The big headline you’re going to hear EA talk about in the lead-up to Madden NFL 26 is how this year’s game boasts “the biggest franchise update in over a decade.” You’ll likely hear some other outlets and content creators repeating this phrase, accepting it as true. You won’t read that here, though. Madden’s Franchise mode has been in a rough place for years now, and last year’s game taught me not to trust what I hear, only what I see for myself.

During a hands-off presentation of Madden’s next Franchise update at the EA Orlando campus, the team detailed all the things it’s adding to my favorite mode. Franchise is something I pour hundreds of hours into year after year, but my interest in the mode is sustained thanks to the fantastic and friendly league I’m in. If I needed the mode itself to keep me invested as a solo player, I’d play it far less, if at all. Madden has been improving on the field year after year lately, but Franchise remains a broken, frustrating experience, and I’m not willing to take EA at its word that this year’s update will be so beneficial.

Last year, one of the marquee new features coming to Madden 25 was the plethora of new storyline scenarios that could unfold in Franchise mode. Any given week, you might have a team meeting in which you need to gameplan for your opponent, a press conference with a feisty reporter pool, or a sideline chit-chat with a frustrated player. The idea was to infuse the game with true-to-life drama. It’s a fun idea on paper, but it was implemented incredibly, sometimes hilariously poorly.

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