Dissecting the Madden NFL 18 Features Reveal

All aboard the Madden hype train!

We’ve officially started the slow ramp up to a new season of Madden NFL, as the first details (and footage) of Madden NFL 18 hit the wild yesterday. The inclusion of Tom Brady as the cover athlete is a bold move — but ultimately cover athlete’s importance is probably waning quite a bit.

What is important are the details which were revealed about the game. Here’s my quick breakdown:

• Target Passing, who knows? This could be a major, major thing or a gimmicky feature like the passing cone. My question is how much is it forced upon players? My second question is, regardless, how good and effective is it going to be? I’m full wait and see on this one.
• Frostbite Engine looks good. If nothing else, the trailer really sells that Madden is taking a pretty solid step ahead visually. The lighting and stadiums are a solid step ahead. It seems like some details weren’t included in the trailer (did you notice the barren sidelines?). Animations and players look similar, but overall the game will likely look a bit better this year versus prior years.
• The Play Styles Totally Are for eSports. I mean, there’s no confirmation of this, but its pretty clear the Madden team is wanting to grow that segment of the audience and a play style fully focused on ‘Competitive’ will do that. Most OS’ers are looking at Simulation and hoping for the best. So am I.
• Franchise mode isn’t getting anything big. The description adds nothing new and is an overview of the mode as we know it. I have a feeling the Frostbite upgrade took a lot of time and resources and the actual enhancements to modes, etc. is going to be focused on the card and competitive modes. I know, I don’t like it either but it is what it is.
• Coverage Assignments, maybe it’ll be fun to be a CB or S? There’s been a lot of work in previous years to make Madden fun on both sides of the ball. The area that still lacks is playing pass coverage. Hopefully these will help with playing a DB in Madden.
• Coaching Adjustments: I’m on full wait and see. The details don’t sound like anything that I’m not already doing myself during games. But I am guessing something about this will enhance the strategic side of the game, maybe?

Overall

The big leap with Madden this year is going to be the Frostbite engine. FIFA last year went through the same transition with no huge areas of progress. It’s likely the upgrade took a lot of time and resources and big back of the box additions probably were hard to come by. Regardless, the Frostbite engine was instantly noticeable as an upgrade in environmental visuals — I’m excited to see gameplay to see how it all ties together when the game is actually running in a way we will actually experience it.

What did you think of yesterday’s Madden reveals?