Madden could be getting its own version of NBA 2K's The City

Every year, Madden gets a new entry with few changes. The annual launch adds graphical tweaks, updated rosters, and maybe a slightly new game mode. Beyond that, it’s been $70 for the same game with new players on the roster for several years now. That could change with a release in the near future, though.

Only so many game modes make sense for a football simulation like Madden or EA Sports College Football. There are only so many ways you can tweak the sport itself for different ways to play. Because of that, there haven’t been many groundbreaking additions lately, but one more might be coming soon.

NBA 2K has had an open-world mode called The City for a while, which makes the game feel like an MMO (kind of). According to recent reports, EA is looking into a similar mode for its football titles very soon.

EA says Madden and College Football will get an open-world mode

In a memo about the company’s future, EA promised that the Sports division would still get plenty of attention. The memo noted that EA Sports “continues to operate from a position of strength” and that the developers are “fully committed and investing in the global growth of our FC franchise and across the full EA Sports portfolio”.

Specifically, this means the return of Fight Night and the implementation of something for the football games codenamed Project Gridiron. It was described as a “brand-new, social-first open-world experience,” which sounds very much like NBA 2K‘s The City.

Based on reports from Insider Gaming, Project Gridiron is not a new thing. It has been in development for some time. Evidently, it was workshopped alongside The Grounds, which is the EA FC 27 equivalent of The City. In other words, it gives us a clear picture of what EA Sports has in mind for the future of Madden and College Football.

Most interestingly, EA referred to it as an “experience,” which makes it unclear whether the company plans to make it a paid DLC add-on, a standalone game, or just another mode in the existing annual titles. The FC 27 mode suggests it will be in the existing game, though.

Big day for EA

This follows another kind of announcement from EA. The company closed BioWare, one of its longest-running studios that worked on games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. There was another Mass Effect title coming that got canceled.

It had been a while since BioWare released something beloved and highly profitable, and now that’s the name of the game above all else. Madden, meanwhile, is ridiculously profitable. Historically, the football simulation ranks 15th in sales. It ties The Legend of Zelda and ranks ahead of series like Sonic the Hedgehog and Monster Hunter.