Conclusion
Verdict
If you're a new player jumping into the world of video game football, you're in luck. All the basic functions are there, and you'll be able to play a fun game of football with your favorite team. In fact, with Ultimate Team, you can play with your favorite individual players, like an interactive fantasy league. Beginners will want to tweak the defense settings down a bit, and experienced players will probably want to start on at least All-Pro. Once you get used to the new defensive tweaks, Pro (Normal) gets easy pretty quickly.
This is not the Super Bowl of football games the way you'd want a 25th anniversary to be, as EA is likely saving its best effort for next-gen console editions of "Madden 25" in November. To use a football analogy, "Madden 25" is at least a 10-6 wild card team, though, and maybe that's all you can expect at the end of a console cycle from a yearly franchise.
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