Madden 20 Pro Bowl, College Football Features Getting Mixed Reactions Early
When the new Madden 20 game arrives this summer, there are a number of new features to look forward to. Among them are the Madden 20 Pro Bowl making a return and an exciting college football feature built into the game. While both sound intriguing, so far these Madden 20 features are bringing mixed reactions from gamers.
Madden 20 Pro Bowl isn’t exactly new, or necessary
The NFL’s annual All-Star Game is the Pro Bowl, which has mostly been held in either Hawaii or Florida. That aspect of the professional league wasn’t a part of Madden 19 or several other previous installments. However, there will be a Madden 20 Pro Bowl and EA’s Madden is actively promoting that.
A tweet on Sunday (Apr. 28) with a short video clip promises the excitement of the Pro Bowl will be available in EA’s new game. It will be part of both “Play Now” and the “Franchise” mode which is popular in Madden titles.
Most likely, the Madden 20 Pro Bowl will involve the ability to customize rosters, although it’s possible the “Play Now” will simply feature this past year’s teams. As for the “Franchise” Pro Bowl, one has to speculate that it will be automatically selected based on how the season is going. The “Face of the Franchise” feature even points out one of the goals for your created QB is to “make the Pro Bowl” so that makes sense.
Most gamers on Twitter have been critical of EA for bringing this as part of the promotion. Some have mentioned the idea that this should’ve been a regular feature in each of the Madden titles. After all, the idea of the game is to provide a realistic football simulation.
Other games make the case for this feature being completely unnecessary compared to other features. That also is an interesting point, but since it’s part of each NFL season’s schedule of events, it makes sense to keep it “in the game.”
Madden 20 college football is limited but promising
College football hasn’t had a good title since EA Sports previously put out NCAA Football 2014. That game was actually released in 2013, though, so it’s been a six-year drought. However, there is the potential for a promising title with the upcoming Doug Flutie’s Maximum Football later this year. Even so, it won’t use any official college teams or their logos, jerseys, and players.
That sort of changes with the new Madden 20. It brings the “Face of the Franchise: QB1” campaign in which gamers will create their own quarterback. That QB doesn’t start as a rookie on an NFL team but will be leading a college team. There will be 10 of them in the game and they’ll be real schools rather than fictional ones. EA posted a few tweets or videos to promote the teams. There’s one for Clemson (below) and another for Oregon making the rounds.
Other college football teams in the game will include the Texas Tech Red Raiders, Oklahoma Sooners, LSU Tigers, Florida State Seminoles, Florida Gators, and South Carolina Gamecocks. Two of these 10 teams were part of the most recent College Football Playoffs with the Clemson Tigers capturing the National Championship. Notre Dame and Alabama are still missing.
In addition, this Madden college football feature won’t mean playing a full season, half, or even quarter season. Instead, it appears to be just two games. The College Football Playoffs consist of only four teams and two games so that seems to make sense.
That said, gamers are quickly pointing out that this school or that school are missing from the new feature. Even so, the fact there are 10 making their way into this upcoming title seems like a good step in the right direction. It could bode well for EA to bring out a worthy college football game in the future as they add more teams via licensing deals.
These are just two of the new features, and they’re about to get further analysis when Madden does their upcoming Twitch live streams for the community. By then, gamers may get an even clearer picture about these new, or returning, additions to the only viable NFL simulation game.
What do you think of the brand new Madden 20 Pro Bowl and college football features? Get more of the latest Madden news here.