Madden NFL 20 is an American football video game based on the National Football League (NFL), developed by EA Tiburon and published by Electronic Arts. The latest installment in the long-running Madden NFL series, the game was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows on August 2, 2019. It features Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes as the cover athlete. Mahomes became the second player after Rob Gronkowski to win a Super Bowl the same season they were on the Madden cover.
Servers for the game were shut down on April 15, 2024.
Development[]
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and 2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes was unveiled as the cover athlete alongside the game's announcement on April 25, 2019, becoming the first Chiefs player to be the cover athlete. The soundtrack includes 22 original tracks written specifically for the game, a first for the Madden franchise. Featured artists include Sage the Gemini, Denzel Curry, Joey Badass, Jay Park, Snoop Dogg, and Saweetie.
Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis are the in-game announcers, and Jonathan Coachman is the studio halftime and pregame host. The big new feature is the Superstar x factor Abilities.
Gameplay[]
Madden NFL 20 features a new "personalized career campaign" known as QB 1, Face of the franchise. following the journey of a player-created college quarterback from their participation in the College Football Playoff, to being drafted by an NFL team. Ten licensed college teams (Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Florida, LSU, Oregon USC, Texas, Oklahoma and Texas Tech) from the ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC, are available in this mode. The mode acts as an updated version of the "Superstar Mode", where the player would take their custom player and control them throughout a career, which was featured from Madden NFL 06 until its removal in Madden NFL 25.
In September 2019, EA Sports introduced another mode called Superstar KO, as part of the game's first "season". In each round, each team plays a drive from their own 25-yard line to score a touchdown and a two-point conversion. If teams draw, the round is decided over a "tug-of-war", where each team does three plays, and the team that advances furthest wins the round. After each round, the winner can draft a player from the rival's team. EA continued with including accessibility features for blind and visually impaired end users. Not least among these is menu narration, in which options are spoken aloud as the player navigates to them using synthesized speech. As part of his voice role for the game, Brandon advises via the game intro concerning accessibility settings and how to reach them. Other settings like image contrast and color-blind friendly settings are also available. While the majority of menus are narrated, some menus deep in franchise, for example, are not narrated. An example of this is when you are scouting college players, or are trying to purchase free agents or when you are attempting to complete the training. These are some of the gaps in coverage.
This was the last game in the series to feature the Oakland Raiders as the team moved to Las Vegas after the 2019 NFL season as well as the last game to feature the Washington Redskins as they changed their name to Washington Football Team due to their controversial logo.
Release[]
The game was released on August 2, 2019. It was able to be accessed three days prior on July 30 by those players who purchased the "Superstar" or "Ultimate Superstar" editions of the game, which included packs and special abilities.
Reception[]
According to review aggregator website Metacritic, Madden NFL 20 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics for the console versions and "mixed or average" reviews for the PC.
IGN gave the game an 8.1/10 and wrote: "Madden NFL 20's new superstar players and control refinements make its moment-to-moment gameplay the best the series has seen this console generation, but areas like Franchise have been left behind." In its 8/10 review, GameSpot wrote that "Madden NFL 20 is an improved version of the annualized professional football series that excels in some areas and leaves something to be desired in others."
GamesRadar+ praised the updated story mode in comparison to Longshot and the addition of the X-factor players, saying that the game "clears the roster and properly initiates the rebuilding phase for football's first franchise," although noted Franchise mode again felt neglected. Game Revolution, which gave Madden NFL 20 a 3/5, also praised the X-factor addition, saying stars felt "bigger than ever", but was equally disappointed with the lacking in Franchise mode. Game Informer gave the game a 7.5/10, summarizing its review with: "New features can only do so much for a series that needs work in multiple areas."
In a scathing review, Shacknews gave the game a 4/10, calling it "the worst major sports league video game out there," criticizing EA for only making marginal improvements to previous installments.
MUT content[]
The Ultimate Team mode of Madden NFL 20 was criticized often for its lack of 99 OVR cards for many top tier superstars, with the final content being released on July 7, 2020.
Also because of the early end and lack of content, Snoop Dogg called out EA through a tweet after EA announced that the July 7, 2020 release of the Power Up Expansions would be the last one.
Server shutdown[]
Announcement regarding the closure of servers
On September 2024, the EA Online Service Update page was changed to announce that Madden NFL 20 servers are closing down. The shutdown was set for April 15, 2024.
On October 15, 2024, a notice was shown to players upon opening the game while online, showing players that the online services were scheduled to close down on April 15, 2024.
Points purchases were turned off on January 15, 2024 (3 months before the servers shut down), and the game servers were discontinued on the scheduled date at 6:00 PM PHT (6:00 AM EST/5:00 AM CT).