14 DAY TRIAL // What we know: Madden NFL is one of the most important series for publisher Electronic Arts, a million seller that, along with FIFA, manages to anchor the division that deals with sport simulations.
The most recent title in the franchise, labeled 25 to celebrate the longevity of the series, managed to introduce some new ideas and benefited from the Ignite engine when it was played on the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony.
But sales have been largely flat and EA Sports needs to deliver some serious improvements to the experience in order to make sure that the series is stable in the long term.
The company is not offering details until around E3 2014, but the team has suggested that it might dial down the show elements of the presentation and will try to simplify the tactical layer for gamers who just want to enjoy the match action.
Madden NFL 15 will probably be launched towards the end of August on the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 and current-gen consoles.
Why it matters: American football is one of the most marketable sports in the world and Electronic Arts cannot afford to let the series enter a long period of decline.
At the same time, the EA Sports team working on it is caught between two opposing trends: the need to innovate to make the experience feel new and interesting to old fans and the fact that continuity is one of the franchises’ greatest assets.
The FIFA team has managed to solve the conundrum by choosing one area of the game to improve each year, but Madden NFL seems to present a larger challenge and the core mechanics of the new game will be under a lot of scrutiny from players and critics.
The full list of Incoming 2014 Games articles can be read on Softpedia.