When I assess Madden each year, I’m usually studying it more like gameday film than just a video game. In my mind, Madden is supposed to simulate the real-world NFL, which means I pay attention to how linemen pick up blitzes, whether or not wide receivers are running realistic routes, and other fine details that many players might not care about as deeply, but will still recognize as important to the overall experience. That’s why I was so happy to sit down with two gurus of what EA Sports calls Foundational Football. I got the chance to talk with Kenneth “Boat” Boatright, a former Super Bowl champ with the Seattle Seahawks and current Madden Game Designer focused on Foundational Football, and Isaac “Spade” Etheridge, a former YouTuber turned Madden Gameplay Designer, and dig into the specifics of how Madden NFL 24 works.
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When it comes to Foundational Football, the team has made some big changes to the core systems, which I covered a bit in my hands-on preview, but talking with Spade and Boat shed some more light on some of the things going under the hood. For example, one of the big focuses this year is run blocking, but I wanted to know if there was anything going on with pass blocking because, during my hands-on time, I noticed that overload blitzing (sending a linebacker and defensive back into the same gap) often led to the offensive lineman letting the linebacker through, targeting the defensive back instead.
Boat told me that “pre-snap targeting for passing is different…there’s a different system for that which still needs advancements over time.” Obviously, this is a hyper-specific example, which Spade noted and said the team “does a build review every week…but I can tell you that if the closest threat wasn’t blocked and they went and got an outside guy, something went wrong. That’s not the way that it should have worked.” Considering how good the run blocking felt in the build I played, I think I trust Spade when he says that things like this should be ironed out with another tuning pass.
I also made sure to ask about player switching because, in my short time with the game, it felt much better than in the past. In the course of a few hours, I only switched to the wrong player once, which is a big step up from Madden 23. I asked Spade about this and he told me that he didn’t “think we have made any changes.” It’s possible that some of the backend changes have helped out with past annoyances, but as Spade said, “the only way to get it perfect is we need eye tracking.” That’s several years away at this point, but Spade did tell me a funny story about a previous attempt to address switching.
He said, “Last cycle one of the other designers took a crack at it because it was a frustration point for him too. He messed with player switching and the whole team was like ‘Stop. Whatever you’re doing, stop.’ To mess with people he undid all his changes, but he didn’t tell people. And weeks later people were saying ‘Stop this’ and finally he was like ‘I haven’t touched anything.’ The point that he was trying to make is that he wanted to continue to tune it and he wanted people to see that there are flaws in the system.” If nothing else, it’s proof that people on the team are feeling our same pain points and are actively working on it, even if there aren’t any specific changes in Madden 24.
Another major change Madden 24 is making is the implementation of the See Ball Play Ball system for defensive backs. Essentially, this means that if a DB can’t see the ball coming out of your quarterback’s hands, they can’t make a play on it. I asked about the real-life art of reading a receiver’s hands to know when to attack the ball even if you can’t see it. Spade talked about how every AI on the field is “all-knowing,” so the team has to tune them “give them human-like attributes.” Boat followed that up by saying that “we [do] have coverage to those scenarios…it’s more that he was released in time that he could play an animation or swat the moment that receiver puts his hands up.” Essentially, there is some code that replicates the art, but it’s not one-for-one with the real-life thing. Though Boat was quick to say “We’ll probably get there.”
Sticking with the See Ball Play Ball I asked why that system wasn’t implemented with every position. After all, it’s odd when a receiver fifteen yards down the field turns into a blocker the second you throw a dump-off pass to get out of pressure. Like several of the more intricate details I was asking about, Spade told me that they have “tuning passes we can do” to iron out issues like that as they see them. However, Boat started talking about give-up logic, saying, “We talk about this type of stuff where it’s like, players in certain positions, certain areas, they’re just not going to react to what’s going on. [If I’m playing defensive line and] you throw a deep ball, I’m not chasing that. It’s not happening…I need energy for the next play.” Again, Madden isn’t quite there yet, but the things being done with foundational football are laying the groundwork for a game that, as Spade said “brings authenticity.”
With authenticity in mind, I asked about a clip the team showed us when demonstrating the improved run blocking. There, we saw a linebacker get pushed back by a lineman. His arms were reeling back, but, if this were real life, he could have easily reached out an arm to at least slow the running back down. It’s unlikely he could’ve made a full tackle, but instead of even making an attempt to be a nuisance, he just stumbled around until he completely regained his balance.
Spade started by saying, “Animation could use another tuning pass.” He continued, “What we struggle with on the dev side is if you play an animation where you stumble and we let you out here, we give the user the control, but does it look visually appropriate? If you can branch from here to running, as a user it feels good because I’m back in it, but visually does it look appropriate?” That line, we play with that line. We try to trim ’em as aggressively as possible because nobody likes to feel the loss of control, but at the same time, we want it to look okay.”
Finally, I had to ask the duo about ref collision. Thankfully, Spade said, “I hope not. We don’t want it to be. I can’t guarantee that it’ll never happen, but we put effort into making sure it doesn’t because we don’t want that frustration for the user and also I don’t think it’d be the best look to, you know, our NFL partners to be running over referees.” Though, as Boat said, “you know they do it Sunday. On purpose.” Thankfully, no digital refs will have to worry about it happening to them this fall.
In short, Madden NFL 24 is shaping up to be the first entry in a long time that’s taken steps to fix some of the finer details that have frustrated players like me over the years. A lot of that is thanks to guys like Spade and Boat who bring expertise from either the NFL or the Madden community to put together a product that might not be perfect but is laying the groundwork for something that might be special. It’s still early, but gameplay-wise, this is the most excited I’ve been for Madden in several years.
