Football is back and as of me writing this we are three weeks into the regular season. Maybe you’re already looking hopeful at a playoff team, and perhaps you’re ready to write off the season. Depending on how you’re feeling, sometimes it’s fun to hop into Madden and run it up against the team that beat you and trounce them for some revenge. Letting off a bit of steam, or playing next weeks match up hoping the digital outcome with manifest can be some fun. Or, maybe you want to live out an NFL fantasy and get drafted yourself. Whatever your reason for continuing to jump into Madden, one thing is certain, football is awesome. Does Madden NFL 27 have what it takes to really push the series forward and possibly bring back some fans?

Much like every Madden, be prepared to have some features added and removed because we can just never keep taking steps forward. The first mode that was removed was the fast-paced and easy to jump into Superstar KO. This was a fun, simplified game mode that allowed newcomers a more simplified mode to ease into the complexities of Madden and football in general.

These are real life stats by the way…

The next thing removed, and the one that irritates me the most, is the removal of online co-op head-to-head modes. You can no longer setup matches and invite friends for a 2v2 or 3v3 match. The only way you can now play co-op is through the MUT Mode; because of course that’s the only way. If you don’t want to be bothered with the myriad of annoyances that is MUT, but just want to play football with your buddies, well, you’re out of luck with Madden NFL 27. This is just EA trying to force more people into their microtransaction filled MUT mode, and I’m not okay with that.

While those are the two big modes that have been removed, there have been some long requested gameplay additions and tweaks. Things like being able to reach out for the ball to try and get the first down or touchdown if you’re being tackled at the line, or being able to do QB sneaks and a “tush push” is nice. You can call out for double coverage on specific defensive players if you’re sensing a blitz coming. On defense you have more formation/coverage shift options now, as well as being able to jostle, hand-fight, and leverage to disrupt routes. They also tweaked some of the catching mechanics by adding in Timing-Based Catching which sounds good in theory.

Now I can specifically assign double coverage on specific defenders, like this Middle Linebacker who looks ready to try and sack me. Will it work? Or will my terrible blockers just stand there and let someone come waltzing in untouched? It’s a 50/50 toss up.

All these additions are genuinely a good thing for the overall mechanic suite for Madden NFL 27 and future Madden’s in general. I won’t argue any of that. However, the new mechanics of the Timing-Based Catching just didn’t seem like it really added much. Sure, it adds an extra mini-game to the catching system if you want to do that, but I didn’t feel like it lead to my receivers holding on to the ball anymore then when I didn’t use it. Receivers still drop the ball way too easily off the smallest of contact at times, and completing this timed catch didn’t seem to matter.

The updated and new coverage callouts and double team system are neat in general, but it still doesn’t fix the braindead blocking at times. What’s the point of calling double coverage when one of my offensive linemen is just going to stand there and let someone jailbreak sack me as he just stands there in place shimming like he just soiled himself. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a replay of me getting sacked and I see my OL just let the guy run right by them without an attempt to block.

I did like how there was more interactivity with the players on the field, even if some of it was awkward. Like a defensive player taunting the person who just scored on them.

Really, I think the biggest issue year after year with Madden is that these lingering issues just still continue. What’s the point of having all this control over the coverage when the AI is so frustratingly inconsistent? Great, let me setup my run schemes, but when the AI already somehow knows the rushing lanes and fills the gaps immediately while my OL stands there not blocking anything, what fun is that? The physics bugs, engagement issues, AI inconsistencies, are all still persistent issues that continue to hamper the fun of just playing the game regardless of how many new gameplay features get added.

That being said there are still the classic modes here that, if you’re a fan that can overlook the issues, you can have fun with. Like the Franchise Mode, which added the Persona Engine that helps try to add a bit more unique flair to each player. As well as some more contract tools and free agent stuff. There is MUT of course, but I’m sure you’ve gathered my feelings on that mode, but even that has added Captains, Evos, and more item objectives. Then the Superstar Mode where you create your character and take them through the draft. This time you can choose between a Tight End, Edge Rusher, and Free Safety as well.

Hmm not exactly the look I was going for.

Visually, Madden NFL 27 looks good. However, I couldn’t get past this issue with some things just looking really off. The custom character models in the Superstar Legacy are not great looking. From the facial models to even the hair rendering, it is just off. It doesn’t stop at the custom faces either, some of the player faces just didn’t seem as well detailed as I remembered. I am also playing it on the Xbox Series X in Quality Mode as well.

That being said the general field stuff is fine, weather got a change with a new dynamic weather system that will change as the game goes. However, this does come with a slight downgrade in how intense the rain and snow can be. That means snow and rain storms won’t be as crazy as previous games, but they will change as you play. What I do like is the increase in the presentation of the team traditions and intros. I like how they have been focusing on that more, and I think that has been a bleeding effect from how much EA Sports had to focus on that with College Football.

While the presentation in the of the team traditions is great, the presentation for the Superstar Mode is not great at all. Holy moly it’s bleak and awkward. I think it makes it worse also seeing the badly rendered custom characters as well, but the scene setups for this mode are bad. It doesn’t help that there isn’t any voice acting so every scene has the characters just up there waving their arms and moving their lips to no words and the lips aren’t even matching any of the words in the subtitles. The only voices in this mode is from a narrator that gives little bits of scene setup like it’s Sandlot or something. Then it just goes into this awkwardly quiet press conference where no one is talking at all. It’s just an odd choice.

There are some sideline assets and player/coach models that just don’t quite have the same quality.

Besides the issue with the lack of any voice acting int he Superstar mode, the general sound design is fine. There really isn’t much to embellish about here, it’s your bog standard football sounds of pads crashing and ambient stadium sounds. I will say that the announcers seem to have gotten better this year which is a nice surprise. There is a lot less repeated lines or them saying just random things that doesn’t quite pertain to what is happening. The soundtrack is also nothing special at all, a pretty standard assortment of sports game music spanning all the genres.

Madden NFL 27 had a good chance at being a really good upgrade to the core gameplay systems by adding in long requested features. Unfortunately, there is always a one step forward, one step back issue with this series that they just can’t shake. There are also the year after year issues that continue to plague the series that, I’m not sure can be fixed without a total overhaul, but will EA and the NFL be willing to take the time to do that?

Madden NFL 27 is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Reviewed on Xbox Series X.

A copy of Madden NFL 27 was provided by the publisher.