Madden NFL 25 Player Sense Overview
A former college football player, Rex Dickson is a 17-year veteran of the game industry. Dickson, named EA SPORTS Tiburon’s first Creative Director for Central Gameplay as part of an initiative to triple the size of the Central Gameplay team, now leads a team of more than 40 people dedicated to creating the best football games on Earth.
Unlock the human element in Madden NFL 25 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 with all-new Player Sense, which gives players the intelligence to scan the field, anticipate situations before they happen, and maneuver with instincts and awareness.
Player sense combines the physical aspect of NFL football with the all-important mental game, as players make more than 50x the calculations to react to situations on the fly.
ON PLAYER AVOIDANCE
A big focus of Player Sense this year was the concept of “avoidance.” Players are going to be more aware of their surroundings, and a big part of that is the ability to avoid things like the sidelines and other blockers. Players can hop over defenders on the ground or tightrope the sidelines, all in an effort to avoid obstructions on the field.
ON CONTEXTUAL AWARENESS
The whole idea is that players are able to think for themselves and do smart things automatically. On Gen 3, players would often run into each other’s backs. Running backs would collide with their linemen and bust plays. Because we have all this horsepower on Gen 4 with EA SPORTS IGNITE, players will check every frame to see if they’re about to run into something. Players can check their feet, their waists, and what’s happening downfield to help them make decisions.
ON AUTO HURDLE AND DOWNFIELD BLOCKING
Because players can make all types of contextual decisions with EA SPORTS IGNITE, the development team has been able to add Auto Hurdle. In Gen 3, players could truck someone and then stumble over them. Now you can truck somebody and then automatically jump over them. Players are smart enough to recognize a player on the ground and then act with perfect sense of the situation.
We’ve also added the ability to point out blockers downfield. So if a ball carrier is looking ahead of him and recognizes a player 15 yards downfield, he can point out the defender to his blockers.
ON DEFENSIVE CONTEXTUAL AWARENESS
We’ve added the same contextual awareness to defensive players. On Xbox One and PlayStation 4, blitzing linebackers won’t get caught up on their own defensive linemen. The same goes for defensive backs. If a safety is coming over to help a corner, the two won’t collide into each other. Instead, one might extend his hand out in order to create some space and try to make a play.
ON RAIL TRACKS
The Rail Tracks system is a technology that incorporates elements of Player Sense and True Step Locomotion. This system projects a much more granular path to where the player wants to go when the ball is in the air. Players now break on the ball, and have the ability to swerve instead of taking different turns to get to the same point. It’s a much more granular prediction of how players can get where they want to go, which makes for more reactive ball play and a more realistic game.
Madden NFL 25 is available Tuesday, November 12 on PlayStation 4 and Tuesday, November 19 on Xbox One. Preorder today, and learn more about Madden NFL on Next Gen.
