Madden NFL 25 debuted on Steam on August 16, and it does not appear to be going over very nicely. Widespread complaints embody poor efficiency, insufficient controller assist, and frequent crashes. There may be one vibrant spot amidst all of the upset, although: It does not appear to be faring worse than another Madden NFL sport on Steam.
The Steam model of Madden NFL 25 at present holds a “blended” person score, with simply 57% of the person opinions coming in optimistic. Even among the many optimistic opinions, a sure lack of enthusiasm is detectable.
“It is soccer,” one Steam person wrote. “It scratches the itch, particularly since we had been robbed of CFB/NCAA [College Football 25, which isn’t available on PC]. Going from [Madden NFL] ’23 to ’25 myself I haven’t got many complaints, the brand new options are fairly cool and all.”
One other described it as “the very best iteration in current reminiscence,” however in contrast it to ordering a pizza from Little Caesars. “You eat it as a result of it is acquainted, near your home, and it is simply one thing you do. On occasion you get a pie from there and also you suppose to your self, ‘Wow, that is nonetheless crap nevertheless it’s undoubtedly higher than it usually is’.”
Concurrent participant numbers on Steam aren’t nice both: Based on SteamDB, the concurrent participant depend peaked at 4,380, which appears awfully small for a sequence of Madden’s reputation. That is not the whole thing of the Madden inhabitants on PC—it is also out there on the Epic Video games Retailer and the EA App—however I do not suppose it is unreasonable to say that Steam very possible makes up the majority of it.
That is particularly fascinating due to EA’s lengthy historical past of not releasing a few of its greatest sports activities video games on PC. Former EA Sports activities chief Peter Moore stated in 2008 (through the Wayback Machine) that the demand for sports activities video games on PC had “declined quickly” within the face of rising console reputation, whereas the PC market as a complete was rife with piracy. For the Madden NFL sequence, that spelled the tip of the video games on PC for greater than a decade: Madden NFL 19 was the primary to come back to PC since Madden 08.
(Sarcastically, though which may not be the correct phrase for it, whereas the Madden sequence was absent from PC it continued to be out there for years on Blackberry gadgets. Make of that what you’ll.)
In gentle of that, it is tempting to marvel if Moore was proper. I do not suppose the piracy argument holds water, however perhaps the “actual” Madden viewers is on console. However perhaps there is a purpose for that: Possibly it is also attainable that the PC variations of the Madden video games simply aren’t superb. Not being a Madden follower myself, I assumed at first that this yr’s version was an aberration, however in actual fact it is completely according to the opposite video games within the sequence on Steam. Dare to match:
Madden NFL 25: 57% optimistic person opinions, 4,380 peak concurrent participant countMadden NFL 24: 46% optimistic person opinions, 9,526 peak concurrent participant countMadden NFL 23: 54% optimistic person opinions, 6,169 peak concurrent participant countMadden NFL 22: 57% optimistic person opinions, 5,602 peak concurrent participant countMadden NFL 21: 50% optimistic person opinions, 3,226 peak concurrent participant depend
You may also recall that Madden NFL 24 was the primary sport in years to carry the current-gen model to PC: Previous to that, the PC releases had been ports of previous-gen (PlayStation 4/Xbox One) console variations, and had been accordingly sub-par. So yeah, perhaps most individuals who play Madden go for it on console quite than PC—and it positive does not appear like EA is overly considering doing something about it.
