upgrade to our weather simulation engine. Precipitation is now dynamic and can vary throughout the game. Wind patterns behave more realistically, adding another layer of depth to your kicking and passing decisions. Every game with weather will feel different, with its own unique challenges. Core Improvements Improved Draft Logic Let’s dive into the updates we’ve made to Draft Logic. This year, we spent a lot of time analyzing real NFL Draft trends from the past two years. Our goal was to identify patterns we could replicate to make the draft in Madden feel more realistic than ever. One of the biggest trends we noticed is how much NFL teams are investing in the trenches, especially on the interior defensive line. You’ll see more offensive and defensive linemen being drafted across the board, just like we’ve seen in recent real-life drafts. Another clear pattern was how some teams chose to double down at certain positions. Instead of just taking one cornerback or wide receiver, they would draft multiple players at the same spot. It’s a strategic move to increase the odds of landing a true difference-maker and now, that logic is reflected in Franchise. Teams that need a CB or WR won’t hesitate to grab two or three if they’re looking to build depth and find a star. Obviously we don’t want teams to do this with positions like QB but for positions where they need a lot of depth to handle wear and tear, they can and will take multiple players at the same position. We also saw a shift in how teams are valuing running backs. After years of avoiding them in the early rounds, the last couple of drafts have shown a renewed appreciation for the position. In Madden, you’ll now see teams more willing to take a running back earlier than they did in Madden 25. It’s a subtle but important change that better reflects today’s NFL. Beyond that, we’ve adjusted the value of other key positions as well. From Sam and Will linebackers to safeties, cornerbacks, and edge rushers—we’ve tuned their importance in the draft process to better mirror how modern NFL teams build their rosters. Overall, these updates bring a deeper layer of realism and strategy to the draft. You’ll notice smarter decisions, better roster building, and more authentic team behavior throughout Franchise mode. New Draft Prospect Generators One of the biggest improvements we’ve made to the Draft Prospect Generators this year is the way we’ve assigned traits to new players. Every draft prospect now comes with carefully selected traits, making each one feel truly unique. This adds more variety and personality to the rookies you draft, and we can’t wait to see how they perform on the field in your franchise. We also know how much our fans look forward to the unique draft generators each year—so for Madden NFL 26, we’ve added even more. Without giving too much away, you’ll notice new types of players entering the draft pool. That includes exciting gadget players, dedicated long snappers, specialized SAM and WILL linebackers, and some rare, one-of-a-kind tight ends, running backs and safeties that are sure to stand out. And that’s not all—we’ve added other rare and unique player types too, but we’ll leave those for you to discover. Let us know when you start spotting these new hidden gems—we’re looking forward to seeing who becomes your next franchise star. Retirement Logic First, we wanted to prevent star players—like Derrick Henry—from retiring too early. In past versions, players like him could walk away after just one season, even if they were still performing at a high level in their early 30s. That didn’t feel right. In reality, Henry just signed a new deal with the Ravens and clearly isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Second, we found that the old retirement system put too much emphasis on a player’s percentile ranking at their position, rather than their actual overall rating. That led to some really good players being forced into retirement too early just because they weren’t in the absolute top tier at their position. We’ve adjusted this so that high-performing veterans have a better shot at sticking around if they’re still producing on the field. And finally, we noticed a rare edge case where a very small percentage of players could slip through the cracks of our retirement logic. These players could stick around longer than intended, even if they were past typical retirement age or no longer playing at a high level. This happened because the logic allowed them to bypass the normal retirement checks based on a combination of age and percentile standing. With these updates, retirement decisions in Madden NFL 26 will feel more realistic, better reflect real-world player careers, and keep your Franchise experience grounded in authentic NFL logic season after season. Progression and Regression Logic Player Regression now follows real-life aging curves more closely, with decline rates based on actual NFL data by position. For example, wide receivers will now stay in their prime longer than running backs—just like in real life. The timing of decline now better matches how different positions age over time in the NFL. One big change is to development trait regression. In the past, a player could drop multiple tiers in one offseason—like falling from X-Factor all the way to Normal (Bronze). That won’t happen anymore. Now, players can only drop one tier per season, making regression feel more natural and realistic. We’ve also removed the random element that previously influenced development trait changes. Before, some trait regression was based on chance in order to keep the distribution balanced. Going forward, it’s all about performance. A player’s development trait will now be determined by how they compare statistically to others at their position. To support this new performance-based system, we’ve raised the standards for keeping a development trait. Players must hit higher statistical benchmarks within their position group to maintain their current tier. This rewards consistent on-field success and helps prevent traits from sticking without merit. We’ve also updated how ability progression buckets work, making player archetypes feel more distinct. When you spend skill points, the attribute boosts now better match your chosen archetype. For example, upgrading a Scrambler QB will boost different stats than upgrading a Field General. This strengthens each archetype’s unique identity and play style. Game and Season Simulation Stats One of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve heard from you is that franchise simulation stats are too closely tied to team playbooks. We’re always focused on making the simulation stats reflect real-life NFL seasons and that includes addressing your feedback within our sim system. This year, we have reduced the overall impact of playbooks within the sim engine and we’re confident that sim stats for Madden NFL 26 will be better than ever before. We said it earlier, but our team is full of longtime Franchise mode fans - we understand how important it is that our engine is delivering exciting, but realistic results in every Franchise. Keep sharing your feedback on this one, we read it all! We thought it would be interesting to “pop the hood” to walk those of you who are interested in learning more about our sim engine and talk shop on how we have approached it this year. Our sim engine is very robust and calculates a ton of factors on a per play basis. We track where each player lines up, which routes receivers are running, who the primary receiver is, who’s covering each receiver in man or zone as each play unfolds, and much more. Since our sim engine is this detailed, even a small change in how we tune stats can have a big ripple effect. One minor tweak can suddenly lead to strange results, like tight ends only catching 20 passes in an entire season - so tweaking a system like this always comes with great care. One area we have been looking at is how the game decides which receiver a quarterback targets on a pass play. That decision depends on many factors, as listed above, including who’s covering the receiver and how skilled that defender is. For example, if the playbook makes Travis Kelce the primary receiver on a given play, and he has a favorable matchup against the defender covering him, the QB is more likely to throw to him. This makes sense on the surface, but it can lead to overly-repetitive or unrealistic stat outcomes. It also results in the Chiefs always favoring tight ends on pass plays even after Kelce has retired in your Franchise. We found that playbook logic was playing too large of a role in the sim calculation, so we took a different approach. We started to experiment with shifting the logic to rely more on matchups and less on playbook assignments. However, when we completely remove the primary receiver factor from the playbook data, the results become too extreme. For instance, Ja'Marr Chase might end up with 250 catches and 35 touchdowns in a single season, while another top-tier tight end like Brock Bowers might barely register in the stat sheet. In those cases, QBs like Joe Burrow throw 60 touchdowns just by repeatedly targeting Chase and Tee Higgins every play. That’s not the experience we want to deliver and doesn’t align with our design goals. On the other hand, when we reduce the influence of playbooks rather than removing it entirely, we are seeing much more realistic results. The sim stats stay within an acceptable range, and while there are still occasional outliers (like a star QB finishing with 40 TDs and only 2-3 INTs), those moments are rare, leaving them to be more memorable. We’re constantly experimenting in the backend of our engine to refine and improve it. We’re seeing clear improvements when focusing more on matchups and are fully committed to always improving this system with your feedback. Morale Changes Now, younger players or those with lower overall ratings will see bigger morale boosts after a breakout game. This change is meant to reward under-the-radar players who get a chance to step up—often because a regular starter is sidelined with Wear and Tear. If they perform well, their morale goes up, giving them a better chance to stay hot the following week. It’s designed to support long-term progression and keep players motivated, even if they’re on a losing team. They can still stand out, even when the wins aren’t coming. This also benefits players battling to hold onto a starting job. A boost in Player Morale could mean a small ratings increase, which might give them an edge over a backup with a similar overall rating. Think about the Saints QB situation this year. If someone steps up and performs, they deserve a reward—and we’ll do that by raising their morale. We saw this play out during a Franchise playthrough with the Steelers. Rookie Kaleb Johnson started after Jaylen Warren went down for two weeks. Johnson rushed for 130 yards and scored twice in his debut. That gave him a solid morale boost. The next week, he followed it up with 115 yards and got another bump. Thanks to that momentum, he progressed faster, and when Warren returned, Johnson kept the job—not just because of performance, but because his overall rating had climbed slightly higher. Revamped Player Tags Logic The QB of the Future tag has new logic that only assigns this tag to players you’d expect would receive it in real life. In Madden 25, you’d see any young QB get assigned that tag, regardless of their overall rating. Since this has an impact on starters in the depth chart and progression, we want to be careful that we’re applying this to the right players. The Day 1 Starter tag has new logic that only assigns this tag to players who are drafted in the first couple of rounds during that year’s Draft AND have an overall rating that is expected of someone who should start. Again, in the past, we’d assign this tag to players who were a 60 overall rating, and that didn’t help that player or their team much. The Future Starter tag is now applied to non-QBs who have been in the league 4 years or less, are not currently starting for their team but were drafted in the 1st or 2nd round and have an overall rating that projects to being able to start for their team in the near future. The Mentor tag has new logic that only assigns this tag to older players who have the ‘Leader’ personality type. The Trade Target tag has new logic, too. Let's talk about veteran Trade Target players first. The logic now looks at how a player’s team is performing and whether that team is in rebuilding mode or not. If it makes sense for teams like that to move a veteran for a draft pick or two, they will assign this tag to the player and place the player on the trade block. We’ve seen some really interesting trades around the trade deadline between teams that are out of playoff contention and teams trying to find that one missing piece to make a playoff run. For younger players, the Trade Target tag is applied very rarely now and only really for players who are buried on the depth chart on winning teams. They may not be good enough to start for their team and aren’t players that their team wants to build around. In that case, those players will receive the Trade Target tag and will be placed on the trade block in the hopes that another team in a rebuilding phase will have a spot that will give them a chance to get on the field. The Bridge Player tag is now applied to non-QB starters with an overall rating less than 80, who are also at least 27 years old. That type of player in the NFL can and will be replaced by a younger, less expensive option in future drafts, so we want the team to take that account when tagging players who fit this criteria. The Bridge QB tag was also applied too much in the past so this year, we’re tuned the logic to be more focused. In order to have the Bridge QB tag applied, a player has to be a starter, has to have been in the league for 4 years or more and has to be one of the bottom 10 starting QBs in the league in terms of their overall rating. News Stories Last year, we introduced the Top Stories area of Franchise Central, which brought the stories that mattered to your attention as soon as you completed a game, advanced the week or loaded your franchise. We’re continuing to add more stories to that area of Franchise Central and our focus is on making those stories visual and interesting each week. One of our favorite new stories is the Weather Forecast Top Story. You’ll now be alerted entering the week whether there is rain, snow, heavy rain or heavy snow in the forecast for the week. You’ll also see forecasts for other games around the league. If you’re coaching the 49ers, but there’s snow in the forecast for the Buffalo/Miami game this week, you’ll know about it. We’ve also given Draft Prospect Top Stories a major upgrade. Now, throughout the season, you’ll see stories clearly labeled as Draft Preview, Combine Report, and more. No more confusing or cryptic social media-style posts that mention a random kick returner—you won’t be left wondering what team they’re on or if they’re even a Draft Prospect. From now on, it’ll be obvious which stories are focused on Draft Scouting. Even better, you’ll actually understand what each story is communicating. These updates are tied directly to Draft Prospect projection changes, so you can track how players in your league rise or fall throughout the season. We couldn’t be more excited for you to get your hands on everything we’ve added to Franchise Mode this year. This has been a true labor of love for our development team, who are die-hard Franchise players themselves. From the reimagined coaching abilities metagame and deep coach personalization, to enhanced weekly strategy, weather impact, revamped AI, and the most immersive game planning tools we’ve ever built, this is Franchise Mode’s biggest leap forward in over a decade. We can’t wait to see the incredible stories you’ll create and we’ll be right there with you continuing to listen, learn, and push the mode forward in the seasons to come. Thank you for your continuous feedback and support, see you on the sticks! [Source]Welcome to EA Sports Madden NFL 26
Hey Madden Fans! Welcome to Gridiron Notes. We’re glad you’re here! These notes are a passion project for the development team, equipping you with all the news, notes and updates ahead of Madden NFL 26’s worldwide launch on August 14. The team heard your feedback with Madden NFL 25 and could not be more excited to start revealing Madden NFL 26, focusing directly on what we heard from you. Today we’ll walk you through the hardest-hitting, highest-level information about Madden NFL 26. The rest of the summer we’ll deep dive, mode by mode, into everything you can expect when you boot up the game on August 14. Gameplay When we talk about gameplay for Madden NFL 26, we are talking about real-world NFL data, seeing the tendencies and traits of the league’s Superstars, experiencing real football weather on the virtual gridiron, strategizing around the real X’s and O’s of football, and real community feedback coming through each snap, truly making every game you play feel different. We can’t share everything today, but we’re going to roll through some of our favorite gameplay features right now. Our Madden NFL 26 Gameplay Deep Dive is on the horizon and we can’t wait to show you what we have been cooking. QB DNA The Quarterback is the most iconic position in all of sports. To reflect that, Madden NFL 26 has completely reimagined quarterback mechanics, from animations to behaviors with our QB DNA. Not only are you watching Josh Allen’s rocket arm fire off a deep pass mid-jump, you’re doing that when you’re playing as Josh Allen, too. More than 500 new quarterback animations were added to Madden NFL 26. QB Signatures in Madden 26 are a visual replication of everything from how each quarterback holds the football in the pocket to their arm slot when slinging it down the field. We have overhauled our player traits system with 50 new player traits across numerous positions, all backed by real-world NFL tendency data. Does your quarterback in real life throw more often to the right side of the field? Joe Burrow, for example, will be more likely to set his feet before throwing than other quarterbacks. Josh Allen, as fearless as he is in real-life, will be trucking defenders as he takes a chance to scramble for a first down instead. Whether it’s Lamar Jackson getting shifty to avoid hits or Matt Stafford dropping his arm down to finesse a screen pass -- pocket presence, scrambling tendencies, and passing styles reflect the unique traits of today’s stars and tomorrow’s legends. Coach DNA Introducing Coach DNA, a groundbreaking feature that brings the personalities and tendencies of NFL Head Coaches to Madden NFL 26. Powered by machine learning stemming from years of real-world data, Coach DNA mirrors the unique styles and philosophies of NFL coaches. 4th and 3? You better be ready for Dan Campbell and the Lions to try getting a first down. Passing successfully on the Vikings? Expect some creative blitzes from their unpredictable defense. This data-driven playcalling brings real-life Head Coach tendencies to the virtual gridiron. Our second piece of Coach DNA is an overhaul to Coach Suggestions that also contains what we call Coach Speak. If you’re playing as the Lions, Dan Campbell will offer various suggestions depending on the down and distance, true to the Detroit Lions tendencies and mirror the way Campbell talks. On top of that, we have Realtime Coaching AI, where the CPU teams will make pre-snap adjustments and suggest playcalls that specifically counter your opponents tactics. Driving Coach John Madden’s vision further for teaching X’s and O’s is at the forefront of Coach DNA. We received a ton of positive feedback on our playbooks from the previous year and we’re happy to announce that we have nearly 1,000 new plays at the launch of Madden NFL 26. Our playbooks contain the current trend of motion and shift-based offenses you see from teams like San Francisco and Miami. For our defensive playbooks, you’ll find exotic blitz pressures, defensive disguises, and the all-new stunts and twists to lock down your opponents. Wear & Tear and New Depth Chart Positions Modernized roster management adds strategic depth with the Wear & Tear system and Dynamic Substitutions. Wear & Tear affects player performance, while Dynamic Substitutions allow seamless situational swaps without pausing gameplay. Highly-requested new depth chart positions modernize Madden NFL 26 featuring Edge, Nose Tackle, Long Snapper and the versatile Gadget position. This upcoming NFL season could see a dynamic, consistent two-way player in Travis Hunter and Madden NFL 26 is ready. Hunter will have abilities that counteract some of the Wear & Tear of playing both ways, meaning you can’t just throw any receiver at CB and expect the same result. Football Weather NFL Teams face the dual challenge of battling each other on the field while contending with various, harsh weather conditions through the season and we have brought that to life with Football Weather in Madden NFL 26. We have completely overhauled not just the visuals, but also the effects of weather conditions. Heavy snow, fog, rain and everything in between will affect movement, visibility, stamina, and ball control. If you’re playing a Madden NFL snow bowl, you’ll notice players slipping or moving as clunky as they would in a real-life blizzard. Physics from how players move to how the ball carries will be adjusted to mimic weather conditions. Think again about chip shot field goals in heavy weather... We’ve also added finer details making the elements a part of the homefield where cold weather teams will not get as impacted when playing in the cold and wet as warm weather teams… but to balance, when playing in extreme heat, those cold weather teams will tire out faster, which is a little detail, with a big impact, that came straight from NFL players. Foundational Football Football fundamentals are not optional, they’re essential so we’re doubling down on core football principles to give players more depth and control. Explosive locomotion, run and pass blocking, defensive zone coverage, physics, and new mechanics are at the forefront of improvements as we heard your feedback. When we say “Explosive NFL Gameplay”, here is what it means to us. Simply, that the left stick feeling has never felt better in Madden. It’s not just “fast players are fast, the end.” Our Explosive Locomotion differentiates the north-to-south speed of athletes like Tyreek Hill vs the wiggly, east-to-west players like Jahmyr Gibbs. With Explosive Locomotion a player who runs a 4.2 40-yard dash will feel like a player who runs a 4.2 40-yard dash. We want our players to feel the visceral difference between fast and explosive in Madden NFL 26. Custom Defensive Zones lets you gameplan and adjust like a real NFL coordinator. With Custom Defensive Zones, you’ll be able to set the depth of your zone defenders at the line of scrimmage to take away that pesky corner route from your opponent. Do you want your safeties to align to a certain hash, the passing strength, or elsewhere? AI Logic, custom zones and more deliver an overhaul to defensive coverage in Madden NFL 26. We can’t wait to share more including how we have leveled up the trenches with our Foundational Football features. Be on the lookout for our upcoming Gameplay Deep Dive! Madden NFL 26 doesn’t just tweak mechanics, we’ve made a commitment to the soul of football - the fundamentals. Franchise Mode The team heard your feedback and transformed the coach customization and immersion features in Madden NFL 26 Franchise Mode. New challenges make the game to game, week to week experience feel different. First things first - in the NFL no two coaches are alike. Now, in Madden, that’s also true. We’ve added hundreds of new heads and brand new gear for when you’re creating your coach and style. We’re also introducing a new metagame with Coach Abilities in Madden NFL 26. You can now check out the scouting report and customize your gameplan against your opponent each week. Coach Abilities are also more than just a menu item, they can trigger via in-game scenarios. For example, one ability could “Increase your Offensive Tackles’ success chance against Power Moves.” Leveling up your coach gets you access to more abilities. And of course, CPU teams will be able to take advantage of these gameplans as well, gameplanning against you! Playbooks become a large focus for your Franchise this year with Play Sheets. Play Sheets are another component of your weekly gameplanning, allowing you to add extra plays to your playbook. The Play Sheets you’ll be able to access depends on how you level up your coach. Managing player Wear & Tear is now a part of Franchise strategy, too! Remember when we mentioned Travis Hunter in the Gameplay section? Upgraded trainer roles mean trainer abilities are used to manage Wear & Tear. Franchise mode comes alive with enhanced presentation including halftime shows and weekly recaps with Scott Hanson and all-new custom broadcast packages for Sunday, Monday, and Thursday primetime games! More on this, and a whole bunch more Franchise and Presentation in a future Gridiron Notes this summer. Presentation NFL atmospheres come to life with revamped authenticity In Madden NFL 26. Experience team-specific runouts, crowd chants, mascots, and pre-game traditions such as Minnesota’s Skol chant or Baltimore’s light show. Let’s talk Head Coaches. More gear means more authentic-looking coaches. Dan Campbell is going to have that signature Dan Campbell look on the sidelines, complete with his T-Shirt or rolled-up long sleeve. In terms of uniforms, the team added more alternate and classic jerseys from Nike, including the Texans redesign. Stadium edge walls and field arts are being aligned with specific uniforms. Bengals rocking a white-out? Buccaneers in the creamsicles? The field logos will match those uniforms. Another in-stadium detail we added: In-venue prompt graphics packages from teams’ real-life jumbotrons will be in the game. It’s all in the details, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. We can’t wait to share more with you in Franchise & Presentation Deep Dive. Superstar Step into the spotlight and live your dream NFL career. Import your Road to Glory player from EA SPORTS™ College Football 26 or craft a brand-new avatar to take the league by storm. From rookie hopeful to legendary icon, every week brings fresh Story of the Week narratives that pull you deeper into the heart of the game. Career Chapters will guide you down the path to becoming a Superstar. Start as a bench player and work your way into different phases of your career by meeting objectives. But fail to please your coach and you could find yourself back on the bench and looking at a redemption arc. Build and manage crucial relationships with coaches, teammates, and agents through the immersive Sphere of Influence system, because who you know off the field can be just as important as what you do on it. Keep your body in peak shape by balancing Wear & Tear, push your limits in intense Superstar Live Events, and sharpen your skills to climb all the way to a 99 Overall rating. For players who love Superstar Showdown, expect bigger and better Live Events throughout the year. P.S. This includes the return of Online Head-to-Head Minigames, more on that in the Superstar Deep Dive! Ultimate Team Madden NFL 26 Ultimate Team is evolving with more ways to play, deeper team-building challenges, and a reimagined player experience for online competitors, solo players, and everyone in between. Madden NFL 26 is raising the content bar set last year with more programs, events, and football to experience. We heard the feedback from our solo player and we’re excited to share that Madden NFL 26 Ultimate Team is giving solo play the overhaul it deserves. We’ve rebuilt our Solo reward structure from the ground up with a focus on progression, pacing, and rewards. We’re also introducing Solo Champions, a new, choose-your-difficulty mode to showcase your solo prowess. We are bringing all-new Live Events to the table this year for a new way to play in Ultimate Team. Expect to see events that look to celebrate our theme teamers out there, other events will set constraints that encourage creative team-building. We’re also introducing Leaderboard Campaigns for both online and solo players. These are smaller-leaderboard, limited-time, focused competitions with reworked placement design where every game matters. To make the mode simpler, the new Pack Helper brings critical decision-making info directly to your pack openings. You’ll be able to see if a new player is better than your current starter, see Auction House information, know if they help you complete a set, and see Chemistry tier impacts all without leaving the pack opening screen. Every insight is optional, and if you want to act on it, a single button press gets it done. That’s not all! We have even more to share as we head towards our Ultimate Team Deep Dive later this summer. ---------------- MVP Bundle Pre-order* the MVP Bundle by August 14 and receive: Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition Madden NFL 26 3 Day Early Access 4600 MUT points Bundle Exclusive MUT Item Early Access Solo Challenges MUT Season 1 Elite Player Item (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items) MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item Franchise Coach Ability Points Super Star Legendary XP Boost Player Card Exclusive Item College Football 26 Deluxe Edition EA Sports College Football 26 3 Day Early Access 4600 CUT points Bundle Exclusive CUT Item Early Access Solo Challenges CUT Top Prospect Pack (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items) CUT All Hands Pack (choice of 1 out of 2 items) Dynasty Coach Points Road to Glory Skill Points Deluxe Edition Pre-Order Pre-order* the EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 and receive: 3 Day Early Access 4600 MUT points Early Access Solo Challenges Limited Time: Season 1 Elite Player Item (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items). Pre Order by July 24th. MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item Franchise Coach Ability Points Super Star Legendary XP Boost Player Card Exclusive Item Standard Edition Pre-Order Pre-order* EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 today and receive: MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item Franchise Coach Ability Points Super Star Legendary XP Boost Thanks for checking in for Madden NFL 26’s first Gridiron Notes of the season! There’s much more information, news and notes straight from the developers coming up very soon, so stay tuned. We couldn’t be more excited to show you what we have in store this season. The Madden NFL 26 Team [Source]Madden NFL 26 - Closed Beta Details
Hey Madden fans! Welcome back to our Madden NFL 26 Gridiron Notes. Today, we’ll be sharing all the details on what you need to know about the Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta.* Before we get started, let's take a look at the Madden NFL 26 Gameplay Deep Dive that dropped last night! We’re excited to give you a week-long sneak peek at Madden NFL 26 with our Closed Beta! Whether it’s on Xbox Series X|S, Playstation®5, or PC, players have an opportunity to get an early look at some of the features and modes in Madden NFL 26 before the game launches worldwide on August 14th. Keep in mind: This Beta Technical Test is limited in scope and does not represent the final version of Madden NFL 26. We’re going to walk you through when game modes will be available, rules to keep in mind while playing, known issues and most importantly, where you’ll be able to leave your feedback. When participating in the confidential Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta, you must refrain from recording, streaming and/or capturing any portion of the closed beta. WHEN THE MADDEN NFL 26 CLOSED BETA WILL BE AVAILABLE TO PLAY: Start: June 18th at 12:00pm ET End: June 26th at 11:59pm ET Who: Our team focused on getting invites via email to the most engaged Madden NFL 25 players across multiple modes to ensure the highest quality feedback. WHAT WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE MADDEN NFL 26 CLOSED BETA: Play Now Online H2H Practice Mode Madden Ultimate Team Mini Games Superstar Things to know: PLAYBOOKS, RATINGS, & MORE: We can’t wait to tell you more about upcoming features & details in Madden NFL 26 via our Gridiron Notes, so stay tuned! We want to remind you that playbooks, ratings, and players in the closed beta are not final, and will be updated before the World Wide Launch of Madden NFL 26. MADDEN ULTIMATE TEAM: Madden Ultimate Team will be available for the Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta, however, some Ultimate Team modes and features will not be available. The following will be the available ways to play in the Closed Beta : Events Challenges: Training Camp Ultimate Preseason Forge Epic Challenges Solo Modes: Solo Champions: Easy Solo Champions: Normal Solo Champions: Hard The League (Solo Seasons) The Run (Solo Seasons) Events: College OT: Study Hall (Requires 1 82, 83, or 84 OVR Starter) College OT: Beta Head 2 Head: MUT Ranked Gauntlet Regular Season Sick Six Squads Regular Season Play A Friend: H2H PAF All-Madden H2H PAF Squads PAF Practice Mode RULES ABOUT THE MADDEN NFL 26 CLOSED BETA Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta is available on PS5™ and Xbox Series X|S consoles, and is also available on PC via EA app. You must be 18+ and in the U.S. or Canada to participate. When participating in the confidential Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta, you must refrain from recording, streaming and/or capturing any portion of the closed beta. You also must not post videos, thoughts, discussions, screenshots or stream the closed beta on social media or the Internet. Doing so will result in removal from the closed beta as well as potential bans on all Madden NFL accounts. FEEDBACK ON THE MADDEN NFL 26 CLOSED BETA - EA Forums We wanted to share a few best practices to keep in mind when coming across issues or giving feedback in general. Please keep in mind the more detailed information you can provide when reporting issues, the better our team can address them. Below are some questions to think about when reporting an issue or providing feedback: What platform are you playing on? Where specifically did you see the issue? If you chose to participate on PC, please include the following in your feedback: CPU: RAM: OS: GPU: DirectX Version: The following details are extremely important: Game Mode Game Style (Arcade, Simulation, Competitive) Game Difficulty Teams Used Playbook Used Play call - If a specific play is not applicable, what kind of playcall are you seeing? (e.g. Screen, Play Action, Outside Run, Inside Run, etc.) Any adjustments used during the play? If applicable, what buttons did you press? If you’re playing Franchise, are you playing an offline or online Franchise file? Were you doing anything specific in-game? Is this a repeatable issue? What did you do prior to identifying an issue? What game settings are you using? Did you change any settings at any point? Have you seen the issue before? Please be sure to submit all feedback on the EA Forums website. The team is also interested in hearing from you about the following topics: How do you feel about online H2H, are there other options, settings, and additional ways to play you feel would benefit your experiences? What do you think of the pass coverage, where do you feel it could improve? Let us know your skill level and game style when providing us feedback on this topic. How is the balance between the run/pass ratio AI Playcalling? How accurate are teams calling plays to their real-world counterparts Are there any plays you'd like to see for a specific team that are not currently included? HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE MADDEN NFL 26 CLOSED BETA To download the Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta to your system, please follow the instructions below: To download on Playstation: Use your existing Sony Entertainment Network account on PSN™. Select the PlayStation®Store icon on the system home screen. Select Redeem Codes at the bottom of the menu on the PlayStation®Store. Enter the code and get ready to play. To download on Xbox: Go to Games under Store. Select Use a Code. Sign in if prompted. Select or enter the 25-character code and get ready to play. To download, go to Settings>Account>Payment and Billing> Order History Select the Madden NFL 26 Beta >install To download on EA App: Go to your EA App Library. Select “Redeem Code”. Enter your provided code and get ready to play. MADDEN NFL 26 CLOSED BETA KNOWN ISSUES Gameplay Known Issues: Coverage Outside Deep Zone Match Defenders are sometimes taking unintentional missteps giving up deep ball passes. 2 Man Under defenders will sometimes move towards the LOS taking themselves out of position to play deep passes. Users attempting to select a DB covering a Streak route are sometimes getting switched to the Safety instead of the CB running with the Streak. Sometimes “Show 2” Coverage Shell does not work when attempting to use it on a Single High defense. QB & Passing When attempting to playmaker the receiver up the field you sometimes get an unintended Truck move. Sometimes attempting to throw on the cut on an outside breaking routes is off target even when the QB rolled an accurate pass. Catching We have some catch holes when throwing to the back of a receiver on a Flat or a short out route. Dev Note: A catch hole is when a targeted receiver may not trigger a catching animation when a ball is in range for a catch. User controlled defenders have a low catch chance when running up the field attempting an interception. Pass Rush Some Stunts & Twists selections from the Stunts & Twists menu are not playing out on the field. Pass Rushers will sometimes attempt Defender Pass Rush Skill moves after the QB has already started scrambling out of the pocket. Offensive Linemen are sometimes incorrectly turning their backs to defenders resulting in defenders coming in unblocked. Offensive AI AI teams in the redzone often throw short of the endzone on 3rd & 4th Downs. AI teams attempt 50+ yard field goals in heavy snow games. Data-Driven Playcalling is recommending the same play too frequently. Mini Games The game sometimes crashes at the end of the Pocket Presence or when progressing into Trench Battle. Pre/Post-Play Players walking in place after the play. Superstar Known Issues: Some rewards may appear delayed and may require re-entering the mode. Some rewards may not be granted properly. Some Notifications may not be interactive. When completing a Weekly Activity and then navigating the Play tab, Gameday Shorts may become unavailable until re-entering the mode. Presentation Known Issues: No highlights at halftime. Banners can appear with incorrect data and/or player portrait. Character and/or camera clipping in pregame runouts. The camera sometimes doesn’t track action properly in post play or replay. A highlight montage sometimes can’t be skipped. Please note that licensed music is not allowed in the beta. Some volume levels in the audio mix are not final. The playlist button does not open the playlist (it’s disabled in beta). Xbox Series S is rendering at 30 fps during gameplay (fixed for launch). Xbox Series X and PS5 in Favor Resolution and Favor Performance mode are rendering at 30 fps during gameplay (fixed for launch), Favor Visuals mode is unaffected. Shadow quality issues. For the best gaming experience across all platforms, please select the "Favor Visuals" mode in the Graphics and Performance settings. The other two options are currently not functioning correctly but will be fixed by launch. We recommend that Xbox Series S Players specifically perform these steps. To adjust these settings: Go to Graphics. Select Performance Mode. Choose Favor Visuals. Ultimate Team Known Issues: House Rules text is too far to the left and overlaps the text box. The Progression Rewards UI elements on the right side of the Event Screen exhibit visual overlap and alignment is off. Strat items have duped names. The name is displayed twice for all non player items. "Unopened Packs" header on the top left corner of the screen overlaps with the number of unopened packs. Event entry option doesn’t indicate token/lock requirement There is no clear indicator on the event select screen that the option is locked until the user goes to access the event. Select Events tab, Gauntlet for an example. Various issues with card flipping - Scrolling while flipping cards in catalog will result in multiple player card issues. Wildcard player image OVR blocked by plus sign within sets. Within events the drop down has no visual for what button to press. Note: The NFL player and Rookie Ratings throughout the Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta have been scrambled/randomized and are not final. COMMUNITY FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Q: IS CROSS-PLATFORM FUNCTIONALITY AVAILABLE FOR THE MADDEN NFL 26 CLOSED BETA? A: You will have the opportunity to use crossplay features in Play Now, H2H Ranked and Madden Ultimate Team. Crossplay will be automatically enabled when entering the closed beta. To disable cross-play, Playstation and PC users can disable the feature in their Madden NFL 26 settings. Xbox Users will have to disable crossplay from their console settings outside of Madden NFL 26. Q: IF I DIDN’T RECEIVE AN EMAIL WITH AN INVITATION TO THE MADDEN NFL 26 CLOSED BETA, WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET IN AND PLAY? A: This beta is designed for our most dedicated players in Madden NFL 25 who can provide us the best quality feedback about this Beta. Q: HOW DO I ACCESS THE FORUMS TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK? A: Players will be able to access the forums after they have first downloaded the beta and opened it using their EA ID, and then by following the link provided in your invite email. *Registration does not guarantee access to the Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta. Requires persistent internet connection, EA Account, acceptance of (i) Pre-release Feedback Agreement (Closed), (ii) EA's User Agreement (terms.ea.com), and (iii) EA's Privacy & Cookie Policy (privacy.ea.com), installation of EA app (ea.com/ea-app) (for PC users), and, for console users, applicable platform accounts or subscriptions (sold separately). Must be 18+. Gameplay progress, progression, characters, character data and/or any other value or status indicators achieved in the Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta will not transfer to Madden NFL 26 main game. Madden NFL 26 Closed Beta is pre-release software, may contain errors/defects and is provided “as is” without any express or implied warranty. -- Madden NFL 26 launches worldwide on August 14, 2025. Pre-order the Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition and play early. Conditions and restrictions apply. See disclaimers for details. Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and the EA Forums. *Conditions & restrictions apply. See https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-26/legal-disclaimers for details [Source]Madden NFL 26 & College Football 26 MVP Bundle Now Available for Pre-Order
Happy Draft day, football fans! We're thrilled to share the reveal trailer for the EA SPORTS Madden NFL 26 & College Football 26 MVP Bundle with you here! Check out the full trailer below, and hop on board the hype train with us. Live the entire football journey, from high school recruit to NFL legend with EA SPORTS Madden NFL 26 and College Football 26. Click here for more info on how to pre-order the MVP Bundle now! Stay tuned for more exciting details on both Madden NFL 26 and College Football 26. We can't wait to show you what we've been cooking up.Madden NFL 26 Title Update - September 17, 2025
Hey Madden fans, welcome back to Gridiron Notes! Our next Title Update for Madden NFL 26 is arriving tomorrow, and it’s packed with gameplay fixes, tuning, and updates across every mode. From new Coaching Adjustments that give you more control over pass protection and coverage depth, to key improvements in various modes, including new likenesses, gear, and equipment options. Let’s dive in! Gameplay Pass Blocking Added a new Coaching Adjustment option allowing you to set your default pass protection scheme—choose from Base, Empty, Half Left, Full Left, Half Right, Full Right or Default. Dev Note: For players who don’t want built-in pass protections on passing plays, we have included a new Coaching Adjustment to allow players to choose the default protection for all dropback passing plays. When toggling this option in, players will still have the ability to change their protection before the play via the Pass Protection adjustments menu. Fixed an issue sometimes causing the pass protection adjustment menu to get stuck in an open state after selecting a protection adjustment. Made improvements to blocking logic for better targeting and improved protection on Shotgun Play Action plays Tuning done to shorten the wait time after failed pass rush moves to improve pocket degradation over time. Enhanced QB Contain logic to ensure defenders contain more effectively Dev Note: This was a two-part fix where we fixed disengages from blocks and pursuit of quarterbacks scrambling outside the pocket. For the second part, we resolved an issue where defenders would incorrectly abandon their Contain assignments in favor of executing pass rush moves. Addressed an issue with pass rush move selection logic to reduce excessive use of Rip moves and ensure more realistic, ratings-driven defender behavior. Run Game Fixed an issue allowing a short, artificial speed boost to the ball carrier when using Truck in open space (Air Truck). Dev Note: The truck animations and transitions from truck to locomotion have been modified to more accurately reflect the movement speed of the ball carrier as the truck ends, and the transition has been tuned to keep the speed more consistent. Fixed an issue causing Duo run plays to be mislabeled as Inside Zone plays. Decreased the frequency of power non-engaged sheds on run plays. Added shed timers for defenders who lost their previous defensive move on passing plays. Edge defenders now steer towards their outside gap for longer to help set the edge on run plays Passing Game Increased the minimum for ‘stemmed down’ routes from 1 yard to 3 yards. Dev Note: When using the route-stemming feature, certain stemmed-down routes, particularly Corner Routes, became too powerful and difficult to fairly and/or realistically defend. As a result, the minimum stem-depth allowed now is 3 yards. The intent of this change is to preserve the structure and timing of the route, while enabling more realistic and balanced defensive reactions. Resolved an issue where auto-motion receivers would continue their motion during the Quiet the Crowd animation, users can no longer Quiet the crowd during auto-motion. Fixed an issue preventing behind-the-line special moves from working when using Gadget players in the QB spot in Wildcat formations. Fixed an issue causing WR’s to sometimes use fake-out footwork off the snap with no defender nearby. Fixed an issue preventing the appropriate frequency of catch-knockouts when throwing to a receiver covered by multiple defenders. Dev Note: This was the main issue leading to receivers holding onto aggressive catches too much in crowds when the ball should have been knocked out. With this update, outcomes on aggressive catch attempts now more accurately reflect the ratings and physical matchups of the players involved when there is collision at the catch point. Fixed an issue causing illegal man-downfield penalties to trigger incorrectly on certain play-action boot plays. Fixed an issue causing no-look passing animations to sometimes trigger on quick throws, like bubble screens. Pass Coverage Added a new Coaching Adjustment setting to set the safeties depth at 16 yards. Updated hook-defender depth with underneath coverage adjustment to play at 5 yards of depth to be in better position to play short routes like drag routes. Updated hook-defender depth with over-the-top coverage adjustment to play at 12-18 yards of depth to put defenders in better position to take away deeper intermediate routes like deep Digs and Over routes. Updated vertical-hook zone logic so that it will not match when using coaching adjustments or custom-stem zones. Updated press-animation logic to ensure defenders trigger press animations requested by the user at the line of scrimmage. Fixed an issue in Goal Line defense causing the receiver in heavy-personnel formations to be completely uncovered. Pre-Play Controls Updated logic so the offense cannot instantly flip the play or audible to a new formation when walking to the line from the huddle Standardized the hot route timer for all QB’s when breaking the huddle. Dev Note: This new timer also applies to how long users need to wait after flipping a play or audibling to a new formation. Stemming a route also counts as a hot route when breaking the huddle. Signature animations for players like Mahomes now have consistent responsiveness resulting in all quarterbacks having the same hot route timing cadence. Fixed an issue preventing under-center QBs from queuing more than two hot routes at a time. Fixed an issue causing the TE to motion awkwardly on a series of plays within Gun Y Off Trips Wk (Mtn Y Corner, RPO Alert Mtn Dive, Mtn Shock H Opt) Fixed an issue preventing the hot-route stem controls from appearing when using mouse & keyboard controls on PC. Fixed hot route stem control not appearing when using keyboard and mouse. Tuning to improve avoidance by WR’s in motion at the snap. AI & Game Logic Tuning to the Bills Homefield Advantage to reduce excessive kick-meter wobble. Tuning to improve AI-controlled teams’ clock management, preventing it from calling timeouts right before punting when losing by a large margin. Fixed an issue sometimes causing a crash when setting QB Throw Style. Fixed an issue in Goal Line defense causing the receiver in heavy-personnel formations to be completely uncovered. Fixed a rare issue causing some players in online rosters to appear with generic player models and wearing the incorrect uniform numbers, such as multiple players wearing #11 or #22. Animation & Visuals Adjusted Small Agile Back hit stick animations to look more realistic and grounded. Fixed an issue sometimes causing defenders to warp back to their feet when mid-lunge in tackling. Fixed an issue allowing late hurdle attempts to cause missed tackles. Fixed an issue causing Josh Allen to use the incorrect ball-carry style (bread loaf) on read option plays. Playbooks Fixed an issue causing the ball to warp on specific Pistol formation handoffs. Fixed an issue causing the ball to warp when cancelling the handoff on PA Sprint HB Flat plays. Fixed an issue causing a fumble when snapping the ball in Gun Bunch TE Str MTN RPO Peak Flats. Fixed a rare issue causing the ball to be snapped well behind the QB on various Pistol and Gun Jet Sweep plays. Fixed an issue allowing an unnatural speed boost on the In-Corner route within Gun Bunch Offset Close Mesh Rebound, which made it unbalanced. Presentation Broadcast Packages Fixed issue with missing stats in the Last Week Stats banner after a bye week. Fixed issue with Stat Leaders banner for pass yards disappearing too quickly. Fixed issue preventing Draft Class banner from appearing during a Sunday Night Primetime game. NFL Traditions Fixed a camera issue for the Cardinals’ Big Red Siren tradition. Halftime Show Fixed issue with missing highlights after using the Resume Game option. Fixed an inconsistency with a score shown during a highlight from a game in progress and the subsequent Around the League banner. Halftime Show / Weekly Recap Fixed lighting pop that would sometimes occur at the end of a highlight. Tuned logic for highlight selection from a game in progress to reduce the chances of seeing the losing team. Tuned logic to prevent non-scrambling QBs from being shown performing long runs. Fixed CPU highlight showing right-handed QB throwing left-handed touchdown. Weekly Recap Fixed issue preventing Weekly Recap from being available during the playoffs when a user’s team did not make the playoffs. Pregame Fixed issue with an out-of-focus camera for the Falcon statue at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Fixed issue with fog sometimes obstructing mascots during runouts. Fixed various camera obstructions and clipping issues with sideline characters. Drive Starter Fixed a broken camera when showing the Stat Leaders banner for a wide receiver. Fixed issue with Drive Starter sometimes appearing before Drive Summary when a turnover occurs in Superstar: The League. Post Play Fixed an issue sometimes causing players to appear on the wrong sideline. Fixed an issue causing the camera to linger too long after completing a MUT Challenge in one play. Franchise Fixed an issue where certain Players would be playing out of position. Dev Note: This issue was tied to the Progressive Fatigue setting, we have removed the setting as we’ve introduced Wear and Tear Management. We are also addressing an issue where Wear and Tear sliders are not in Franchise and looking to implement them in a future title update Fixed an issue with the Nose Tackle archetype's OVR formula that was causing it to appear different from the front end. Dev Note: For new leagues this change will apply immediately. For existing leagues, the formula will apply immediately and for players that had Nose Tackle as their highest rated archetype previously, will appear with their new Nose Tackle OVR until the week is advanced where their highest OVR will be correct. Fixed an issue where some draft generators were using wrong body types. Dev Note: The change will not apply to existing leagues until the next draft class is generated. Addressed an issue with Importing and Exporting Draft Classes were incorrectly changing Player Body Types Dev Note: This update will not address existing Draft classes already in a league. Addressed an issue where Tight Ends were able to acquire the Universal Coverage Zone Ability Addressed an issue where Players sustaining a Low Back Strain Injury was treated as a Career Ending Injury Fixed an issue where coaches and trainers were unlocking abilities in the wrong order Addressed an issue where the WILL position was prioritized over the SAM position in the Depth Chart when using the reorder feature Dev Note: We are aware of an existing case when a Head Coach leaves a league, the CPU automatically promotes the teams’ existing Offensive or Defensive coordinator without hiring a backfill. We are investigating the issue to be addressed in a future title update. Superstar Mode Fixed an issue where Season stats were not accessible Adjusted QB Combine drills Resolved an issue where selected Gear would appear on the wrong uniform Ultimate Team Field Pass, Progression & Rewards Fixed an issue that prevented certain objectives from appearing in the Field Pass and Team Pass tabs. Resolved multiple soft lock scenarios when purchasing the Premium Field Pass or entering rewards screens. Corrected a visual bug where Season 1 Field Pass art would replace Season 2 while active. Reward icons and token/coin rewards now display consistently across New Items Flow and Rewards Flow. Lineups & Team Management Corrected an issue where punters and kickers displayed inflated OVR values when placed at QB. Fixed chemistry and strategy boosts not displaying correctly, ensuring lineup synergies are accurate. Improved substitution logic and lineup refresh behavior to prevent errors when managing rosters. Store & Packs Restored the “Open Next Pack” callout in reward flows, improving pack-opening speed. Fixed an issue where packs included inside other rewards were not visible. Pack Helper tuned to prioritize lineup improvements correctly, avoiding cases where it would recommend removing useful players. Challenges, Events & H2H Addressed blockers in Gauntlet events that prevented progress from tracking correctly. Fixed a bug in H2H Seasons where winning the Super Bowl did not end the season as intended. Leaderboards now display correctly, fixing issues with empty or undefined rank values. Corrected star reward tracking in Legendary Challenge packs to ensure proper rewards. Stability & Disconnects Fixed multiple soft locks in NUX scenarios, Field Pass purchases, and Preseason Events. Addressed crashes when loading into Squads crossplay sessions with multiple PC players. Corrected disconnects during ready-up transitions in H2H and Squads lobbies. Resolved desyncs in 6v6 and Sick Six modes. Audio New music added: Limp Bizkit - “Morgan Wallen” Fixes for various issues: in-game commentary firing improperly, stadium music adjustments, SFX volume adjustments, mix adjustments for the Halftime Show, & a fix for unintended audio dropouts when adjusting unrelated volume sliders. UI Fixed crash when entering Custom Playbooks Fixed issue with avatar portraits not showing in the Halftime Report Fixed issues with some in-game banners not showing data or showing incorrect data and other various polish Dev Note: This will also include occasionally seeing ‘Eagles vs Chiefs’ in the scorebug during certain moments. Fixed double score HUD showing after calling a timeout after a play Korean currency now supported on Switch 2 Fixed issues with Download/Preview/Report function in Download Center Added and updated various player, coach and avatar portraits Art Added additional NFL Player & Coach Likeness Heads: 49ers DL Mykel Williams Bears WR Luther Burden III Bengals LB Demetrius Knight Bengals EDGE Shemar Stewart Bills CB Maxwell Hairston Broncos CB Jahdae Barron Browns RB Quinshon Judkins Buccaneers WR Emeka Egbuka Cardinals CB Will Johnson Chargers RB Omarion Hampton Chiefs OT Josh Simmons Dolphins DT Kenneth Grant Dolphins TE Jonnu Smith Eagles LB Jihaad Campbell Giants QB Jaxson Dart Jets OT Armand Membou Jets TE Mason Taylor Lions OT Taylor Decker Lions DT Tyleik Williams Packers WR Matthew Golden Patriots RB TreVeyon Henderson Rams TE Terrance Ferguson Ravens S Malaki Starks Saints QB Tyler Shough Seahawks TE Elijah Arroyo Seahawks S Nick Emmanwori Seahawks G Grey Zabel Steelers DT Derrick Harmon Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin Texans WR Jayden Higgins Added New Cleats Nike Vapor Edge Speed 360 2 Added New Facemasks Axiom Robot Jagged 2 Axion Grid Axiom Robot 808 Axiom Robot RB Jagged 2 Axiom 3 Bar RB Axiom Robot RB Straight Added 2 New Coach Wristbands Added New Undershirt w/4 Color Options That wraps up this edition of Gridiron Notes for Madden NFL 26. We’re excited to get these changes into your hands and can’t wait to hear your feedback as you dive in! Keep sharing your feedback with us as we head through the NFL season and be on the lookout for more Gridiron Notes in the future. The Madden Team __ Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and the EA Forums. [Source]Madden NFL 26 Ultimate Team Deep Dive
Hey Madden Fans! Welcome back to Gridiron Notes, your home for Madden NFL 26 News and Updates straight from the developers. Today, we’re deep diving into Madden Ultimate Team. We are delivering a deeper, more rewarding experience, built around your feedback. Whether your focus is head-to-head or solo play, everything this year is built to reward your football IQ and creativity while keeping the experience smooth, fresh, and rewarding week after week. There are new ways to play and more reasons to build, so let’s dive in! More Programs. More Events. More Football. Our goal heading into Madden NFL 26 was simple: Deliver more and deliver better. We’re expanding both the volume of programs and the variety. Each major content drop will bring a new wave of Live Events, designed to push your strategic depth, stretch your lineup, and offer rewarding gameplay in both Solo and H2H formats. Every single major content drop will feature both a CPU and a H2H event, allowing you to choose your preferred path to play. Rewards are tailored to reinforce your team-building experience and tied to each event. With events delivered on a consistent cadence, something fresh is always available. KICKING OFF THE YEAR In Season 1, we’ll be kicking things off with a pair of events for our Preseason Standouts program: Long Drive. You will take on opponents in either H2H or CPU under special house rules. Following this up will be Campus Heroes with College OT for H2H players. Solo players can look forward to Campus Chaos, a unique twist on a Solo Season where you will play through four years of college (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior), each represented by 2 games serving as the semester. This culminates in a Graduation showdown against the Campus Heroes themselves. Our final program of Season 1, Game Time, will launch our first team building event of the year. For H2H players, you’ll take on an abbreviated 5 game H2H Season with the most lucrative rewards for those that can manage to string together multiple Super Bowl wins. For Solo gamers, you’ll take on a Game Time twist on our new Solo Champions mode, including a slugfest against the Game Time Champions. As the year goes on, we’ll be delivering a wide variety of events, some of which are making their very first appearance in Ultimate Team. For example, while the Trick-or-Treat CPU event will be returning for Most Feared, it will be coming with a new twist: randomized House progression, each with its own house rules and attribute modifiers. Zero Chill will be bringing the heat with a new MUT team building event, where your event rewards will directly feed into your progression in the event as you bolster an event-specific lineup. You can also expect throughout the year some unique squads opportunities, a new type of battlescore-driven CPU event, as well as the return of some events that have been missing for a while now, such as the “Race” house rules event. SEASONAL EVENT PASS To capture all of the event goodness coming out this year, we’re introducing the Seasonal Event Pass. Building on the Showtime Showdown event from last year, Events in Madden Ultimate Team 26 will contribute to their own dedicated field pass. This will provide more flexibility in rewards and a more cohesive event experience across the entire Season. For Solo Players, you’ll be excited to hear that the Event Pass has room for you too, with our lineup of Solo Events this year also contributing to the Seasonal Event pass. WEEKLY SPOTLIGHT PASS In addition to the Seasonal Event Pass, another new pass will also be joining the mix – the Weekly Spotlight pass. The Weekly Spotlight pass will showcase specific programming throughout the year in a shared field pass experience to provide more freedom for rewards and progression. As part of this, all weekly programs will now share a single token, providing greater flexibility and giving you more control over your rewards. We’ll be debuting the Weekly Spotlight Pass with Legends. For its first iteration it’ll feature Legends, Team of the Week, and Collector’s Series. Collector’s Series Collector’s Series is a new weekly program that will have a new theme (Series) each Season, each with its own distinct style. Additionally, each Series will have a unique Collection Champion: if you can manage to get your hands on all of the Champions for that series, you’ll be able to earn a special, more powerful, version of a Champion from that series. Collector’s Series will be debuting with the Signature Series for Season 1. Solo Play Overhaul We heard your feedback about solo play in Ultimate Team and we made it a priority to design a deeper and more rewarding experience for our solo players. This year, solo play gets the overhaul it deserves. We’ve completely redesigned our Solo reward structure to better support progression, pacing, and meaningful rewards. Solo players can enjoy the full Ultimate Team experience - team building, progression, and challenges - without needing to play H2H against others. SOLO CHAMPIONS This year we're introducing Solo Champions: a 12-game weekly gauntlet of escalating difficulty. It will serve as the pinnacle experience for Solo Players, measuring where your current skills are at. To enter, you’ll be given an entry token every week, and can earn more by completing weekly objectives. Then, you’ll choose your difficulty and rack up battlescore to earn rewards. Build up your Ultimate Team, hone your skills, and work your way up to tackling the highest difficulty levels of Solo Champions. SOLO SEASONS This year, we’re introducing The League. It’s a more casual Solo Seasons experience set up to better emulate the NFL Season. You’ll take on a regular season comprising half games. If you can manage 10 wins, you’ll enter the Playoffs and ultimately the Super Bowl, which are full game experiences. We also heard the feedback surrounding Ultimate Solo Seasons. We still want to make sure we’re providing the option for a more challenging, repeatable experience, so we’re replacing Ultimate Solo Seasons with The Run. The Run has four levels. Each level is five, two-quarter games. As you progress through the levels both your opponents and starting conditions get tougher. If you can manage to overcome the odds, you’ll find yourself rewarded. Solo Seasons will also have specific weekly objectives with high-powered rewards! Complete enough weekly objectives to redeem a free BND champion! CHALLENGES Challenges are also getting several updates. Star ratings are being adjusted to better reflect the difficulty level of a challenge. A one-star challenge will be easier in difficulty, while beating a five-star challenge will be a true testament to your skills. While some challenges will still feature selectable difficulty, we want to make sure that for those seeking a tougher experience, the option is still there for you. These aren’t all of the changes we have in store for our solo players this year! We’re expecting a more regular update cadence for solo modes with and a robust suite of solo friendly events, all landing with each new major content release. MUT26 rings in a new era for solo players! GAUNTLET Gauntlet is seeing a qualification update. Instead of needing to get a certain number of MUT Champs wins to qualify for the Gauntlet, you’ll now earn an entry token from a weekly objective to get Ranked wins. No need to put a win streak together. SICK SIX Sick Six is losing its limited availability, gather your squad and tackle your three runs per week whenever you want! Team Building Events Ultimate Team is and always has been a celebration of building your perfect squad. In MUT26, lineup construction was at the forefront of our upgrades. Team Building Events introduce new ways to test your roster-building skills. Some events will require a theme team to enter, while others might require your team to be within a specific OVR; others still might require a specific player in your lineup. To support these experiences, we’re giving you powerful lineup tools to make building easier than ever. You’ll have the ability to view any eligible event and its requirements, auto-generate a baseline lineup to meet those requirements and edit your lineup for optimization all from the lineup screen with real-time lineup compliance alerts. Tighter requirements will equate to better rewards. We want to make sure we’re giving you the tools you need to be able to participate in team building events with little friction. Our goal with team building is to reward creative, thoughtful team building, not punish your binder size. Our philosophy around team building events is to make them reward your football strategy IQ and creatively solving the team building requirements in front of you. Team building events are about providing you opportunities for unique challenges and roster building opportunities. Competitive Campaigns This year we’re introducing Leaderboard Campaigns. They’re smaller, limited-time, focused competitions designed to make every game matter. Each campaign puts you on a leaderboard with a small subset of players. Whether you're a H2H or Solo Player, your performance on key objectives (points scored, wins, etc.) determines your placement. Every tier unlocks bonus rewards and every player has a real chance to finish at the top. LTDs, Sets & Rewards With the massive amounts of content coming in Ultimate Team, we wanted to make sure it all feels worth playing and have made adjustments to rewards. In addition to the flexibility offered by the new Event Pass and Weekly Spotlight Pass, we’ve also re-evaluated our overall rewards. Welcome Pack players are seeing an improvement across the board: you’ll generally see them able to be upgraded all the way to Champion-level OVR. Non-fantasy reward packs will now have a chance to include an LTD. LTDs are now also available for a full week instead of just three days. For Sets, we have a couple of quality-of-life changes we’re launching aimed at giving you more choice when it comes to rewards. Firstly, program champions will no longer have bespoke sets for each Champion. Instead, it will be a single fantasy pack giving you a choice of program champion. Secondly, we’re tackling the frustration around our filter organization: they will be sorted alphabetically this year. We also have heard the feedback around alternate uniforms and have planned opportunities to earn alternate uniforms throughout the year. You’ll see them start to roll in with the Season 2 Field Pass. You’ll also earn progress on your NFL Team Pass throughout Ultimate Team, unlocking rewards that celebrate your achievements with your favorite squad. Pack Helper We know it can be tedious flipping between your binder, auction house, or lineup when opening packs to determine the best decisions for your squad. This year, we’re introducing a new feature called Pack Helper. With Pack Helper, you’ll instantly see if a new player is better than your current starter, whether they help complete a set, how they’re trending on the Auction House, or if they boost your Chemistry tiers, all directly from the pack opening screen. All these actions can be done with just two clicks. Every insight is optional, and if you want to take action, it’s quick and seamless. The Evolution of the Item We’ve redesigned the core of Ultimate Team: the player item itself. Key info like OVR, position, and name now stays locked in a standard location. Everything else can change based on the program. Our player items will reflect the identity of each drop, giving an even more distinctive visual feel to items throughout the year. We’re also bringing back player item flipping, with multiple back pages that allow you to explore key attributes, X-Factors, abilities and chemistries. You’ll be able to directly compare players on the same screen without needing to leave your lineup, making decision-making clearer than ever. Quality of Life Upgrades Every aspect of MUT should be intuitive and frictionless. We’ve made key upgrades to ensure that playing and progressing never gets in your way. CHALLENGE OBJECTIVES Challenge Objective Tracking is now available directly from the play call and presnap screens, no need to pause to check your progress or remind yourself of the goal! EVENTS UI House Rules visibility has been improved with a complete list of modifiers available on the event select screen itself, allowing you to easily preview how your gameplay will be impacted. Additionally, they’ve also been integrated right into your play experience, so you’re never surprised by a modifier. To help keep players in the flow of events, we’re making UI improvements to the event screens. All of your rewards will now be viewable from the event screen, even when an event features multiple levels. No more needing to be in the Playoffs to see the Playoffs rewards! House Rules also now have their own dedicated display space both on the event screen and in-game, no pause required. For those events that feature special end conditions for the game, those too are now available in-game. Always Fresh. Always Football. From all of us on the Madden Ultimate Team dev team, thank you! We’ve worked this offseason to build on your feedback and elevate every part of the Ultimate Team experience with more content, smarter tools, and deeper ways to play. We know we have the most passionate fans and are excited to see you at launch! For a reveal of the first season of Madden NFL 26 and Madden Ultimate Team, tune into our first Good Morning Madden stream of the year on August 6th at 10:30 A.M. Eastern, on twitch.tv/EAmaddennfl! [Source]Madden NFL 26 Season 3
Madden NFL 26 Season 3 takes you back to your roots with new and returning programs: Autumn Classic brings festive Challenges and All-Madden Week, Breakouts celebrates unexpected stars, and Blitz is back with speedy players and lightning-quick Challenges. Plus, you can work your way up the Field Pass throughout the season to earn new player items like Kyle Juszczyk, Cooper Kupp, and more. ULTIMATE TEAM™ PROGRAMS BREAKOUTS This season has seen a few fresh names become superstars in a matter of weeks, and now you can add them to your roster. Get a new player item just for logging in during the event starting on 11/6, then earn other Breakout players via Solo Challenges, find them in packs, and more. Complete Challenges and other events to get Breakout Badges to upgrade your new player items and flip their stats to reflect their stellar season so far. AUTUMN CLASSIC Starting on 11/20, get cozied up with Madden NFL 26 Autumn Classic, where you can compete in Solo and H2H Challenges to earn player items and other rewards. And don't miss All-Madden Week with themed Challenges, a Welcome Pack featuring a John Madden player item, and the reveal of this year's All-Madden team. BLITZ The speediest fan-favorite event is back with some of the NFL’s fastest stars and lightning-quick Challenges where you can earn Blitz Boltz currency and Blitz packs. Open enough packs during the event to get a Blitz LTD Fantasy Pack containing either Deion Sanders or Shedeur Sanders. FIELD PASS PLAYER ITEMS Work your way up the Field Pass to earn all-new rewards, including five player items found in Season 3 Welcome Packs or Player Fantasy Packs. Upgrade any of these players to a 92 OVR with Season Player Upgrade Tokens and give your team an extra boost. Kyle Juszczyk - 85 OVR Creed Humphrey - 85 OVR Cooper Kupp - 85 OVR Jessie Bates III - 85 OVR Will Anderson Jr - 85 OVR REWARD PATH Level Reward 2 70+ Pack 3 Random Strategy Item 4 120 Season Tickets 5 Rare Option Pack 6 85 OVR Season 3 Player Fantasy Pack (Esc 90) 7 120 Season Tickets 8 5000 Coins 9 Rare Option pack 10 86 OVR S3 Upgrade Token (Esc 90) 11 5000 Coins 12 160 Season Tickets 13 Season 3 Uniform Pack 14 160 Season Tickets 15 Rare Option Pack 16 85 OVR Season 3 Player Fantasy Pack (Esc 90) 17 Season 4 XP Token 18 5000 Coins 19 Rare Option Pack 20 87 OVR S3 Upgrade Token (Esc 90) 21 10000 Coins 22 240 Season Tickets 23 Random Strategy Item 24 240 Season Tickets 25 Rare Option Pack 26 85 OVR Season 3 Player Fantasy Pack (Esc 90) 27 300 Season Tickets 28 10000 Coins 29 Rare Option Pack 30 88 OVR S3 Upgrade Token (Esc 91) 31 10000 Coins 32 325 Season Tickets 33 Season 3 Uniform Pack 34 375 Season Tickets 35 Epic Option Pack 36 85 OVR Season 3 Player Fantasy Pack (Esc 91) 37 425 Season Tickets 38 15000 Coins 39 Legendary Option Pack 40 89 OVR S3 Upgrade Token (Esc 91) 41 10000 Coins 42 350 Season Tickets 43 Random Strategy Item 44 Season 4 XP Token 45 Legendary Option Pack 46 90 OVR S3 Upgrade Token (Esc 92) 47 350 Season Tickets 48 Epic Strategy Item Fantasy Pack Choose 1 of 5 (Rare QS Esc 92) 49 Epic Option Pack 50 91 OVR S3 Upgrade Token (Esc 92) [Source]Madden NFL 26 - Title Update - October 22, 2025
Hey Madden fans, welcome back to Gridiron Notes! Our latest Title Update for Madden NFL 26 puts a strong focus on defense, delivering key improvements to pass rush, coverage depth, and overall defensive logic to create a more balanced gameplay experience. Offensively, blocking, catching, and player movement have been refined for smoother execution. Read below for details on additional quality-of-life improvements across modes, new formations, playbook updates, presentation enhancements, new gear, and the latest mascot addition to Madden NFL 26. Gameplay Catching Increased catch knockout chance for more realistic KO outcomes on Competitive Gamestyle. Fixed catch animation blending to prevent hand warping during catches. Fixed a catching issue on the Stretch Alert Bubble play where the catch would initiate but would not sync up to the pass resulting in a fumble. Fixed an issue where receivers warp to 23 mph during a standing catch. Locomotion Increased acceleration when escaping the pocket for elite scrambling QBs like Lamar Jackson. Addressed an issue with WRs jogging after a teammate catches a pass. Addressed an issue with no cut-move playing on slants. Tuning to reduce the effectiveness of the spin move for taller ball carriers. Fixed an issue causing a safety in coverage to sometimes use an incorrect drastic-turn taking him out of position to cover a corner route. Post Play Fixed the Bowling Celebration where the ball was teleporting forward. Fixed an issue rarely causing a receiver to get frozen in an animation after a successful catch-tackle. Defense Fixed an issue preventing the proper press animation from triggering in man coverage vs. Gun Empty Steeler Steeler Cross. Fixed an issue causing the AI-controlled defense to sometimes align in goalline incorrectly vs. certain 4-WR sets. Fixed an issue with Zone coverage defenders flipping coverage assignments to the opposite side of the field in Nickel 3-3 Single Mug formation when offense flips the play. Pass Rush Fixed an issue where defenders with equal or lower Pass Rush ratings were unable to trigger a Super Win. Now, all defenders have a fair chance to break through based on situational factors and ratings. Adjusted animations for Contains when defending against run actions or play action. Defenders will no longer play the surf animation in these scenarios. Improved consistency for CPU/User-controlled Defensive Linemen triggering Pass Rush moves. Expect more dynamic and responsive line play. Fixed a delay in Contain defenders disengaging when the QB drops excessively deep in the pocket. Pass Rushers will now react more quickly to extended dropbacks. Reduced the frequency of Bull Rush moves being triggered. Pass Rushers will now use a more balanced variety of moves based on their archetype and ratings. General Increased QB Fumble Chance vs user hitstick on Competitive Gamestyle for better gameplay balance. Resolved an issue where the Ball Carrier coach adjustment was impacting user players resulting in user controlled ball carriers sometimes having a 0% fumble chance. Greatly improved the visual clarity when a player on the field triggers an Ability. Addressed an issue where the Mini Games: Two Minute Drill was missing the 'Continue' button. Fixed an issue where Offensive PI would be called when running the Gun Bunch Str Nasty – Mtn Double Pass due to blockers going too far downfield. Fixed an issue in Superstar Showdown (Ranked) where users would hold LB and let AI play for them. Tuned CPU QBs rolling out of the pocket too quickly when unnecessary. Special Teams Increased the max distance on a field goal for kickers with 99 KPW to achieve a 70 yard field goal with a max power low trajectory kick. DEV NOTE: As part of our ongoing commitment to authenticity, we’ve incorporated this record-setting event from the real NFL into the game. The historic 70-yard field goal was an extraordinary achievement that pushed the boundaries of what’s possible on the field. We brought this into Madden giving players the chance to recreate this iconic moment themselves. Addressed several blocked kick exploits. Fixed an issue where kick returners would have trouble fielding the ball on shorter kicks to the numbers. Playbooks Fixed an issue with the ball snapping over/around QB causing fumbles on the Pistol - Spread: Jet Touch Pass play Fixed an issue on the Flexbox Close: WR Dive play where the QB keeps the ball when snapped early. Fixed an issue with the ball teleporting between hands during Singleback Ace Dbl Wing-Fake: HB Zone QB Boot Lt. Addressed an issue on the Gun Wing Stack: Ohio Spacing play where WRs would collide with each other at snap has been fixed. Added Coverage Shell adjustments to Dime 1-4 DBL Mug and the Nickel 2-4-5 Odd Mug formations Fixed the CB FS Sub Package in 5-3 Goal Line Defense formation Tuned the TE auto-motion on the Gun Normal & Off Close > FK Jet Y Wheel (Ravens) Addressed an issue where the motion receiver was unable to catch a pass on the Gun - Wing Slot Offset: Jet Pass Fk Zone play Fixed an issue with WRs colliding on the Gun - Cluster HB Strong: Spacing play Tuned Safety alignment and play art inconsistencies in the Nickel Over – Cover 3 Sky play against 4x1 formations. Dime Load Weak – Missing coverage shell adjustments have been fixed. New Formations 3-3-5 Penny 3 High Dime Single Mug and 2-3 Single Mug Dev Note: Added to provide more flexibility and disguise in your defensive scheme. Single Mug looks force offenses into more one-on-one pass protection, making it easier to generate heat with stunts and targeted blitzes—especially off the slot. The 3-3-5 Penny 3 High Safety is based on the real-life Arizona Cardinals’ innovations, this defense brings a modern spin: three deep safeties and fast front personnel create unique run fits and coverage shells, ideal for keeping offenses guessing pre- and post-snap. New Plays Blitz Loop 3, Nickel Sim 2, and Field Sim 3 - Added to Nickel Double Mug, 2-4 DBL Mug, and 3-3 DBL Mug Cover 2 Roll, Show SS Sim 2, and Cross Sim 2 - Added to Nickel Over, Nickel 3-3 Over, and Nickel 2-4 Dev Note: Plays like Nickel Sim 2, Show SS Sim 2, Cross Sim 2, and Cover 2 Roll in modern football are known as “NTT” (Non-Traditional Tampa) coverages. The "Sim" (short for "Simulated Pressure") tag indicates that although the defense gives the appearance of a heavy blitz (rushing five or more), in reality only four defenders rush while seven drop into coverage. This approach maximizes coverage integrity, yet keeps the offense guessing where pressure will come from. Playbook Updates Bengals - Added 3-4 Tite, Cub; Nickel 3-3 Cub, 3-3 DBL Mug, Single Mug; Dime Single Mug. Removed 4-3 Over Wide; 46 Normal, Nickel DBL Mug Cardinals - Added 3-3-5 Penny 3 High and Dime 2-3 Single Mug Colts - Added Dime 2-3, 2-3 Single Mug; Nickel 3-3 Over, 3-3 Double Mug, Single Mug, 3-3 Cub; 3-4 Tite, Under, Cub. Removed Dime Normal, 4-3 Over, Wide; Nickel Over, Nickel Wide Raiders - Added Nickel Over. Removed Nickel 2-4. Steelers - Added Dime Single Mug; Nickel 3-3 Over, Load Mug; 3-4 Tite, Under. Removed Nickel 2-4 Added Dime Single Mug to Browns, Chargers, Chiefs, Added Dime 2-3 Single Mug to Bills, Broncos, Panthers, Rams, Ravens Benkert’s Dimes playbook receives 36 different plays from Gun Bunch TE and 33 plays from Gun Bunch X Nasty Presentation Added custom pregame sequences for the NFL Rivalries program Added CPU highlights for the Halftime Show and Weekly Recap Removed scrolling text that stuttered during the intro and outro bumpers for the Halftime Show and Weekly Recap Fixed issue where QB would appear on the sideline after an offensive play Fixed issue where kicker would appear on the sideline after a made field goal Fixed issue with end-of-quarter banner showing for a timeout Fixed issue with Last Season stats banner showing for a rookie Fixed issue with Upcoming Games banner not displaying bye week Fixed issue where NFL bumper was not appearing before a Super Bowl Franchise Addressed an issue where the CPU automatically promotes the team’s existing Offensive or Defensive coordinator if a user leaves the league. Preventing a new user from completing a game until the league advances Updated an issue where the Super Bowl logo referenced was last year's Super Bowl LIX image. Updated an issue where Coach Abilities were displaying as locked although they were upcoming within the Coach Archetype’s path Corrected various typos within Coach Abilities Description and Coach Scenarios for improved clarity and consistency Resolved multiple stability issues to enhance overall game performance and user experience Superstar Mode Added a new Stats tab in the Superstar Center, with standings and League Leaders. Fixed an issue where the team would choose not to kick Field Goals during simulation. Fixed an issue where Weekly Activities would sometimes display a Connection’s name incorrectly. Fixed an issue where different save slot data would be combined, preventing further progression. Fixed an issue where the Adidas questline could not be completed with certain gear. Fixed an issue where completing the Combine would sometimes result in a black screen. Fixed an issue where Weekly Activities would sometimes appear stuck when selecting any of the options. Fixed several issues with inaccurate stats. Ultimate Team Field Pass, Progression & Rewards Fixed an issue where rewards and new item flows would not trigger after finishing events, earning XP, or leveling up a Field Pass. Resolved a soft lock when viewing the Premium Pass screen for the first time. Corrected a bug that could send users to the front-end menu after purchasing a Premium Pass instead of returning them to the Field Pass screen. Weekly Spotlight content now displays the correct reward and level and can be accessed normally. Fixed a visual error where backgrounds and borders appeared stretched in the Team Pass rewards flow. Addressed inaccurate rank-point (RP) indicators and progression visuals in Ranked H2H. Purchasing the Premium Pass when at max level now correctly displays reward timing on the free track. Resolved a case where Top-100 players saw “Unranked 0” as the next rank in reward screens. Continue button on reward screens is now responsive in all cases. Lineups & Team Management Fixed an issue where swapping players already in the depth chart could cause the eligible player list to disappear. Lineup flicker when dragging and dropping players into positions has been eliminated. Strategy and chemistry logos now display properly on player cards and lineup tiles. Secondary-position icons now appear correctly on the chemistry card back. “Flip Item” callout in Manage Lineup popup now functions as intended. Store, Sets & Packs Pack Helper suggestions for “Promote to Starter” now properly validate eligible positions. Corrected missing art for fantasy packs and welcome packs in reward flows. Updated reward thumbnails so Platinum Player art matches the reward path display. Fixed an issue preventing users from quick-selling a card and immediately interacting with the next item in the flow. Challenges, Events & H2H Fixed errors that occurred after completing a challenge, ensuring progress is saved and rewards are granted. Resolved long loading screens after finishing or selecting sequences of challenges. Co-op Challenges now load directly into gameplay instead of matchmaking. Progress & Rewards screens now populate correctly for invited users in lobbies. Fixed UI overlaps and blank tags appearing when accessing challenge categories. Addressed missing or overlapping division icons in the H2H Ranked Progression screen. Users re-joining Squads lobbies will now see the ready button consistently and return to the correct lobby after matches. UI & Visual Presentation Fixed multiple alignment and scaling issues across Progress & Rewards, Event Select, and Team Requirements screens. Updated several missing highlight brackets and callouts across abilities, sets, and event tiles. Resolved overlapping column names and misplaced widgets within the CES Results tile. Chemistry and coach assignment indicators now update correctly when navigating back from menus. Field Pass interface now remains stable when navigating from external tabs. Player-card customizations now display properly during Squads and Sick Six gameplay. Improved consistency for icons, scroll bars, and progress indicators throughout the Ultimate Team hub. Stability & Miscellaneous Fixes Addressed instances where the User/Currency bar disappeared after certain hub actions. Event Requirement lists now properly display players that exceed the limit instead of hiding them. General improvements to Reward and Progress screen responsiveness and animation timing. Audio Addressed a variety of minor issues: commentary playing incorrectly, reducing repetitive commentary, stadium SFX levels, and music playing incorrectly. UI Fixed an issue where Main Menu tiles would lead to a blank screen. Fixed an issue blocking users from playing local co-op on Switch 2. Fixed an issue with Joy-Cons not being recognized in Mini Games Team Select on Switch 2. Fixed an issue when switching from Joy-Con to controller on Team Select on Switch 2. Fixed an issue with the Score HUD showing up twice. Various player portraits have been added or corrected. Various stability fixes. Various UI and front-end polish. Art Added Patriots mascot Pat Patriot Dev Note: Our apologies for neglecting to include the 8 mascots that were added in our previous title update! They were: Blitz (Seahawks), Blue (Colts), Chomps (Browns), Gumbo (Saints), Panthers (Sir Purr), Steely McBeam (Steelers), T-Rac (Titans), and Viktor (Vikings). With the most recent addition of Pat Patriot, that means each NFL team with a costumed mascot is now represented in our game Time for sports trivia! There are 5 teams without an official in-stadium mascot (Chargers, Jets, Giants, Packers, and Raiders). 3 New Cleats: Nike Vapor Speed 3 Nike Zoom Vapor Pro 1 Nike Lebron IV Menace New Wrist braces available to assign and equip 6 New Axiom facemasks Axiom Robot Straight Axiom JR Cross Axiom Snowflake Axiom Spyder Axiom 808 Axiom Robot Cage New Likenesses added Colston Loveland - Bears TE Benjamin Morrison - Bills CB Trey Amos - Commanders CB James Pearce Jr - Falcons EDGE Chase Brown - Bengals RB That’s it for this edition of Gridiron Notes for Madden NFL 26. Thanks for continuing to share your feedback as we are always listening! We can’t wait for you to experience these changes and we’ll see you back here soon for the next round of updates. – The Madden Team [Source]Madden NFL 26 - Title Update - August 28, 2025
Hey Madden Fans! Welcome to the first Title Update Gridiron Notes of Madden NFL 26! We’re excited to kick off the season by bringing you this year’s Title Update information a day early, giving you an early look at the latest updates and improvements. You can expect to be able to download this update tomorrow, August 28th on your platform of choice. This initial update primarily focuses on stability updates with various zone coverage improvements. Don’t worry though, there’s plenty more updates coming down the pipeline. Of course, our teams are always listening to feedback - so keep it coming! Let’s dive into what’s new in this update! First up, the Nike Rivalries program is making its debut in Madden NFL 26. Nike is partnering with NFL teams to celebrate football’s most storied rivalries, bringing a competitive and authentic sense of community pride to the game. Over the next four years, Nike will highlight two divisions and outfit their teams with custom uniforms that represent their cities. This year, the AFC East and NFC West are in the spotlight, giving fans and players the chance to suit up in these new uniforms… and maybe exchange some friendly trash talk along the way. Gameplay Cover 2 Tampa - The middle defender now gets deeper, maintaining better leverage position against deep threats, especially vs. 3x1 formations. Cover 2 Hard Flats - Addressed an issue with Hard Flats where defenders were dropping too deep and too far inside before reacting to flat routes. Defenders now drop more accurately with their zone responsibilities, improving coverage consistency in the shallow flats. Cover 3 Match: Logic improvements for Defenders when reacting to Slot WRs attempting to outleverage the defense on deep routes. This includes Buzz Mable and Zone Blitz 3 playcalls Cover 6 & Cover 4 Palms - Fixed an issue where Outside Quarters CBs in Cover 6 and Cover 4 Palms were oftentimes losing the press giving up easy touchdowns. We adjusted the CBs alignment so they will no longer attempt to press the WR. Zone coverage defenders now drop back quicker when shading coverage ‘overtop’. Fixed a post play animation defect where a defender would do “read steps” when standing in place after the whistle. Addressed a visual issue around the previous play graphic obscuring the offensive play call formation. We’ve also added a completely customized playbook in partnership with Kurt Benkert called “Benkert’s Dimes” - you can find it in Play Now when selecting your playbook. Stay tuned to EAMaddenNFL on X to learn more on what we’re doing with this playbook! Presentation Added 3 international stadiums to Play Now, Franchise, and Superstar: Olympiastadion in Berlin, Germany Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, Spain Dublin Stadium in Ireland Fixed crash and stability issues. Franchise Addressed our UI Transitions surrounding the Player Card. Reducing the transition time it takes to go into the Player Card. Dev Notes: This current fix only addresses going into the Player Card. Our resolution for exiting out of the player card back to the Franchise Main Menu will be in our next TU. Resolved an issue allowing commissioners to send multiple league invites simultaneously. Addressed an issue that prevented Edge Players from adding Pass Rushing Traits Addressed an issue during the Draft where the Draft Board was improperly transparent, showing through to the background. DEV NOTE: Here’s some of the issues we’re aware of and working on a fix in a future Title Update: Class Import Process incorrectly modifying Player Body Types, specifically Offensive Linemen. Players on IR unable to be peeled off the IR list. Nose Tackle archetypes displaying a different OVR in the front end. Superstar Mode Fumble rate chance has been decreased in Snow Games. Fixed an issue where players would play in the wrong position. Fixed a rare issue where players’ knees would be invisible during the NFL Combine. Several stability fixes. Ultimate Team Play A Friend will now respect each individual users passing settings Remedied an issue where opening a Fantasy Pack after a H2H game caused visual artifacts during the pack open Fixed an issue where rewards images failed to appear on some screens Fixed multiple occasions where players were navigated to the wrong menu Fixed a text issue where “Rank Down” appeared instead of “Rank Up” Fixed an issue where progress in Ranked was not visually displaying Fixed multiple occasions of overlapping text Fixed an occasional crash when returning to lobbies Items displayed during presentation did not always match their actual rarity Audio Fixed an issue where commentary referred to a few rookies by an incorrect last name. Thanks for checking out the first Title Update Gridiron Notes of Madden NFL 26! Stay tuned for more updates throughout the year and see you on the field! The Madden Team __ Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and the EA Forums. [Source]
