Annual offerings from sports games are typically consistent when it comes to quality and content. Incremental changes come every few years, but for the most part, games like NBA 2K and FIFA typically only have things like roster changes and minor differences. The same usually goes for Madden NFL games, although 2021’s entry may be a very different story. At first the reviews from media outlets weren’t entirely scathing, but it was the user reviews that shed a light on a serious problem with Madden‘s latest entry.
Granted Madden NFL 21 is coming on the heels of a new console generation so there won’t be many major improvements, but that’s no excuse for the game’s current state. For a last hurrah on PS4/Xbox One, the franchise isn’t looking great moving into the next generation. Fan scores are tanking the game’s Metacritic average to one of the lowest in the site’s history, and there’s no signs of that score improving any time soon. There’s an upcoming patch on the way, but the damage may have already been done for Madden 21.
EA has been no stranger to controversy over its games in recent memory, but for some reason their major league sports games used to be immune to fan criticisms. Games like Battlefield 5 and Battlefront 2 received plenty of pushback from fans when the game didn’t meet their standards. Now Madden seems to be getting that same treatment, even though this is definitely not a new problem with EA sports games. This time it’s different for a few reasons, mainly due to the prominence of glitches and performance issues within the game.
Over the weekend, fans started a global viral trend on social media with the hashtag #nfldropea because of the various issues present in the game currently. There are numerous Madden 21 clips under this hashtag displaying various critical issues with the game’s release, ranging from major physics issues to glitched player models. This has even lead to fans review-bombing Madden NFL 21 on Metacritic due to the game’s poor state of release. This is without even mentioning the issues noted in several media reviews of the game, which criticized lack of new story content, no gameplay enhancements or changes, among other issues.
This is really the first time these concerns and criticisms from fans have come to a head, and for good reason. The annualization of sports games have led to a lot of coasting from the Madden franchise, with each year only making incremental additions and roster changes. Now that Madden 21 has released in the current state that it’s in, fans are fed up and have started the trending hashtag in the hopes of ending EA’s monopolization of official NFL games. Fans don’t want EA to retain the exclusive usage rights of NFL players/teams/etc. for gaming, citing what once was a simulatory experience is now not up to their standards.
It’s hard to expect anything will come of these criticisms, other than EA’s development team potentially stepping up and updating the game. Earlier this year, EA renewed the company’s NFL exclusivity deal for Madden games, meaning all officially licensed NFL video game media is handled solely by EA. EA will likely still retain these exclusive rights unless fan criticisms are sustained and continue to be loud. The same controversy occurred with EA’s exclusivity of the Star Wars franchise, but the company continues to retain the exclusive game rights there as well. At the same time, games like Jedi: Fallen Order wouldn’t exist without this deal, so improvement could come to Madden games as well.
So far, the only statement from EA has been outlining an upcoming patch to fix several issues with the game. EA has yet to acknowledge the trending hashtag in any form. Unfortunately for fans who may be hopeful of drastic change, Madden‘s exclusivity deal with EA extends for at least several years after 2020. Granted fan backlash could influence the NFL from relinquishing the deal, but at this point that’s a very unlikely scenario. More than likely, efforts to fix the game as quickly as possible and sweep the controversy under EA’s rug are underway.
Madden NFL 2021 is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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