EA has a Nicks x Nike collaboration—along with team rivalry uniforms for the Jets—that were just released in Madden 26, and wow, the reaction is something else. The reaction is something else because, while players rush to talk about the issues aside from the uniforms, they also do not give the official Madden account a break on its tweet about the message with the airplane emoji. It is also astonishing how none of the issues in the tweet are being fixed, while everyone is shouting about the other issues in the game. This is truly the pinnacle of Madden community conduct.
The uniforms look as they should and in this case that means nothing fantastic. They look like they were designed in the general style and color scheme the Jets had, which looks like Nike doing what Nike does. Nike has nothing to do with the players, so Nike doing the uniforms which, as said before look fine, is neither here nor there. Are they worried about the game working? Yes. And for the game working, they are right to be concerned. The an immediate reply was from Thatzcreepy who vehemently criticized the removal of the create a player option from franchise mode, an option which he claimed “genuinely ruined [his] evening” and that he’d “rather be flogged and whipped in the streets” play Superstar mode. That energy is intense for sure.
The story escalates as more people ask about the updates to the roster, which have not happened yet, which alongside the absence of the roster updates, is another thing with Madden this time of the year. “Don’t fucking care. Update the roster” said Sicarior941, which is exactly how people want to express themselves. Others are inquiring about when the uniforms will come to the Ultimate Team mode, as everything must relate back to MUT.
There are some strange very specific complaints as well – jslime22 took note that Breece Hall has the same face scan as Frank Gore Jr., which is not good for a $70 game. Also, PjbzzKeemmyy noted “Breece got no neck nigga head sitting on his shoulders,” which is Issaby hilarious and true based on the failed Madden character modelling.
Perhaps the worst take is the one from T80bvmbias, telling everyone to buy Helldivers 2 instead as it is cheaper and ”has more content and a company that cares about their game.” It is not sweet. T80vbmbias ended his rant with ”DO NOT BUY THIS GAME LET THEM GO BANKRUPT,” and while this is a truly horrible take, the frustration is warranted. Even his so-called positive remarks are actually negative, with the least praise being, “As they should be” from Prof_Panic_338 and, “They look like Oregon Ducks basically” from Yawger20 which, if you really like Oregon’s uniforms, is the only compliment.
It is quite remarkable how little anyone cares about the uniforms. Although EA most certainly invested time, effort, and money to acquire and Nike collaboration uniforms to be added to the game, the prevailing reply is, “cool story bro now fix your game.” Some career mode statistics are broken, stadiums are incorrectly assigned in franchise with spcmegreg pointing out that you can play the Super Bowl in your home stadium but be the away team, which is perplexing, and there are countless issues with the general gameplay.
Somebody even discovered a spelling error. EVanderwerf16 posted a screenshot saying “how did this get through development,” which is just pathetic for a well-known developer. Sokskiii shared the same sentiments, stating, “nice lets add uniforms before fixing the game.”
With Madden, it is the same story every year—newly cosmetic content is added while major issues go unaddressed. There have been multiple calls from the community to bring back the Draft Champions mode (shoutout to GinoCarcelli), to bring in new roster updates, fix the very basic features, and fix the fundamental functionality. What the community gets in return is new uniforms, and they go unnoticed.
The arguably most bizarre reply is from bresslertweets who suggested using ChatGPT to fill in the player data for Madden and even linked an analytics tool. Why would anyone need AI to clean up a football game’s data? The game’s developers would be able to do just that, wouldn’t they?
The Jets are now donned in their Nike uniforms in Madden 26 and judging from community comments, EA needs to stop signing nice looking deals and start fixing their game. Players are complaining about the missing updated rosters and the broken game modes, and this is only one of the many United Madden complaints about the game.
It’s wishful thinking to expect them to announce the fix for the broken game modes along with the uniform content because that means covering an additional gameplay enhancement. This is in the world where Madden has the only official NCAA license to make a college football game, an E sports title that has not been updated in years, that is not monetized properly, and with the player community complaining about every single possible thing about it.
