EA introduces several new key plays into its football franchise, with Madden 17 giving players the power to “go from opening day to the super bowl in just a weekend.”
The star in the line-up of new features is the Play the Moments mechanic, which will present itself in the game’s franchise mode. Essentially acting as an in-game equivalent of the NFL RedZone channel, Play the Moments will allow players to hop in and play out key events in certain games.
EA Tiburon’s John White said: “A 17-week season is a long time, and people love the playoffs, people love the draft and the off-season… we wanted to make sure people get to experience all of that as well.”
The feature will be entirely optional whilst playing Franchise mode against the CPU. Match simulations will stop at key points in the game and invite players to jump in and play out these pivotal moments.
Another new addition will be the Game-planning screen, which is an upgraded version of the Drill Suite featured in older games. This will allow players to “tailor their strategy to amplify their team’s strengths and attack their opponent’s weaknesses.” This tweaked layer of strategy comes with the added incentive of in-game attribute boosts to all players on the team. These boosts actually become permanent if the player reaches gold-level for that particular drill.
Big Decisions will also feature as part of the coaching duties. These will be decisions with risk reward factors like “important personnel decisions such as bringing players back from injury, signing free agents, negotiating new contracts and more.” Part of this feature will also involve setting season goals for the team, with XP bonuses rewarded for reaching them.
These feature additions will arrive alongside smaller and more subtly immersive ones. Now, during Franchise games, a score ticker along the bottom will scroll across the screen in real-time, alerting you to other events and scores. If you’re in a league with other human players, this feature will present scores and alerts from their games as well. “It pulls you in more, like you’re watching the game on Sunday, and it makes you feel like you’re in a league with other people,” White said.
Madden NFL 17 launches August 23rd for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
