Early Madden 25 Impressions: Better Gameplay and Graphics

Recently, I had the opportunity to play a handful of early Madden 25 games. After playing College Football 25, I’m stoked for the upcoming virtual American football season. While EA doesn’t have much competition outside of its walls, the presence of two football games that are somewhat intertwined but have different teams of men and women working on them (there is some crossover) feels as if there is some healthy competition in the building, which appears to be good for both products.

Very early in the gameplay session, it was clear that Madden 25 plays a better game of football than Madden 24 did–and I liked last year’s gameplay sans the over-powered jukes. Is this a whole new Madden experience? No, of course not. At this point, anyone expecting EA to completely change their gameplay approach on a formula that mainly works well and has been enormously successful isn’t living in reality. Those people are also likely robbing themselves of some enjoyable games of video game football.

There is a repeated focus on physics-based tackling. Does Madden 25 deliver the perfect balance between the complete ragdoll physics we saw in Backbreaker and the more football-conscious, contextually aware All-Pro Football 2K8? Maybe not exactly, but it is about as close as we’ve ever seen to this concept–if that’s even attainable. Madden 25’s tackling and overall collision system feels really good, and the game plays the way football should in a video game. That’s the best place for football gamers. The hits didn’t lack punch as they did early on in Madden 24 when I felt they needed more feeling and audio support.

Successful gameplay actions on both sides of the ball can be satisfying. The two new features that I could feel the most were the new ball-carrier moves and Boom Tech, which mostly touches gameplay on the defensive side of the ball. It is a perfect year for San Francisco 49ers star Christian McCaffrey to be on the cover of Madden. EA has given tons of attention to increasing the functionality of what users can do while controlling ball carriers. If you’re controlling an offensive player as gifted as McCaffrey, what you can do with jukes, spins, high-steps, hesis and more is at an all-time high. I’ve never felt more liberated while controlling a character. Suppose you take one of the top players into practice mode, and you only put the offense on the field, and you’re just riffing with the ball carrier. In that case, it feels very similar to the exercise many of us do with players in NBA 2K when trying to discover which dribble animations they have at their disposal. The freedom–at least from a football standard–is on that same level. It’s hard to quantify how much cooler this feels in Madden 25. Perhaps the best part about this enhancement is that it isn’t accessible to every running back, quarterback, wide receiver, or tight end in the game. The juke, spin, agility, and related attributes determine how deep the player’s bag is in this regard. This gap in access is crucial because it makes the best players feel special, and that’s the immersion and ooh-wee effect you want during gameplay when switching teams.

The Boom Tech concept is a broad term referring to the tech EA used to upgrade multiple areas of gameplay. For me, it felt most impactful on defense, especially with the changes to the Hit Stick mechanic. The revamped Hit Stick offers various results based on timing, momentum, weight, speed, strength, and player ratings to determine the animations and results of all tackles, but this is especially important for Hit Stick attempts. You can now perform perfect Hit Sticks based on the above factors, making it more of a skill-based mechanic and potentially more rewarding when you pull it off. I had one Hit Stick with the Chicago Bears’ Tremaine Edmonds that would qualify as a perfect execution. It resulted in a fumble on the sidelines by the Detroit Lions’ Jahmyr Gibbs. The fumble triggered another aspect of improved gameplay, as the recovery system has improved. We’re still not at the point where we have as much control over whether we can fall on it or attempt to scoop and go, but it looks and feels more natural and realistic. The only way EA will ever completely conquer this, and a few other trench-related issues are to figure out a pile-up system that allows bodies to stack on top of each other during gameplay. We’re not there yet, but when the pile-up concept is mastered, we’ll see even more improvements in collision detection and fewer immersion breakers during Madden gameplay. But I digress. I also loved the newer stumble-recovery animations, which are also ratings-guided. Depending on who you’re controlling, it adds a solid layer to the gameplay experience.