Madden 25 lets you control everything, including contract negotiations

This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.

Releasing an annual sports game like Madden NFL is a double-edged sword. Sure, there’s a lot of benefit to knowing there’s a dedicated audience hungry for the latest and greatest entry in the long-running sports franchise. But it requires walking a developmental tightrope, balancing the need to be ambitious and innovate with an expectation of stability and reliability. Trouble is just a misstep away.

Digital Trends visited the Madden studio at EA Orlando, and sat down with Clint Oldenburg, American Football Production director at EA Sports, to find out how the studio is walking that tightrope with Madden NFL 25. Our conversation and hands-on time gave us a glimpse into the studio’s answer. It involves a multiyear evolution of running and blocking, hundreds of new animations, and an all-new approach to laying the boom. It starts with control.

In control

“When you think of the word control, you probably think of more things to do on the controller,” Oldenburg tells Digital Trends. “But that’s not the only thing that creates control. Let’s start with boom tech, our key innovation this year. Boom tech is using physics to inform our animation branching.”

Boom tech continues a multiyear push toward more physics-based contact and tackles, rather than animation-based. Things like player strength, momentum, and angle of contact all factor heavily into it. This, combined with a new timing-based hit stick, puts a premium on good tackling. The effect was particularly evident during the slice of the game I saw regarding glancing blows, which gave runners a chance to regain their footing and keep moving forward. A safety may not want to try and blow up Nick Chubb most of the time, but if Chubb is in a compromised position, then coming off a hit, a safety has a chance to fly in at full sprint, just like they would in the NFL.

That is a very easy example of what players mean when they say pre-scripted.

Translating what fans