Madden 25 Following in College Football's Steps With Upgraded Playbooks

One of the biggest reasons EA Sports College Football 25 is enjoyable on the field is the playbooks. Based on a recent video from content creator Civil, I think Madden 25 is also benefiting from those same changes.

When Madden 25 early access starts later today, I don’t expect to see 30+ entirely new playbooks or anything, but it’s absolutely true Madden has been too slow to add new plays for many years. There have been times where promises have been made about more plays being added — even via post-launch updates — but it’s never really ended up panning out.

But whatever new tool EA has implemented has clearly helped speed things up this year. I doubt EA would have been able to add as many playbooks as they did to College Football 25 without some tech upgrades, and the knock-on effect seems to be Madden 25 will now get those benefits as well.

I think some have a perception that a lot of the coolest plays and formations come from college, and at one point that may have been more true than not, but there’s enough offensive gurus kicking around in the NFL now that a lot of teams have some really innovative plays and unique looks.

With that in mind, it’s not surprising to see the Dolphins featured prominently in this video due to the motion-based offense they run, but some of the usual suspects like the Chiefs and Niners also pop up. The Texans, Lions, Browns, Bills, Ravens, Commanders, and Cardinals also make appearances, which sort of proves that many playbooks have at least been touched up. If you have been playing a lot of College Football, then some of this should also be familiar because there are some double passes in this video.

We’ll have to wait and see how nimble the developers are with post-launch updates to the playbooks (they are promising them once again this year), and a post-launch patch will add custom audibles that stick game to game that could also enrich playcalling further.

Madden 25 releases on August 16, and early access begins on Monday at 4 p.m. EST.