Madden NFL 26 released with the first week already full throttle into chaos- the best kind of chaos. EA dropped this tweet showing star athletes colliding with the caption “Stars collide in week one. Who’s coming out on top?” And, well, the entire space below is quite a vibe.
It was an open invitation for players to comment- some immediately began disgruntled questions. EdwinBE14 writes that “Field goal posts are changing color?? Why would they do that?” It just makes it harder to score, and sometimes in Madden, scoring is not always fun. Then, Richard is demanding franchise mode fixes, telling them to fix it or abolish all SAMs because the NFL doesn’t use them anymore… a pretty worthy question: why, with any reasoning, keep something outdated in the game in the first place?
In contrast, EvanMelts comments, “Cam Ward has throw power at 91, but these aren’t even the right ratings wtf,” which would be the worst thing to do while trying to build the ultimate team with false stats! Following glitches, Adams describes the Superstar Showdown as “super glitchy with desyncs and freezes, hard to even get into games, big yikes for a mode supposed to be highlight worthy.”
Chad King stated that “I’m actually starting to really enjoy Madden 26. I just sucked at the game at first.” Yeah, that’s the mood; it sometimes just takes a minute to get into the groove. Then CHAXS ENERGY is just about “Fix ya game,” and then Selfmadebrucewayne quickly follows up with, “Superstar quarter lengths are stuck at 6 mins,” which, for sure, sounds like a really weird bug to have at launch.
Tenketsu the goat says Ward is horrendous with 86 throw power, and smashville730 is shouting for a better card for Ward in MUT ASAP. SKolFootball on the other hand is asking for the face scans to be fixed because Brashard Smith and WR Ainas Smith have the same mug?? That is just fiction, give up on EA.
MaxonUnlimited, I mean, a fair question since promos always look fire, but in-game lighting is 50/50, is wondering when we will see play renders and stadium lighting. Elsewhere, Titan Up can only hope for new face scans for the rookies and players. That would be nice to have updated.
Now, Ethan PH is like, “Gibbs is in the old Lions jersey,” which is kind of funny, like how does that even happen? Montreal Papi is wondering if Sauce really deserves the 94 rating, which, maybe he does, yet players always want to have an opinion on ratings.
On the other hand, dyllan is having crashing issues mid-game and has tried absolutely everything to remedy it, which I believe is the biggest bummer of today because nothing really kills a gaming experience like your game suddenly dying. And B Young has Bronco, Ravens, Lions, Steelers on his list, which could very well be his choices for who’s taking it home.
Then EA becomes the bearer of one of the best pieces of news ever: free play all weekend for Madden NFL 26, which has to be the best news for any player who has yet to do so. But with all these issues coming up at such a fast pace, this might very well be the try-before-you-buy period.
With all these being said, the launch week for Madden NFL 26 is a bit of a mixed bag. That excitement for the new season of stars colliding is quickly overshadowed with all the glitched, ratings inaccuracies, and technical issues. That just sums up a Madden launch experience: hype and complaints all rolled into one. And the players are so passionate about it, and they’re not shy about sharing their opinions about gameplay, visuals, and just about everything else on making it actually work. So, fingers crossed that EA is listening and will be pushing out some patches sooner rather than later!
