Madden NFL 25 Franchise & Presentation Deep Dive

Hey Madden fans, welcome back to Gridiron Notes! 

Today, we’re excited to take you on a Deep Dive of all of the new features and updates coming to Franchise Mode and Presentation for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation®5, and PC. Get ready to learn about new features like Franchise Central, a new NFL Draft Night experience, Team Builder and more!

Before we hear from the development team, let’s take a look at our Franchise Deep Dive video.

Hey everybody, I’m Josh Looman, the lead designer on Franchise Mode. I’m thrilled to be here with you today to talk about all the exciting new features we’re bringing to Madden NFL 25.

My journey with EA SPORTS began here in Orlando working on Franchise Mode in Madden NFL 04, and I’ve had the pleasure of being the Lead Designer on NFL Head Coach 09 and Connected Franchise Mode (CFM) over the years. 

I also want to introduce the game designers that poured their hearts and souls into the mode alongside me this year. Vince McPherron, Hannah Trenkle and David Hainz deserve all the credit for the incredible passion and work they put into Franchise Mode on the design side. We can't wait for you to see the updates we have in store for you in Madden NFL 25.

This year, we are focusing on three main pillars: Immersion, Customization, and Depth and Core improvements. Let’s dive into what that means for you.

In Madden NFL 25, we’re giving you new ways to craft your story with the new, authentic NFL Draft Night experience, the ability to manage player personalities through Dynamic Storylines, delving into the depths of Franchise Central and much more.

We’ve added layers of complexity and engagement that will make your gameplay experience look and feel more rewarding. The team has put in countless hours to bring these innovations to life, and I can’t wait for you to experience it all firsthand. So let’s get started and dive into the world of Franchise Mode like never before!

Immersion

One of the Franchise elements I’m most excited about this year is immersion.

Our team delivered some incredible features in Madden NFL 24, but we felt that something was still missing. Franchise Mode, in particular, needed to feel more alive and more engaging.

Manage Personalities Through Dynamic Storylines

In Madden NFL 25 you’ll craft your franchise story through more than 70 brand new dynamic storylines, making you really FEEL as if you’re running an NFL team. Players will remember what you say and the promises you make, and these storylines won’t just take place over a single game – they can span entire seasons.

You’ll feel like you’re actually managing a team and not just looking at rows in a spreadsheet. Just like a real NFL coach, you need to know your players and their unique personalities. Let me walk you through a few of the new storylines so you have an idea of the depth we’ve added this year.

In one of our storylines, you’ll have a player who shows up to training camp out of shape. How you react and the choices you make will have a different impact based on your player’s personality type. Push the right buttons? You’ll motivate him to play better than he normally would for the first three weeks of the season. Say the wrong thing and he’ll start the year out of shape.

In another storyline, reporters put you on the spot at the start of the offseason and want to know if you have a plan for the offseason. Be careful what you commit to because your players and the media will hold you to it. If you say the team will go out and make a splash in the NFL Draft, you’re going to have to answer for it if you don’t.

Another one of my favorites is when your players point out weaknesses in the opposing team as you’re meeting during a strategy session. You get to choose how to attack that weakness and the level of risk you’re willing to commit to.  If you are successful during the game, your defense will earn their reward for exploiting the opponent’s weakness. 

We’re re-creating as many situations from real life as we can, so you’ll even be given the choice to sit your rookie quarterback for the entire year to develop him like the Chiefs did with Patrick Mahomes. If you can commit to that and be patient, the reward he’ll receive at the end of his first year will set him up for success moving forward. 

All of these dynamic storylines take place in new environments such as the team meeting room, coach’s office, press conference, practice sideline and your locker room. You’ll also receive text messages from your coordinators and players in the coach’s office environment.

In all of our storylines, your choices will have a big impact, especially when it depends on the personality types of your players. Your choices always matter and making the right decision could change the entire narrative of how your team performs on and off the field.

These storylines will be at the forefront during intense contract extension negotiations and trade demands. You’ll influence offseason workouts and help players through slumps or historic seasons.  

Additionally, revamped breakout storylines provide a variety of new and impactful ways to improve the emergent players on your roster.

Breakout Storylines

In Madden NFL 25, we've completely revamped our breakout storylines and rebuilt each one from the ground up. In doing so, we wanted to ensure that there was more variety, freedom, and more risk and reward when playing through these storylines. Now when you encounter a breakout storyline in franchise, there will be a number of different paths and outcomes to experience that can be positive or negative, last one week or several, and some that can even earn a player significantly more than just a development upgrade. One of the paths you can go down includes talking with your offensive or defensive coordinator before the game on how to utilize the breakout player with the ability to choose his goal for the week. Following the game, there will also be a slim chance for a double or nothing opportunity where the storyline will extend a week further. That gives the player the opportunity to either double down and earn yet another development upgrade or redeem themselves with a second chance to earn the upgrade.

Another variant allows you to choose the difficulty of the goal for your breakout player heading into their next game. Choose an easier goal and you’ll receive less of a reward. But if you decide to choose the hardest challenge and succeed, watch as your breakout player has the potential to jump multiple development slots, earn a huge chunk of XP or even multiple permanent attribute upgrades. In addition, we have a variant that allows for instant gratification where your breakout player will instantly upgrade in development following a strong performance and will have the opportunity to follow that performance up and progress even more. Another variant allows you to choose how to approach a player following a strong performance. Approach it passively and risk less penalty upon failure but also earn less of a reward if you are successful. Approach it aggressively and you’ll earn huge upgrades for the player, potentially catapulting them into superstardom. On the flip side, if you fail that aggressive challenge, you risk potentially setting the player back for the foreseeable future.

And then lastly, there's a variant of the breakout storyline that can last for either a week or half the season. We really wanted to emulate the stories of players like Isiah Pacheco and Puka Nacua, who broke out after the season started and came out of nowhere. In this variation, sustained success will keep the storyline going and will give you the chance to turn Normal or Star development players into X-Factors, with every step along the way becoming more challenging.

We’re excited to see how you interact with the newly revamped breakout storylines and know they’ll add significantly more immersion and variation when you’re developing your players in Franchise Mode.

Experience The New NFL Draft Night

I’m thrilled to share something we've been working on tirelessly, and it’s finally here – welcome to Draft Night!

Your authentic Draft Night experience starts when Roger Goodell takes the stage. The draft environment is dynamic, with the Draft Board updating in real-time. After selections are made, you’ll witness the iconic moment of your draft pick walking across the stage, holding up their new jersey or receiving the life-changing call from home. And yes, they’re dressed in sharp suits, not uniforms, adding to the realism. There’s a brand-new prospect board that makes drafting players easier and more intuitive than ever before, while draft grades give you immediate feedback on your picks.

This level of authenticity is something we’re incredibly excited to bring to you. And that authenticity doesn't end on draft night, it also extends beyond the draft and onto the gridiron. We've made significant changes to how gear and equipment are assigned to draft prospects meaning you’ll notice the superstars of tomorrow in all of the new gear and updated equipment and looking more authentic than ever.

Prospect Hub

To reduce friction in the scouting and drafting process, we've completely redesigned the prospect hub in Madden NFL 25. Previously, in order to see a prospect's athletic grades or physical measurables, you would have to go all the way into the player card. This year, we've brought all prospect information forward into a more familiar spreadsheet format and you'll now be able to view and sort all prospects by their region, attributes, physical grades, as well as both Combine and Pro Day data. Whether you're searching for a Wide Receiver that ran the fastest 40-Yard Dash or a cornerback that has the best Man Coverage grade, you can do that quickly and efficiently, making the scouting and drafting process a more seamless experience.

Franchise Central: Your New Home Base in Franchise

 Franchise Mode has found a new home base. Welcome to Franchise Central, where you’ll have all of the key information you need at your fingertips, while starting your league and selecting your team has never been easier.

The league creation flow has been updated to make the selection of your league type and roster clearer, and the team select screen now provides expanded information about rankings, top players, and rosters.

One of our favorite additions is the new personal message system. It delivers smart suggestions from characters within your organization, offering suggestions on players you should target that are on the trade block, free agent signing suggestions, injury updates and more. We’ve added a new Top Stories section as well, delivering breaking news, including stories that are more visual and instant reactions to choices you make during the new dynamic storylines. We also focus Top Stories on season matchups, game recaps and player performance narratives that showcase the worldbuilding in your league every week. Franchise Central also provides easy access to standings and matchups, all from your new home base, while in multi-user Connected Franchises, other people in your league will be able to more readily see your decisions and activity.

Franchise Central will deliver key information at your fingertips. You’ll see info on your matchup and insights into your opponent, focused on stats and top players for both teams. After the season and during bye weeks, you’ll get information about your team’s rankings and needs, as well as draft prospects in the positions you need most. You’ll see your standings in the conference, the top players around the league, and be able to track your goals.

Customize and Build a Powerhouse with Team Builder

Customization is key, and we know our fans crave it. In Madden NFL 24, we brought forward brand new commissioner tools and expanded relocation options. But we realized something was missing. You couldn’t fully customize the most important thing in your franchise: your team. That changes now.

In Madden NFL 25 you’re able to design your own team from the ground up using the suite of customization tools available on the Team Builder website.

• Create + upload your own logos
• Personalize:
  • Uniforms (Home, Away, Alternate) 
  • Helmets
  • Stadium
  • On-field logos
• Build your rosters
  • Option to create every player if you’d like to!

You can import up to 32 Team Builder teams into a Franchise.

Want to share your creations? Looking to browse others? Jump into the download center and explore teams created by the community.

Team Builder content can be used in Franchise mode on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC versions. Internet connection & EA account required. Applicable platform account may be required. Age restrictions may apply.

Take Advantage of Core Depth Improvements

Team and Rookie Records

Whether it's the history you're making or the history you're rewriting, it's a massive part of the franchise story. Madden NFL 25 features over 1400 new records to be broken within franchise mode. Previously, there were only records across the entire NFL for Career, Season and Game. Now every NFL team will have their own specific game, season and career records specific to them and in addition will also have rookie game and rookie season awards as well.

Roster AI and Progression

Front Offices across the NFL continue to evolve their player evaluations and team building strategies, a shift that will be emphasized within our changes to Franchise AI and team logic. We’ll start with Contract Re-Signing logic, where teams will now prioritize extending their core young talent with a better understanding of positional value, depth and potential. Once the future of the franchise is secure, veteran players and roster depth will be prioritized. This mindset will extend to Franchise Tag decisions, which have been rebalanced by position and become a last resort for teams when they need to hang on to players that they want to build around. As a result, the strategies behind Offseason Free Agency AI have shifted. A few prized talents will be highly coveted while the bulk of the signings will be made up of veterans as teams look to solidify their rosters. Then it’s on to the Draft, where teams will primarily focus on selecting long-term cornerstone players early on and then shift their focus to adding depth in the later rounds. These changes to Franchise AI and logic will result in improved team management that reflects the strategies that NFL teams are employing in today’s league. 

Refined player progression ensures that older players regress physically as you would expect, while younger stars receive more opportunities to make an impact in the league early in their careers. You’ll no longer see Derrick Henry get faster at 31 or 32 years old. And if your young QB plays like C.J. Stroud did last year, he’ll certainly be rewarded for it so that he has the ratings to reflect that he’s one of the most exciting young QBs of the future.

Scouting Revisions

Information is king when it comes to building through the Draft and our improvements to the current scouting system focused on that from the start. Scouting progress has been rebalanced with information coming in slower during the season but culminating in more reveals by the time you reach the Draft. The analysts behind the Mock Drafts have also become far less prophetic. Early season mock drafts attempt to make sense of the evolving standings and predict what might happen months in advance, while later mock drafts give you an idea of what could potentially happen, without giving team draft selections away before the Draft begins.  

Presentation

From the smallest grain of turf to the biggest jumbotron in the league, Madden NFL 25 will bring you a leveled-up, authentic in-game visual experience. 

Here’s Senior Art Director Terrance Newell to cover visual presentation updates: minor tweaks, major overhauls and everything in between. 

3D Grass and Turf

We started this year from the ground up – literally. The connection between the player and the world is the playing surface. The playing surface can take up nearly 50% of the screen, so it needs to look good. You’ll notice the 3D grass and 3D turf as soon as you jump on the sticks. 

The Lab

The Lab is your new home for Practice Mode and Mini Games. Practice Mode is the most frequented environment in our game, so we owed it to you to make it as visually immersive as possible. In Madden NFL 25, the Practice environment is completely new.

Gillette Stadium

Among other environment updates in Madden NFL 25, Gillette Stadium’s $250 million renovation is reflected, including their epic new video board: the largest outdoor curved-radius screen at a sports venue in the country.

Shadows and Lighting

In Madden NFL 25, in-game stadium lighting is more accurate than ever before. You’ll notice realistic shadows on the field, making the games pop visually in a way we haven’t seen yet.   

Depth of Field and Motion Blur

As an art director, images and videos are the most powerful storytelling tools. In Madden NFL 25, those tools have been refined to give you a more powerful experience on the sticks. Whether it’s intentional visual focus on a runner or all new motion blur, visual tools unleashed in Madden NFL 25 will be apparent from the first snap. 

If you’re watching a car drive by and you can count the spokes on the wheels, the car isn’t moving very fast. Adding motion blur to fast-moving players in Madden NFL 25 enhances our sense of speed in-game for a more immersive experience. 

We want what you see in Madden to mirror what you watch on Sunday.    

Player and Coach Likeness

Are you a Lions fan that watched Sam LaPorta dominate, despite everyone telling you rookie Tight Ends don’t put up numbers? Are you a Bears fan ready to watch your number one overall pick Caleb Williams cook with a star-studded supporting cast?  

In Madden NFL 25, more of the NFL’s rookies and rising stars will have accurate in-game likeness at launch than ever before.

Uniforms

If you could wear NFL jerseys to weddings, I’d be set.

Last season Nike updated the uniform chassis design, and we followed suit. This season, they’re getting more polish. We tuned all 420 uniform loadouts in Madden NFL 25 through lighting conditions to make sure they look better than ever. Texans fans, your new uniforms will be in the game at launch, as well as 20+ other new uniforms unveiled this offseason. 

Customize Your Superstar

Superstar creators, we heard you. In Madden NFL 25, you’ll be able to customize your Superstar with a new level of depth. You want tattoos? More custom faces? More facial hair options? We’ve got you covered. You’ll see:

• 80+ new player/coach likenesses 
• 10 new female coach heads
• 40+ generic player head updates
• 25+ Create-A-Player head updates

Secondary Animations

Details matter.

We introduced SAPIEN technology in Madden NFL 24 to add character innovation into our technology stack. In Madden NFL 25, we’re building on it. Secondary animations encompass elements such as pads. Think about shoulder pads. For the first time, in Madden NFL 25, pads will have their own animations. Pads are no longer a part of the same network as the player avatar. Arms will move independently of the shoulder pads. Ground and gravity forces can take over. It’s all in the details. You’ll notice subtle pad shakes when players do things such as make back shoulder catches, cut on a dime or connect on a perfect hit stick.

New Look, New Feel, New Sound

Hey, everyone! I’m Rocky Rivero and I’m a producer on the Presentation and Audio teams. Our primary goal for Madden NFL 25 was to create as many things as we could that look, feel, and sound different.

And that began with our boot flow, where an updated video leads to the Press Start screen with our cover athlete, Christian McCaffrey. The music accompanying this screen is our iconic new Madden theme song.

When you proceed to the main menu, you’ll hear a soundtrack composed of 33 songs from various genres that were curated to create a house party vibe.

We also included 34 classic tracks as stadium music, some of which we brought back from previous Madden games. Prepare for nostalgia when The Hives and their song “Tick Tick Boom” transport you back to Madden NFL 08!

It’s worth noting you can go to our Music setting and choose from our classic tracks to add them to our soundtrack.

And once you begin a game, you’ll notice things continue to sound different because we have…

New Commentary Teams

We’re thrilled to be introducing two new commentary teams: Mike Tirico and Greg Olsen, and Kate Scott and Brock Huard. Each team recorded 195+ hours of content and we’re going to continue adding content after launch.

Furthermore, we continue to benefit from the depth and breadth that Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis have recorded over 8 years.

For a Play Now game, the commentary team selection is random by default, but you have the option to choose. 

Sounds of the NFL

On the field and in the stands, the sounds of the NFL have been recreated like never before in Madden NFL 25.

On the field, we’re using 500+ new audio samples for things like exertions, grunts, tackles, and collisions at the line of scrimmage.

In the stands, our crowd audio now includes ESPN crowd recordings captured at Monday Night Football games. Additionally, we supplemented those assets with crowd audio from NFL Films.

Stories of the NFL

Our storytelling begins pregame, where we now get the perspectives of three different commentary teams. Among the visual updates are new on-field shots of NFL stars warming up accompanied by various stat banners.

We’ve expanded our storytelling when the offense takes the field by using highlight packages to set the scene as our commentators speak about a positive or negative performance by a player or team.

When you get halfway through a season in Franchise or Superstar, the storytelling expands further as you begin seeing banners about stat rankings and award projections.

Sometimes, a highlight package can tell a story all on its own! Much like an NFL broadcast, the end of the 1st and 3rd quarters are now paired with slow motion highlights and reactions from head coaches.

So you just threw for 600 yards in a single game, huh? That’s a big deal! Breaking an NFL record is a huge story, and we now show an on-field celebration with a custom banner followed by a replay of the record-breaking moment.

Defensive Team Celebrations

After a fumble or interception that ends on the field of play, you’ll see defenders begin racing toward the nearest end zone to celebrate as a team. Our mo-cap talent brought great energy to these moments!

If you return a turnover for a touchdown, you’ll still have the option to choose a celebration from the celebration wheel.

Super Bowl Outcomes

The pinnacle of any NFL season is winning the Super Bowl and we’ve changed the postgame experience to include branching outcomes.

For example, in Superstar, if you dominate the game and win the Super Bowl MVP award, your created player will be front and center raising the Lombardi trophy. But if your created player doesn’t earn the Super Bowl MVP award after a win, you’ll still be on the podium, but more in the background.

So – you did it! You climbed the mountain, you put together the best team in the NFL. Your celebration now includes Roger Goodell handing over the trophy to the winning team, just like real life. But if you lose the game, our branching flow means you won’t even see this part of the presentation!

Finally, the foundation of this entire sequence is our new Super Bowl theme song, with a variation that plays based on whether you won or lost the game.

See You On The Field Coach!

With that we have come to the end here, and we all are so proud of all the incredible changes and improvements that you will get to experience in Madden NFL 25 later this year. Where do you plan to plant roots and establish your Franchise as a dominant force in the NFL? We can't wait to see the experiences that you all will create!

• Franchise & Presentation Developers

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Madden NFL 25 launches worldwide on August 16, 2024. Pre-order the Madden NFL 25 Deluxe Edition and play early. Conditions and restrictions apply. See disclaimers for details. Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Answers HQ.