Madden NFL 23 Removing Celebration Emote Following Damar Hamlin Incident
Madden NFL 23 is removing a touchdown celebration following Damar Hamlin's recent on-field emergency. In case you missed it, on January 2nd, 2023 during the Buffalo Bills vs. Cincinnati Bengals game, Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed to the ground after making contact with another player in a relatively ordinary play. Hamlin had recovered from the initial contact and stood up before dropping to the ground. Paramedics rushed on to the field after noticing that he was unresponsive on the ground and began performing CPR. An ambulance eventually came and took Hamlin from the field to the hospital where he had been recovering from cardiac arrest on the field up until yesterday, January 9th, when he was discharged.
This was obviously a devastating incident and left many in awe, including players and professional commentators. As reported by Kotaku, the incident has even impacted Madden NFL 23. EA Sports will be removing a touchdown celebration emote in which a player falls to the ground after scoring and then his teammate rushes over to provide fake CPR, simulating him being resuscitated to continue playing. Although this emote was added long before this incident, it's easy to understand why EA would no longer feel comfortable having players re-enact this moment, particularly as a way to celebrate a touchdown. As of right now, there's no exact date for when it will be removed, but it was confirmed it will be happening in the "coming days".
"EA Sports is taking steps to remove the celebration from Madden NFL 23 via an update in the coming days," said an EA Sports spokesperson to Kotaku.
It's unclear if this will be supplemented with a different emote, but it seems safe to say you can probably expect the CPR emote to be removed from future Madden games as well. It's not the first time EA Sports has responded to real life events within its games, FIFA famously removed Russian teams from the game last year shortly after the Russia/Ukraine war began.
What do you think of this celebration being removed? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.