I play a whole lot of hours of Madden NFL yearly, however one factor I have never executed in almost 20 years is play Madden on a Nintendo platform. To my recollection, the final time I performed the sequence on a Nintendo system was Madden 08. After that, I switched to enjoying the sport on Xbox consoles, and I’ve by no means seemed again, as Xbox grew to become my most popular platform. Only a few years after I stop Madden on Nintendo, EA Sports activities stop Madden on Nintendo, too. However the Swap 2 guarantees a brand new starting for Madden on Nintendo platforms, and primarily based on a Madden 26 demo I performed on Swap 2, that future could also be brighter than the pairing’s lackluster previous.
The final Madden sport launched for a Nintendo gadget was Madden 13, launched in August 2012 for the Wii and Wii U. After that, EA stopped supporting the platform with its American soccer sport, seemingly as a result of technical limitations made it untenable to proceed. Within the Wii and Wii U period, the video games routinely underperformed critically, supplied fewer new options than their counterparts on Xbox and PlayStation, and carried out worse graphically. I performed a sport of Madden 26 on Swap 2 in handheld mode–I did not see it docked–and although it did seem like a graphical step down from what I later performed on PS5, nothing else about it felt compromised by the platform.
Even within the case of the visible downgrade, it was no totally different than what I would anticipate if I had been to play Madden 26 on my Steam Deck. Handhelds nonetheless include the baked-in understanding that you simply’re dropping a little bit of luster for the comfort of the expertise, and understanding that, I used to be in a position to take pleasure in Madden 26 on Swap 2.
The heftier Swap 2 felt higher in my fingers than the unique Swap, and I used to be glad to see that Madden 26 gives function and mode parity with the opposite variations. Now not did it appear to be “Madden, however…” The older Nintendo video games had been so typically Madden, however with out the brand new physics engine, or Madden, however with out the foundational sim gameplay. I noticed throughout my session that I had initially sat down with some skepticism, but it surely evaporated throughout my Pats-Chiefs conflict. Madden 26 on Swap 2 appears to be, nicely, Madden.
To the extent that Madden 26 could include its personal set of issues, it at the least would not appear to be I can pin the difficulty on Nintendo because the accountable social gathering. Having stated that, I undoubtedly nonetheless wish to see extra of the sport earlier than I finalize my opinion. I would love to do a comparability of loading occasions, each from menu to gameplay and likewise from menu to menu, as Madden’s laggy menus are a legacy ache for the sequence on any platform. However at the least now I’ve seen for myself that after I step onto the sphere with Madden for Swap 2, I am not being requested to compromise on both my soccer know-how or the sport’s mechanical depth.
I play Madden in a enjoyable, pleasant, but nonetheless aggressive league of 32 gamers (which you’ll be able to join right here), and for these video games, I wish to play on an enormous display screen. I additionally choose Xbox’s customary button structure over Nintendo’s–which feels backward in my thoughts and price me two interceptions in my demo–so I will not be making Swap 2 my go-to platform for Madden this 12 months. However as a result of the sport not appears like a port with lacking items, I can undoubtedly see a future the place I might get the sport on Xbox and Swap 2 if EA supplied cross-save performance. In fact, for that, I would additionally must observe down a Swap 2, however you get it.
To have the ability to handle my roster, play follow mode, signal free brokers, and give my faux gamers cool names on the go could be greater than sufficient to get me to purchase into the Swap 2 model as a second possibility. And for gamers who truly do choose Swap’s button structure and would enthusiastically play it in handheld mode, this appears like the primary Nintendo-based Madden that holds as much as different platform variations in twenty years.
For extra on Madden 26, take a look at my impressions on the finest function the sport gives (and took from Faculty Soccer 25), and be taught how the sport needed to change for one very particular rookie.
