History VideoGame / MaddenNFL

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maddenj_1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350: [[CaptainObvious The best strategy in winning this game is to score more points than the opposing team.]]\\
[-John Madden himself returning to the cover for the first time since 2000 as [[InMemoriam a tribute to his passing]] in 2021. The ''All Madden Edition'' cover, pictured above, uses the same photo of Madden from the first ''John Madden Football'' cover from 1988.-]]]

* DreamTeam: Many iterations through the mid-2000s included "historic" rosters for each team with the best players in franchise history up to that point represented. It was quite satisfying to roll over the competition with a team of every elite legend from the team's history, bordering on a sports version of an ArmyOfTheAges. However, as their likeness was being used without compensation, some of these former players sued and ''Creator/{{EA}}'' stopped including them around 2008-09.

* InMemoriam:
** ''Madden 25'' (the game released in 2013) is dedicated to Pat Summerall, John Madden's longtime broadcasting partner, who died about four months before the release date. %% Do not add Madden 23 memorializing John Madden himself until EA confirms elements beyond the cover.
** ''Madden 23'' Cold Opens with an AFC-NFC John Madden memorial game, with two versions of Madden each coaching one squad, played in a digital recreation of the 1970s-era Oakland Coliseum where he spent his NFL career.

* ObviousBeta: Many, many glitches abound. Some of them are alarmingly obvious. For example, in ''Madden 10'', the clock doesn't stop when a tackle animation begins in bounds but ends out of bounds, despite the fact that ''09'' correctly implemented the clock stopping on such plays. Many of these elements can be attributed to the franchise's production schedule. They come out with a new version every year, and the title ''must'' be released by when the start of the real NFL season. This means there is only a fixed window in which bugs can be fixed and features iterated, and the vagarious possibilities in any software development mean that some things get lain by the wayside to make the ship date. Their testers have to crunch hard, but they only have so-much time to find bugs ''and'' have the development team correct them, so some inevitably fall through the cracks.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: In ''23'', EA added John Madden as a player for the first time, with elite stats. In the real world, Madden was injured in his first season, and never played in a regulation NFL game before turning to coaching.

* RubberBandAI: One of the more shining examples in modern gaming. Creator/BillSimmons of ESPN coined the term "No F***ing Way game" for the times when the computer makes an unbelievable MiracleRally while your own players become inept clods. It is often accused of featuring an "AI catch-up mode", in which opposing teams inexplicably become drastically more potent in the final minutes of a close game, often to the point where preventing them from completing long bombs and scoring touchdowns seems like an impossible task (sometimes called "Robo QB"), even when the AI controlled team showed absolutely nothing in the earlier portions of the game to indicate that they were capable of this. In most cases, the AI level of rubberbanding is directly related to the difficulty level. On the easiest difficulty level, the AI doesn't rubberband at all: the same tactics, the same plays, over and over. As difficulty level goes up, so does the degree of rubberbanding: on the highest difficulty level, as soon as the player reaches anything approaching a lead, the AI responds aggressively - players for the human-controlled team become utterly inept, well below what their rating would justify, while players for the computer-controlled team become unstoppable juggernauts far beyond what their ratings would justify. Furthermore, the rubberbanding does ''not'' work in the opposite direction, however. The AI just goes back to the normal difficulty.

Also of note is the [[PopCultureUrbanLegends Madden Curse]], which has felled some of the great football players of the last decade, and was famous enough to have its own page on this wiki before it was decided to be cut. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who appeared on the cover of ''Madden NFL 20'', eventually broke the "curse" when he would go on to win Super Bowl LIV, as well as the game's MVP award, on February 2, 2020. Both he and Creator/TomBrady, the latter who was also the cover athlete of ''Madden NFL 18'', share the cover of ''Madden NFL 22'', released after both men appeared in Super Bowl LV.

* FakeBalance: Special teams has long been an area where the series has struggled to find the right balance of realism and fun. One year, it might be so laughably easy to return kickoffs for touchdowns that it happens at least once per game. The very next, you might go entire seasons without returning a single one. The inability to block kicks was also an issue for the first several decades of the game's existence. It wouldn't be until ''Madden 17'' that a mechanic to aid in this process was finally added, only for it to turn out too overpowered. The quest for special teams balance goes on.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: ''Madden 22'' includes Home Field Advantage factors which are unique to each stadium. The advantage for Buffalo made the away team's kicking arc swing wildly, while the home Bills' was normal. Buffalo's stadium is notorious for unpredictable swirling winds, and previous coaches have admitted to opening and closing specific field doors to create a wind tunnel effect while opponents were kicking.

** ''Madden'' has never implemented the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_catch_kick Fair Catch Kick]] rule, which allows a team that makes a fair catch to attempt an uncontested field goal from that spot. Admittedly, it's a rarely invoked rule, so the developers may not have thought it necessary.

** Roster updates frequently mislabel player injuries, meaning they can be held out far longer than in real life. For example, Bills cornerback Tredavious White is expected to return to play in October of the 2022 season, but the roster lists him as lost for the year. On the flip side, Deshaun Watson served an 11-game suspension, but rosters have no mechanic for suspensions, forcing players to alter his stats to make him unplayable in order to maintain realistic outcomes.

** In ''13'', a bug in the AI's play selection leads to teams making brainlock decisions in crunch time. More than one AI team has driven down the field in the final seconds, only to run the ball up the middle on the final play rather than kick the game-winning field goal or throw the Hail Mary. This also happens with the Mobile game. If the AI calls a QB kneel down, the player can respond by calling a field goal block. The AI will then (often, but not always) call an audible to a PASS PLAY. This can backfire on them if the receiver drops the ball, or catches it out of bounds. If this happens, the player will save a timeout or a chunk of time that would have otherwise been wasted, since an incomplete pass stops the clock. Be careful, though, since if the AI's receiver catches the pass they will likely score a touchdown. Worth trying if the AI can run out the clock or you are losing by only 1 point (since a touchdown would put the AI up by 8, which is still one possession.)

** After years of complaints that Creator/TomBrady retired in the game far sooner than in real life (usually after the first season played in Franchise mode), they severely reduced the threshold to make him retire. Many players reported seeing Brady hanging around in their franchises into his ''late 50's''

[-John Madden himself returning to the cover for the first time since 2000 as a tribute to his passing in 2021. The ''All Madden Edition'' cover, pictured above, uses the same photo of Madden from the first ''John Madden Football'' cover from 1988.-]]]

Still, the franchise has some detractors (mainly because, by this point, they've run out of things to add, so the latest sequels are more like roster updates). The most notable incident happened in 2005, when it was announced that the ''Madden'' games would be the only football games allowed to use current NFL players and teams for (at least) the next few years. While many people [[{{Misblamed}} blamed EA for buying out the license because they couldn't handle competition]], the truth is that the NFL was going to give one franchise or the other exclusivity; the venerable ''Madden'' franchise simply won the bidding war.[[note]]Remember Sega/2K selling their NFL game for only $20? The NFL was ''pissed'' about that, believing nothing carrying the NFL logo should be presented as a "discount product". Sega and 2K were gone shortly thereafter, fortunately for them their 2K series of [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation NBA]] games is still quite popular.[[/note]]

** As part of a cross-promotion with Nickelodeon to coincide with the channel hosting an NFL playoff game, EA added Spongebob Squarepants inspired clothing items and a Bikini Bottom field to "The Yard" mode.

* DeathOrGloryAttack: Patrick Mahomes' "Bazooka" ability. It raises his throwing distance to nearly the length of the field, but even the fastest player in the game (conveniently on his team) still takes several seconds to run that far. It will either be a moon shot for a touchdown or a massive sack.

** Long Snappers in general. In the real NFL, long-snapping (for field goals and punts) is considered so specialized that there are many players who spend their entire careers doing nothing else. In Madden, every snap is the same regardless, and long snappers are generally so bad in every other stat that they are immediately cut by the vast majority of teams, and nearly all will be out of the league by season 2 or 3.

* JokeCharacter: Long Snappers in general. In the real NFL, long-snapping (for field goals and punts) is considered so specialized that there are many players who spend their entire careers doing nothing else. In Madden, every snap is the same regardless, and long snappers are generally so bad in every other stat that they are immediately cut by the vast majority of teams, and nearly all will be out of the league by season 2 or 3.

* UpToEleven: For years the highest player rating was 99, but in ''Madden 08'' they handed out a single 100 rating.[[note]]Specifically, the speed rating of special teams star Devin Hester.[[/note]] This has not been repeated (outside of Ultimate Team) due to the general reaction from the fans.

** ''22'' has an "Assistant GM" in franchise mode who will ping you with roster management "advice". Most of it is outright terrible, such as releasing your league MVP starting QB simply because his contract only has one year left, performance be damned. Worse, moves can be made directly from the Assistant GM screen with the cursor defaulting to "Yes", so an accidental click can ruin your team (or at least send you scrambling back to your last save). It returns in ''23'' with some additional features, such as recommending that you bench certain poorly performing players. This wouldn't be too bad, except that what qualifies as "poorly performing" may include your elite starting QB in the midst of an MVP season just because the team suffered its first loss. Once again, the cursor defaults to agreeing with the Assitant GM, which can create a multitude of issues within your franchise from benching a star player.

** ''22'' has an "Assistant GM" in franchise mode who will ping you with roster management "advice". Most of it is outright terrible, such as releasing your league MVP starting QB simply because his contract only has one year left, performance be damned. Worse, moves can be made directly from the Assistant GM screen with the cursor defaulting to "Yes", so an accidental click can ruin your team (or at least send you scrambling back to your last save).

*** In Madden 22, coming out in a pass defense with 6-7 defensive backs vs a heavy run play will result in your defensive line being pancaked automatically.
*** In Madden 21, Quarterbacks who scramble will suffer a significantly increased stamina loss and chance to fumble. This despite the three of the last cover athletes (Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes x2) being among the most effective scramblers of all time.

** In ''23'', AI controlled teams in franchise mode will refuse to pay their elite quarterbacks (Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, etc., who typically get long-term deals in the $300+ million range) and allow them to hit free agency... where other teams will ''also'' balk at that price and not sign them, all while the player doesn't budge on his desired compensation. Apparently, in most cases, it is because a deal of that magnitude would put the team over the salary cap. In real life, other players would be released or have their contracts adjusted to fit the quarterback's deal. The fact that all of this happens really kills any realism in franchise mode. After a few seasons, the very best quarterbacks will sit on the free agency list (unless the human player signs them) while far lesser quarterback start throughout the league.

* ''23'' had numerous upon launch.
** Connected Franchise has an issue where games played sometimes register as 0-0 ties regardless of the result.
** Disconnects in any online mode far surpass the post-launch totals of previous iterations. Any "overlays" (Steam, [=GeForce=], Origin, etc.) seem to instantly crash the game.