EA Sports is advertising a new title update for Madden 26, and the biggest news is a lot of new player face scans have been added to the game. The official Madden NFL Twitter account released the announcement, letting gamers know that the latest Gridiron Notes will have the full scoop about the new features. But, instead of a pat on the back, the gamers use the same post to list complaints, problems, and other not-so-good things.
So, what exactly is in this update? Apparently, the major focus area is to give the players and their real-life counterparts a more striking resemblance. The tweet tagged Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, and Cincinnati Bengals, which implied those players’ faces might have been the ones for the visual upgrade. But what about the reaction from the public? Well, let’s just say it won’t be a good memory in the timeline of Madden.
Players soon after noticed a huge more involvement of the absence. A player named J asked, ‘No shedeur?’ confirming the absence of what by most people is agreed to be a big player that ought to have been scanned. The complaints were just starting. Another person, Rjay17_ was completely confused and wondered ‘Why tf is Rattler the only starting QB without one ??’ It looks like the update could be… unfair in its gorgeousification of the players.
However, it is not only a matter of who has gotten a new face; that is not the actual drama. Various players are saying that the new update has made the game unplayable on the PC. ‘PC version is totally unplayable right now,’ was Vince’s statement with no pretenses. ‘Stuttering in offline gameplay. Have tried all possible settings. Don’t destroy your game.’ He was not alone in this. Meister722 had a similar experience, ‘Pc version is having performance issues with stuttering. Bad framedrops during snaps.’ And Steven was even more clear, just saying, ‘Game is unplayable on pc.’ Ouch. Many people are indeed having a hard time with an update that was supposed to be a fix.
Then, there is the whole Chase Brown problem. The update seemed to have included the Bengals player but many users criticized EA for making a mistake. ‘That is not chase brown 😂,’ user j2thecob jokingly said. Another user, YG_B, wrote, ‘Chase Brown got left out lol,’ and Jay Law shared a picture that appeared to show the old, wrong model was still in the game. It is a really bad situation when you announce new face scans and the community is quick to point out that one of the players in the spotlight… does not even have a reliable new face. Like, what were they actually seeing?
The discontentment encompasses more than just looks and usability. Players are raising older, still-unfixed problems. Devin answered, ‘And still no fix for the defensive linemen fatigue in franchise after the botched patch? Or the tackle traits for strip and cut stick tackles that never worked? The game has been out since August…’ This brings out a bigger problem where new content comes in while annoying bugs that are of core gameplay nature are left unattended. It creates a situation where the developers’ hearing of the players’ concerns is almost an illusion.
Then, there is the customary sarcasm from the Madden community’s side. A user called Chase 🐶 referred to the players who got scanned as ‘3 irrelevant mfs’, which is typical gamer joking. Another one, JD, just reminded everybody that this is a ‘$55 billion company by the way,’ implying that such errors should not occur given the vast resources. It is that sense of, come on guys, you have the skills to produce better than this.
Thus, the newest Madden 26 title update with the new face scans is out. However, to a large extent, the community still considers it just another patch that creates as many problems as it seeks to solve. The invisible player models, the not working PC version, and the remaining old bugs make the response more of a collective sigh than a holiday. It is the reverse of a scenario where a sport simulation game developer has moved one step ahead and it seems two steps back at the same time. What every player wants is a magnificent-looking and smoothly running game, well that was not the case for many players with this update. Perhaps next time, especially for EA Sports FC 26 and other titles available on PlayStation and Xbox.
