The team behind Madden NFL 23 knows that this year’s entry in the long-running football sim franchise is an important one. The previous two installments in the series, Madden 21 and Madden 22, were met with some of the lowest responses ever from both critics and fans alike. Despite continuing to be one of the most well-known annual game franchises, Madden is on its first downward trend in decades. Fortunately, based on what I have seen of Madden NFL 23 so far, it looks like this year’s game is taking the series back in the right direction.
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Last week, I was able to get an extensive look at many of the new features that will be seen in Madden NFL 23 in-person at EA’s offices in Orlando. My time at the studio not only allowed me to go hands-on with Madden 23, but it also provided me with the opportunity to get an incredibly in-depth look at the changes that are being pushed out to this year’s game.
My biggest takeaway is that those at EA working on Madden NFL 23 have very much heard the complaints from fans since the launch of Madden NFL 22. The development team stressed that it finely combed through the internet after last year’s game was released and took to heart all sorts of criticism and feedback that fans and critics provided. As a result, this year’s game is looking to directly tackle (pun intended) the most egregious problems from last season.
Far and away the biggest new addition to Madden NFL 23 is something that EA is referring to as FieldSENSE. Essentially, FieldSENSE is going to completely overhaul how every snap plays out within Madden 23. One of the biggest elements that FieldSENSE brings with it is a new animation system that allows tackles, tipped passes, and other interactions between players to look more realistic than ever before. Gone are the days where scripted tackling animations would play out at the end of a play. Now, defenders will continue to look to attack the ball carrier even when another defender might already have their hands on said player. In turn, the ball carrier’s body will react appropriately to how these secondary hits might alter their trajectory.
The mechanical changes that FieldSENSE is adding to Madden NFL 23 mainly involve rushing and passing. On the rushing side of things, greater control has now been given to how players can weave in and out between tacklers. By simply pressing the left trigger while running, players can now stop and turn on a dime more than they have been able to in past Madden games. These “360-degree cuts” as EA calls them, allow you to be more elusive and add a bit more depth to the act of running down the field.
Meanwhile, the passing system in Madden 23 has received the biggest changes of all. Rather than simply pressing a button that corresponds with the receiver you want to throw to, FieldSENSE’s new passing system will allow players to better put the ball where they want it within a set diameter. Essentially, as soon as you select the target you’re looking to throw to, a circular reticle will appear on the field and you’ll be able to move your thumbstick to select where you would precisely like to throw within this region. This all plays out very quickly when you’re in the midst of a game, but the change to this system allows you to better select where you want your QB to put the ball, especially if you’re trying to throw it out of the reach of a DB. Conversely, my time with this new system also showed that it’s far easier to throw an interception as well if you overestimate your QB’s accuracy.
Overall, I’m really impressed with every element of FieldSENSE in Madden NFL 23. Not only do the new animations represent the real on-field NFL product that much more, but the game’s updated passing system is one of the biggest alterations that Madden as a whole has seen in a very long time. It also makes the game drastically more engaging than it has in the past. The skill-based nature of the updated passing system will take a while for players to get used to, but in the long run, this is something that will be good for the future of Madden.
Outside of everything that FieldSENSE offers, EA has also made sure to update how AI works at a baseline level in Madden NFL 23, especially on the defensive end of things. As the developers themselves admitted, some of the franchise’s biggest problems in recent years have involved defensive backs not properly covering receivers. This led to some players being able to pick apart defenses without much difficulty. In Madden NFL 23, EA believes that it’s fixed the problems associated with the secondary and DBs should no longer be behaving in nonsensical ways. Considering how many picks I threw in my own brief play session, I definitely believe this to be true.
Pass rushing is another major thing that EA has looked to tweak in Madden NFL 23, especially for those who play online. Within the past couple of installments, mobile quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, and Patrick Mahomes have seen a drastically higher usage rate in online games. The main reason for this is because the defensive AI in Madden has never been great at containing these speedy QBs. This is yet another thing that EA says that it’s fixed this year, but admittedly, I wasn’t able to get a great idea during my own demo of how accurate this might be.
The other thing that I’m fascinated by with Madden NFL 23 is that those working on the game have actually decided to cut down on the number of plays that will be available in this year’s game. The studio members explained that the playbooks within Madden have become almost too bloated in recent years to the point that players aren’t even calling certain plays that are in the game at a high percentage. By trimming down the plays in the game, the dev team believes that it will make the process of playing Madden 23 much more streamlined. In tandem with this, teams within the game will also feature unique plays that only they will have at their disposal. So while the playbooks are technically getting smaller, they should also be more varied from team-to-team than ever.
It’s still early, but everything that I’ve seen so far of Madden NFL 23 makes me feel like this entry will put the series back on course. It’s hard for annualized sports games to ever make too many drastic changes from one year to another, but Madden 23 really seems like it’s taking the franchise’s first next-gen leap since the arrival of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Only time will tell if the final product lives up to what I have seen so far, but in my early estimation, it seems like Madden NFL 23 could deliver on many of the requests that fans have had in recent years.
Madden NFL 23 is poised to release later this year on August 19th and will come to PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC.
