EA Sports Madden NFL 27 (Madden 27) returns for its annual release. Last year, the Madden franchise did one of its largest franchise overhauls in a decade and, for the most part, achieved positive results. This year, Madden NFL 27 is focusing on bringing players to life in franchise mode with their new Persona Engine, which we have covered already. These are all some of the off-field related features coming to the new iteration, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything coming to on-field play.
During the EA Sports Opening Drive Event, we got a chance to go hands-on with EA Sports Madden NFL 27 and check out how the game plays this year, and some of the new features coming to this year’s game. Defense, for many, was a sour spot in Madden 26, and much like its counterpart, College Football has had plenty of updates and new features.
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I wrote about many of these new defensive overhauls and new features in my EA Sports College Football 27 hands-on, and all of these are coming to Madden 27 as well. While many of these and other features are coming to both games, that doesn’t mean there won’t be anything explicitly coming to this iteration of Madden.
A slight change in pace isn’t the most defining feature of EA Sports Madden NFL 27.
In Madden 26, the franchise saw the overall gameplay speed increase quite a bit from years past. This was a big step in the right direction, as gameplay speed really felt slow and at times felt like players ran in mud. Madden 27 seems to have kept that speed, but like CFB 27, there are times when the game seems to have slowed just a hair; however, I do not think it is as noticeable as it is in College Football 27.
The main new in-game feature coming to Madden NFL 27 is a complete overhaul of home-field advantage (HFA). This has been in Madden for years but hasn’t been updated, and teams have had the same basic bonuses for a while. Madden 27 will be taking a page out of the CFB playbook by adding a decibel meter, and when the screen is loud enough, it will have a subtle camera shake. Good news, however, for anyone worried about squiggly routes, those won’t be implemented, and overall, they won’t feel as drastic as they can in the College Football series.
There may not be squiggly routes or anything, but homefield advantage will matter and affect the games, as hot routes can be harder to do. For a person who plays much more CFB than Madden, I am excited for homefield advantage to finally be more properly implemented into the game, as the older version was very stale.
An updated homefield advantage brings the boomquake.
In my limited play time, it was something that you noticed, but overall didn’t feel like it could completely dictate a game. Now it has been said that weather and wind will play a bigger role in these, such as affecting stamina or even wear & tear; however, unfortunately, I just did not get to completely experience these.
That said, having a completely revamped home field advantage system is a win and really brings out more immersion when playing games, and I’m excited to see how it completely affects franchise games. This goes into the next new feature that honestly I am surprised has taken this long to get into the Madden franchise, and that is Hot & Cold.
Players will now become hot or cold as they make plays/mistakes throughout the game. When players get hot, they can start performing better or even maintain their XF abilities longer, and the opposite happens when a player gets cold. Like HFA, the system is not quite as drastic as in the College Football series, but it is felt.
The addition of hot and cold for players on the field will affect off-field decisions, too.
In my limited playtime, I could see the subtle differences of having a hot hand at running back, and watching him break a tackle on a 3rd-and-short felt nice. Once again, that could have been just a coincidence for that particular example, but overall, it did seem that when players got hot or cold. Additionally, you were more likely to make plays, even if they weren’t explosive big players. Hot & Cold will work throughout games in franchise mode, so another in-game feature that can affect off-field decisions.
The last major and most likely to be most divisive new feature for this year’s game that I want to discuss is the new “catch meter”. It will be part of both Madden and College Football this year, but I was only able to check it out in Madden in limited time. This feature turns catching the ball into a pretty and hold meter that looks sorta of like the passing meter in the revamp passing style. The meter consists of red, yellow, and green, which correspond to late, slightly early, and perfect.
Red is late and is almost guaranteed a drop, Yellow is slightly early and means mostly a catch, but depends more so on the ratings, and Green is perfect and pretty much guaranteed a catch pending any defensive abilities. The Madden team is really attempting something with this catch meter, as it takes quite a bit to get used to, and honestly, can be really challenging to use.
The catching meter seems more likely to be turned off than embraced right now.
I know I dropped many passes and interceptions in my limited play session just due to the catch meter. In some ways, it is nice that it makes the kind of cheap possession catch and fall down animation before the defender can do anything, very limiting; however, it can make simple, shallow, or quick routes very hard to make a catch.
This will be the biggest skill feature players will need to learn, or I can see in many cases, players just disabling the feature. For myself, on longer routes, I was able to get the hang of it and make some contested catches, but I dropped so many short routes. Much like many of the other meters in the game, the length of the green, yellow, or even red portions is dependent on the type of catch and the overall ratings of the receiver trying to make a catch.
Whether players embrace this new feature or not is left to be seen, but I do think this feature will be the hardest for both new and older players to make adjustments to. While it is challenging, if using it ends up being more rewarding than the older style, I can see players using it, but if not, then honestly, I think it will end up being disabled.
Madden 27 and CFB 27 are working to bring the two games closer in line with each other, rather than being kept apart.
EA Sports Madden NFL 27 and its sister series, EA Sports College Football 27, are starting to combine a lot of gameplay elements, but that doesn’t mean each doesn’t have its own uniqueness and differences. Defense is a focal point for both games in this series, and there will be plenty of revamps and overhauls.
While I didn’t discuss all of them here, that doesn’t mean that they won’t exist. I wanted to focus on some of the more unique features I was able to play in Madden NFL 27 instead of rehashing what we’ve already explored in our coverage.
It will be interesting to see in the coming years how the two games converge, becoming similar but different in terms of on-field gameplay. There are plenty more left to be seen as the game is still a little way out before launch; however, home field matters now, defense is back, and the catch meter is going to lead to many of the discussions
EA Sports Madden NFL 27 is available now on Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
