EA Sports Madden NFL 25

An improved year for the big dog of Gridiron games – but unless you have to play as a pro, there's simply no reason to choose this over College Football 25.

There’s only so much you can do to make football play and feel more realistic, and once you reach that goal, you need to start looking elsewhere to make things worthwhile. Madden feels like it’s at that point, and I think for the sake of polish as much as creativity, EA needs to take more than a year between releases to get Madden back on track.

You'll love this if you haven't played Madden anytime in the last 10 years. If you've played the previous year's version, you're not missing out on anything new.

Madden 25 is the most complete version of the series in more than a decade. Failing to recognize the improvements essentially gives in to reflex hate more than evaluating each version's merits. The gameplay is tighter, customization has seen a significant boost, and each mode has depth. If you buy a version of Madden every five years, it should be this one.