It’s that time of year again: the weather’s hot, training camps are open, week one is right around the corner and of course, the new version of Madden is here. Congratulations to this year’s cover athlete, Lamar Jackson! He’s coming off one of the greatest individual seasons the NFL has ever seen and was named the second unanimous MVP in league history. Lamar deserves much better than the effort EA put into Madden 21– we can keep this pretty short, here’s a partial list of Madden’s negatives:

• Framerate drops in games and stuttering in menus

• Game freezes

• Team logos switching in selection screen 

• Unable to set formation subs (cursor freezes but you can back out of the menu)

• Offensive linemen miss (intentionally?) blocks for absolutely no reason

• Pulling offensive linemen getting in the way of the RB on outside runs

• CPU QB scrambles when appropriate (Yay!) but always runs to the sideline before turning upfield

• Pass defense….. all of it

• WRs drop way too many passes

• Animations still look very awkward

• Unbelievably repetitive commentary

• When not repetitive, the commentary is often not relevant to what happened during the play

• Face of the Franchise has a boring and frankly silly storyline

• The Yard is a fun mode but it’s all about customization and is seriously lacking in customization options

• Franchise mode is untouched

• Entire game feels inorganic

To be clear, there are some positives and some of these issues will be addressed via patch. I understand that hearing about the positives is important to you as a consumer but unfortunately I’ve run out of time for this review. I’ll do my best to update it throughout the year with what EA did well in Madden 21 and I promise to do a much more thorough job reviewing Madden 22. For now, Madden 21 is a definite NO BUY. #FixMaddenFranchise