Check out our accompanying impressions video here.

Madden NFL 16 was released yesterday and after a full day of playing the game, with just over 10 games in for me personally, it’s a good time to share some gameplay pros and cons. We’ll have more on the gameplay in our full review coming up later this week….

Pros

• The new QB accuracy settings give more variance between great, good, and poor QBs. I’ve seen both the AI and myself completely whiff on passes which shouldn’t be guarantees. I do think on the lower difficulty levels especially, passes are still too accurate. But much better.
• The DB/WR jostling and new animations were a long time coming, long overdue. The strategy and split second decisions you now have to make are an entirely new dimension to the game. It makes playing DB rather fun now as well.
• The run game has continued to improve. Blocking seems to be more on point than ever, and holes close and open up with rather realistic results.
• It seems to me that most routes are working as they should. I haven’t gotten to play enough of the game to say that for sure, but I haven’t noticed anything that’s a game breaker.
• DB AI is so much better too. I’ve played around in practice and haven’t found any obvious exploits on routes yet. They may exist (and someone will probably tell me what works in the comments) — but it seems coverage is done much better this year.
• The line play is improved as well, especially with regard to playing DE. Last year was sack city, this year that has been cleaned up a lot. You can still get to the QB but you have to use the mechanics introduced last year in a smart manner where the timing works.
• The pass catching mechanics are also implemented as such that they don’t dominate the game like the pass rush mechanics did last year.

Cons

• The crazy catches are a tad too frequent, but a slight bit of tuning will mean that goes away.
• One-on-one tackles aren’t perfect still, and the broken tackles sometimes look a little silly.
• The special teams return game is still just so very basic. For as much effort and attention to detail EA put into the various aspects of the game, it is a little disappointing to see special teams treated with so much indifference.
• The A.I. still does some questionable things. I point out a throw by Bridgewater in the video, and while that may actually be a realistic decision a young QB may make, the fact both teams were throwing so much in the snow isn’t a positive. The run game is still abandoned too quickly IMO, even though if the CPU does find success it’ll keep it part of the gameplay. So better in some ways, still bad in others.
• CPU clock management still leaves a bit to be desired. Peyton Manning threw to a back with 14 seconds to go and no timeouts just outside of FG range and the Broncos ran the clock out on accident and I stole the win. I think its better, but still not what I’d called close to perfect.

Bottom Line

We’ve gone from talking about big picture issues in Madden like a lack of DB/WR interactions, and the lack of realistic blocking schemes and coverage schemes, to talking about much finer and minute pieces of the game. That in and of itself should tell you how the gameplay has progressed over the last several years. While you can still find some things to gripe about, the game is light years of where it was entering this generation — a sign of true progress for the franchise.

Look for our full review later this week!