EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition

8 / 10

There’s always room for improvement, but it’s hard to overstate what a leap Madden NFL 26 feels like both on and off the field.

Indeed, there's so much to enjoy in the base game that splashing cash just feels unnecessary, and a little grotesque. You won't play Superstar mode for as long as franchise, but fleshing out the folks in your 'Sphere of Influence' – from your agent, to tattoo artists – adds a neat off-field wrinkle, where every decision has a degree of consequence.

6 / 10

Despite a disappointing launch, Madden NFL 26 isn’t unsalvageable. I would imagine many of these problems will be fixed through post-launch patches, but that doesn’t change the fact that despite how strong its fundamentals appeared to be prior to stepping onto the field, much like a nervous rookie, this entry just wasn’t quite ready for primetime.