Madden 25 Review: A Much-Needed Win Breathes New Life Into This Franchise

When the NFL regular season draws to a close each year, there’s always a few “win or go home” scenarios which draw extra attention. Even if you had some hiccups during the season, the cards have fallen into place where one win takes you to the playoffs. For this storied franchise, Madden 25 may be their most “win or go home” game in years. 

Flaws from previous releases needed to be addressed, core upgrades were a must, and there’s no escaping their new in-house competition. College Football 25 blasting back into the sports gaming landscape puts their NFL counterpart in four-down territory. Madden 25 absolutely had to score this year, but they didn’t have to do it alone. 

Smoothest Interface and Gameplay in Years

While gameplay had gotten progressively better in the last few games, the biggest sin of Madden 24 was its sluggish user interface. The whole thing felt outdated and clunky, but Madden 25 is a breath of fresh air. The overall menu design and user interface is cleaner and more responsive than any Madden in recent memory.

Even play selection and preplay adjustments shine, and it feels like they’re finally moving into the future rather than struggling to catch up. Core gameplay on the field got some big help this year with a new physics-driven ball carrier balance and recovery system, and it pairs well with their dynamic physics-based tackling system. 

Basically, every play feels more alive. Branching catch animations make the passing game less predictable, and improved blocking mechanics put the pressure more on you to identify the running hole and make each play count. These areas aren’t quite pitch perfect, but the frequency of frustrating gameplay moments, menu glitches, and extended load times is way down compared to Madden 24.

If you’ve been spending time in College Football 25, rest assured the Madden 25 controls are nearly identical. These two manage to complement each other well, and one particular game mode illustrates that best.

The Glorious Road to Superstar Mode 

You’ll generally be entering Superstar Mode with one of two agendas. For players who have already taken someone on the Road to Glory in College Football 25, it’s finally time to import your player and take them all the way to the NFL. The process is straightforward, allows you to make adjustments, and improved graphics help it feel like a proper step up.

This is the biggest area where College Football 25 makes an already good game mode into something special. Based on the final rating of the player you exported from College Football 25, your new Madden 25 player will have extra Creation Points which allow you to create a stronger build with more versatility.

Anyone starting from scratch can still get plenty out of Superstar Mode, it's just going to be a different approach with more time spent in the game's solid character creation suite. Players created solely in Madden 25 get 15 Creation Points to set up their overall build and ratings, but you can start with as much as 20 Creation Points if you’ve imported a player that was 99 OVR in college. New strategies are sure to develop for maximizing ratings in College Football 25 and simultaneously leaving as early as possible to start your NFL career as a younger player.

Superstar Mode kicks off with the now standard NFL Combine where your performance in drills can boost your starting ratings. Once the year is underway, they’ve struck a great balance of new storylines, using mini games as training from week to week, and keeping the primary focus on your actual on-field gameplay.

There’s no need for a forced nickname to benefit clunky voiceovers, and that reliance on text in cutscenes is actually a major improvement. All of these moments feel more personal, even if the conversations can occasionally be a bit too on the nose.

One big step in character customization is the addition of tattoos, but they do have to be purchased with either the in-mode credits or points available via microtransactions. The good news is that you earn enough credits through a season that tattoo designs can be easily obtained without paying extra, and once unlocked they’re available for all current and future player models. 

Franchise Central and the Shadow of Dynasty

The biggest step forward for Franchise Mode in Madden 25 is the customization leap they’re getting from Team Builder. Initially launched with College Football 25 earlier this year, this standalone Team Builder website allows players to create all aspects of a team from scratch, personalize uniforms, and upload custom logos for any of these areas. Once players create something special in Team Builder, it can be uploaded to a new online community share system where others can download created teams. 

This new feature, along with Superstar Mode integration and some other upgrades like added minigames or simplifying the RPO controls to be the same with both games, are big ways that College Football 25 has actually made Madden better. You will have to use an online Franchise save for Team Builder teams even if you’re playing alone, but all 32 NFL teams can be replaced with imported creations. 

The interface upgrades continue with the new Franchise Central main hub, and this is a much cleaner and easier to follow setup for what can be a very deep game mode. They’ve added new dynamic storylines which can pop up depending on how each season goes. Some press conference and media interview dialogue options feel unnecessarily straightforward to the point of seeming robotic, but most of the player storyline cutscenes and dialogue interactions are solid. 

With the exception of a fancy new intro video for the NFL Draft, Franchise mostly feels the same as far as the week to week challenges and tasks. You’re still handling roster management, deciding if you wanna play a full game or simulate and trust in your players, using practice or minigames to develop your team, and keeping an eye on prospects as the draft approaches. 

One of the biggest annoyances in Franchise can hopefully be fixed in a post-launch update, as currently there’s no indicator on the regular prospect list whether you’ve favorited someone or not. You can manually check your favorites list, but there needs to be a visual change on the main list to show who has already been favorited. This is particularly frustrating since the recruiting system in College Football 25 does a much better job of illustrating players you have and haven’t targeted while browsing prospects. 

One other area where Dynasty Mode overshadows its NFL counterpart is in custom coach creation. College Football 25 has 520 different head models to pick from for coaches. While Madden 25 did add a handful of female coach options, their total selection feels comparatively tiny with just 50 heads to choose from. Some menu transitions also take a bit too long to load, but overall this is still a much better Franchise Mode than players saw in Madden 24. 

Presentation Improves, Ultimate Team Also Exists 

Despite all of its shining positives, Madden 25 does have some negatives that can’t be ignored. Ultimate Team continues to make EA Sports money, and therefore it continues to occupy space with pop-ups as you start the game advertising the latest pack drop. The interface changes do make Ultimate Team slightly smoother as a whole, but it just feels like the same microtransaction machine as always. If you liked MUT in the past, you’ll probably enjoy the quality of life improvements, but players likely won’t be convinced to jump in if they normally ignore Ultimate Team. 

Presentation took some steps forward this year, but it still needs a bit more. All four commentators across the two additional commentary teams did great work, but either they need more lines (which will come in time) or the coding needs to be reworked. There are still moments where the dialogue from commentary makes no sense or is clearly incorrect based on your current game scenario. This will hopefully continue to improve as the new teams record more each year, but you might still find yourself muting commentary entirely in the Madden 25 settings. 

Fortunately, almost every other area of presentation this year is an improvement. They’ve got the best soundtrack in years, and you can actually add stadium classics like Green Day's "American Idiot" or P.O.D.'s "Boom" to your regular in-game tracklist. Shadows, lighting, and general visual improvements continue to push things in the right direction without distracting from the gameplay. Many of the in-game stadiums and environments like practice got a bit more polished, but extra touches like unique fans or adding mascots could go a long way to making the overall presentation feel special.