Madden NFL 26 - Presentation + Authenticity Deep Dive

Welcome back, Madden players! 

Thanks for checking in to Gridiron Notes, your home for all news and updates for Madden NFL 26 straight from the development team. Are you here after checking out the Franchise Mode Deep Dive? If not, make sure you check that out after reading here!

We’re proud of the strides we’ve made in immersion, presentation and authenticity this year in Madden NFL 26 and can’t wait for you to jump on the sticks! Let’s dive in.

Gameday Experience

What you witness at NFL games is orchestrated by the talented gameday operations staff of every team across the league. In Madden NFL 26, we collaborated with those groups at every NFL franchise to deliver updates to:

• Field Art
• Mascots
• Stadium Motion Graphics
• Stadium Sounds
• Uniforms

Field Art

So, what does this coordination with NFL teams actually mean? How will it impact your game of Madden? For starters, you’ll get real world recreations of the different field art that appears when alternate uniforms are worn at home. If the Buccaneers are rocking the creamsicles at home, the field art at Raymond James will be, too. The differences on the field can be seen in the midfield logo, end zones, edge walls, and typography. 

You’ll see whiteouts in Cincinnati and Minnesota, as well as blackouts for the Eagles, Jets, Panthers, and Ravens. Equipping classic uniforms will result in retro field art being shown in Atlanta, Denver, Miami, New England, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Tampa Bay. And then there’s the Texans! They’ve got annual events with specific looks to celebrate Battle Red Day, Reppin’ H Town, and their White Out. There are plenty of other combinations of alternate uniforms and field art to be discovered in Madden NFL 26 and we’re excited to hear about your favorites! 

Mascots

For the reintroduction of mascots to Madden, we committed to delivering the best possible recreations. This started with full scans. We scanned mascots at events such as the Pro Bowl. Some teams even sent us their only full costume so that we could scan it at Madden’s Orlando headquarters! You’ll see mascots throughout a matchup in pregame runouts, during gameplay on the sidelines, and reacting between plays.

These are the 18 mascots available at launch:

1. 49ers - Sourdough Sam
2. Bears - Staley Da Bear
3. Bengals - Who Dey
4. Bills - Billy Buffalo
5. Broncos - Miles
6. Buccaneers - Captain Fear
7. Cardinals - Big Red
8. Chiefs - K.C. Wolf
9. Commanders - Major Tuddy
10. Cowboys - Rowdy
11. Dolphins - T.D.
12. Eagles - Swoop
13. Falcons - Freddie Falcon
14. Jaguars - Jaxson De Ville
15. Lions - Roary
16. Rams - Rampage
17. Ravens - Poe
18. Texans - Toro

We plan to include additional mascots in an upcoming title update.

And as a little bit of sports trivia, here’s a list of NFL teams that don’t have official in-stadium mascots (Chargers, Jets, Giants, Packers, and Raiders).

Stadium Motion Graphics

Another unique characteristic of NFL stadiums are the motion graphics that appear on the scoreboards and ribbon boards. 

As of this writing, we have authentic motion graphics for 26 teams:

1. 49ers
2. Bears
3. Bengals
4. Bills
5. Broncos
6. Buccaneers
7. Cardinals
8. Chargers
9. Colts
10. Commanders
11. Dolphins
12. Eagles
13. Falcons
14. Jaguars
15. Lions
16. Packers
17. Panthers
18. Patriots
19. Rams
20. Ravens
21. Saints
22. Seahawks
23. Steelers
24. Texans
25. Titans
26. Vikings

Similar to mascots, we plan to add more team-specific motion graphics in an upcoming title update.

Stadium Sounds

Close your eyes, and put yourself in your favorite team’s stadium. It’s kickoff on opening day. What do you hear? 

Sound is a crucial element to sports immersion. Our collaboration with NFL teams gives us access to the specific sound effects used at home games! 

For example, Minnesota has two types of Gjallarhorn sounds for specific game events. When the Vikings get a 1st down, they use a high-pitched version of the horn sound. When they’re on defense for a third down, you’ll hear the lower-pitched and more menacing version.

Coordinating with NFL teams also gave us an opportunity to identify and disable the SFX that are now outdated (goodbye electric zap sound for the Chargers!). We also leveraged our partnerships with NFL Films and ESPN to continue building our library of crowd chants and reactions. Whether it’s the “Who Dey” chant in Cincinnati or the “Who Dat” chant in New Orleans, you’re hearing authentic recordings with tens of thousands of fans.

Equipment

Equipment. Swag. Drip. Whatever you prefer to call it, we’re all about it, but we’ll start with our refactored uniform content. Uniforms have been completely redone via compositor. You might want to head into instant replay in Madden NFL 26 and take a look at the much more realistic, animating wrinkles and jersey twisting. You’ll also see a much tighter, and more realistic fit for players who wear flak jackets and back plates - those have also been visually redone!

Bonus here, our coaches on the sidelines have 3D embroidered team logos on their hats and visors. Small detail? Sure, but that is how authentic Madden NFL 26 is. We even have team logos on thigh pads - and of course, if you have been paying attention, the guardian cap, both sleeved and unsleeved, is in the game.

We heard you on being able to easily select a facemask that matches the helmet style, it became a process of “highlight every facemask till the game tells me it fits.” Now, facemasks automatically sort for you based on the helmet you have selected.

We also brought in new branded gear like Adidas and Nike cleats, including the Adidas Impact Snakeskin and Nike Edge Pro 360 2. More glove options included Adidas and Under Armour. Oh yeah, Under Armour gear is back! Seven different Under Armour Cleats, including the UA Blur and UA Spotlight Suede… so you can look real nice when celebrating your way into the end zone. We don’t want to spoil everything but that’s not all, make sure to head in and take a look!

Team Builder

Our team has been hard at work polishing and improving the overall site performance. Team Builder now has a completely new look and the site is 2X faster. Overall render performance is greatly improved, so Team Builder will now work on a wider array of devices and lower end machines. You now have an upload limit of 5 MB per team. This means you can upload as many custom images and textures as you want until you hit the 5 MB limit, increasing your creative power.

Setting the Stage

When we began the creative process for Madden NFL 26, our goal for creating the gameday experience was driven by this phrase:

Every stadium, a stage. Every game, a spectacle.

Those words directly led to the creation of “light show” runouts for primetime games with a powerful orchestration of sights and sounds. You got sneak peeks at some of those runouts in the Madden NFL 26 Reveal Trailer with Baltimore, Buffalo, Kansas City, Minnesota, New Orleans, and Philadelphia. Near the start of that reveal trailer, Vikings legend Randy Moss is shown taking part in the Skol chant before he blows the Gjallarhorn at U.S. Bank Stadium. He’s one of a collection of NFL legends returning to their former teams to perform a pregame tradition.

Here are some other examples (the rest are being kept as a surprise):

• Rob Gronkowski ringing the bell in New England as the Keeper of the Light
• Greg Olsen returning to Carolina to bang the Keep Pounding drum
• Charles Woodson lighting the Al Davis Memorial Torch in Las Vegas
• Joe Montana blaring the foghorn in San Francisco

Some of the mascots also take part in traditions! For example, Big Red gets things fired up by cranking the Big Red Siren in Arizona. One of the most challenging traditions to pull off was Freddie Falcon doing his spectacular zip line stunt in Atlanta. Hat tip to our animators!

Close to home here in Florida (specifically, Tampa Bay) we finally see the cannons firing on the pirate ship in addition to hearing them! 

Stadium Music

We licensed 40+ songs from a variety of genres for stadium music. Some of these songs will be nostalgic for longtime Madden players! Personally, “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand takes us back to Madden 05 with Ray Lewis on the cover.

Our stadium songs include:

• Lil Uzi Vert “Just Wanna Rock”
• Beastie Boys “Sabotage”
• Chappel Roan “HOT TO GO!”
• Flo Rida ft. Kesha “Right Round”
• Foo Fighters “The Pretender”
• Metallica “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

Last year, we heard your feedback about the stadium songs being Off by default in the soundtrack, and fixed that in a title update. This year, we’re launching with all stadium songs set to On by default.

Speaking of settings, we’ve added one to allow you to customize your listening environment. Your options are:

• Headphones
• TV Speakers
• Soundbar
• Surround Sound

Same Field, New Faces 

The newly-hired coaches will be roaming the sidelines at launch:

• Ben Johnson
• Brian Schottenheimer
• Liam Coen
• Pete Carroll
• Mike Vrabel
• Kellen Moore
• Aaron Glenn

Notable rookies will also strap up their helmets in Madden NFL 26, with more likenesses coming throughout the season! 

• Ashton Jeanty
• Mason Graham
• Travis Hunter
• Jalon Walker
• Abdul Carter
• Tetairoa McMillan
• Kelvin Banks Jr
• Tyler Warren
• Tyler Booker
• Nic Scourton
• Mykel Williams
• Cam Ward
• Luther Burden III
• Jihaad Campbell
• Josh Simmons
• Will Johnson
• Emeka Egbuka
• Shemar Stewart
• Omarion Hampton
• Jahdae Barron
• Jaxson Dart
• Malaki Starks
• Grey Zabel
• Matthew Golden

(The Other) Gameday Experience

If you’ve read our Franchise Deep Dive Gridiron Notes, you know about the primetime broadcast packages coming to Madden NFL 26 for Thursday, Sunday, and Monday night games. Those primetime packages are among the many things we’ve done to expand upon the gameday experience in Madden. Now let’s talk about what we’ve done for the gameday experience of playing Madden.

It begins at Press Start, where the actual day of the week determines the song that’s heard. For example, if it’s a Thursday, you’ll hear our theme song for Thursday Night Primetime to set the stage. When you go to Play Now, you’ll see a Team Select screen with a night sky in the background to reinforce the Thursday Night theme for that particular day.

When you ready up your team, you’ll hear a sound effect or chant that’s specific to that franchise. For example, choose the Eagles and you might hear a snippet of “Fly, Eagles Fly.”

During that Play Now game on a Thursday, you’ll see and hear the custom broadcast package elements that are specific to Thursday Night Primetime. The default setting for Play Now is based on the real world calendar, but you can always choose one of the other broadcast packages.

Soundtrack

Last year, we were thrilled by the positive reception to our soundtrack. And we’ve got another special collection of tracks for Madden 26.

We’re targeting 30+ songs from various genres for the soundtrack. And when you consider the 40+ songs I mentioned earlier for stadium music, that’s at least 70 that’ll be available in our menus.

You’ll also find the theme songs that were composed for each primetime broadcast package in the soundtrack as well.

Whether it's mascots bringing the sidelines to life, legends returning for pregame traditions, or the thunder of your favorite stadium anthem echoing through your speakers, every stadium is a stage and every game is a spectacle. We can’t wait for you to experience it all when Madden NFL 26 kicks off. See you on the field!

MVP Bundle

Pre-order* the MVP Bundle by August 14  and receive:

• Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition
  • Madden NFL 26 3 Day Early Access
  • 4600 MUT points 
  • Bundle Exclusive MUT Item
  • Early Access Solo Challenges 
  • MUT Season 1 Elite Player Item (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items)
  • MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item 
  • Franchise Coach Ability Points 
  • Super Star Legendary XP Boost 
  • Player Card Exclusive Item 
• College Football 26 Deluxe Edition 
  • EA Sports College Football 26 3 Day Early Access
  • 4600 CUT points 
  • Bundle Exclusive CUT Item
  • Early Access Solo Challenges 
  • CUT Top Prospect Pack (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items)
  • CUT All Hands Pack (choice of 1 out of 2 items)
  • Dynasty Coach Points 
  • Road to Glory Skill Points 

Deluxe Edition Pre-Order

Pre-order* the EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 Deluxe Edition by July 24 and receive:

• 3 Day Early Access
• 4600 MUT points 
• Early Access Solo Challenges 
• Limited Time: Season 1 Elite Player Item (choice of 1 player item from select list of player items). Pre Order by July 24th. 
• MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item 
• Franchise Coach Ability Points 
• Super Star Legendary XP Boost 
• Player Card Exclusive Item 

Standard Edition Pre-Order

Pre-order* EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 26 today and receive:

• MUT Cover Athlete Elite Player Item
• Franchise Coach Ability Points
• Super Star Legendary XP Boost

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Madden NFL 26 launches worldwide on August 14, 2025. Pre-order the Madden NFL 26 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.