Madden NFL 23 Reviews
Madden NFL 23 honors its namesake in nearly every facet of the game, but the highly-touted FieldSense is overcomplicated and detracts from what should have been a fun and heartfelt tribute to the great John Madden.
EA's latest gridiron sim makes big gains on the field, but barely inches forward off it
Madden 23 is still Madden, but little more. If you've been wanting an NFL game that offers something wholly new, or one that can match the NBA 2K series for production values, then this isn't the place to find it. However, there's some key incremental improvements happening here which make Madden 23 a tighter, more engaging experience for fans, and one which will happily see you through this year's NFL season.
Madden NFL ’23 is one of those years that if you skipped it, you wouldn’t really be missing anything. The additions to the Face of the Franchise mode aren’t significant enough to drop last year’s iteration and start again here, and that goes for any of the modes. The one big feature, FieldSENSE, didn’t live up to the hype, and even if it isn’t a setback, it didn’t improve upon the main things that annoy me.
The latest entry in the Madden franchise manages to keep the core elements that made the saga great and introduces solid new features that might not be game-changers now, but they could surely become that in the future.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
EA has shown that it has listened to fans of the franchise after the bad feedback of the last two years and has brought small changes that give more options for how to play the classic American football simulator. The graphical improvements in the new generation are very sharp and the amount of bugs has decreased. The game modes are pretty much the same and the small changes don't sustain interest for long.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Stripping away the flash with a bigger focus on the core basics, Madden NFL 23 feels like a breath of fresh air. It's still a series lacking an identity right now, but this year's entry is the course correction the series has desperately needed.
Madden NFL 23 feels a lot like previous entries in the series, although it's a pretty good football game overall.
Madden NFL 23 has some good new ideas, but is mostly more of the same. The graphics and presentation are fine, but only just. The football appears to have a mind of its own sometimes, while commentators don’t always have a response to the on-field action that makes sense. If Franchise mode is where you spend your time, then you are likely to enjoy the changes. Outside of that, though, Madden 23 feels awfully familiar.
For what it is, Madden 23 will please veterans looking to prolong their videogame NFL careers in yet another season of play. The homage to the late John Madden is certainly a nice touch. On the other hand, a more welcoming presentation to newcomers would have worked to the game’s favor. As it stands, those just coming out of the draft might find themselves feeling lost as there’s not nearly enough in the way of easing in players who don’t have at least some passing familiarity with the series and how it plays.
Madden NFL 23 is the best gridiron game on PS5 to date, but the series is taking toe-taps forward rather than big, confident strides. There's no doubt that both Franchise and Face of the Franchise are better this year, and we like the improvements to the run game and the addition of precision passing. But is this enough for a series that's been accused of stagnation over the past decade? It feels like EA Sports is settling for the easy five-yard gains, rather than the deep ball down the field.
Madden NFL 22 is like a roller coaster". That's what I wrote last year in my review. 365 days after, I must repeat myself, going from NFL 22 to 23. Madden NFL 23 is a game that can be compared to a roller coaster. You go up with FieldSENSE, you go down with a problematic AI. You go up with new features in almost all game modes, you go down after experiencing bugs and glitches. There are steps forward made since the last videogame, and the direction taken by the developers is the right one, but there is still work to do to reach levels of excellence.
Review in Italian | Read full review
While this year’s Madden will always feel somewhat bittersweet due to John’s passing, I think that it was beyond perfect that the best version of Madden football would be the one that was made to honor the legacy of its namesake. From the factoids that I learned about Coach, to the superb presentation and soundtrack throughout the entire game, to the fantastic on field play; this years Madden as far as I am concerned has finally broken free of the 2K series and has gone all the way!
Madden NFL 23 has given me hope in this franchise in moving forward. Although there are some issues that may be fixed with some patches, there are many other changes that led this installment to be the best Madden game in years. And, of course, with the introduction of the new fieldSENSE system that is becoming a revelation to the franchise, it’s no wonder why this is the case. Also, with the new NFL season coming soon, this will surely be an excellent year for the players.
In the third year of the franchise on the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, one would think that Madden would really round into form and solidify itself for a renaissance. Yet, it still looks and feels like a game that is missing quite a bit.
Like a scratched record, then, we end our review of Madden NFL 23 like we have the last few releases. That’s by saying that with its numerous incremental improvements, it’s the best Madden yet. But as ever, unless you’re an ardent fan who knows the series like the back of their hand, it’s an inessential purchase if you have last year’s offering. Or perhaps even the one before that. In terms of what’s actually new here, there’s very little. And even less of monumental value.
Madden NFL 23 has good fundamentals and fun gameplay, but the game-as-a-service elements and micropayments end up affecting the final producto.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Maybe a release every other year with DLC and roster updates in between? You can still charge for that stuff. My greatest sadness is that this product makes me anxious about what EA Sports College Football will be like. If it's anything like the new Madden, it'll be a decent time on the field and a slog in the dynasty mode, with everything geared toward getting players to pay for digital trading cards.
On PC, Madden 23 makes a couple of decent changes to the established formula, but not enough to truly move the chains for the series
With the introduction of FieldSENSE, Madden NFL 23 represents a turning point for the series, on next-generation consoles. A few technical smears still remain, and we hope they will be promptly fixed, but the homage to the great John Madden and the innovations in gameplay make it definitely recommended to all fans of this sport.
Review in Italian | Read full review