''Madden NFL 15'' is an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

sports video game based on the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

and published by

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they imitated real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) ...

. The game was announced for the

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PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

on April 28, 2014. It was released on August 26, 2014, in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and three days later in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. As in previous years, EA Sports conducted a fan vote via

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

to elect the cover athlete for the game. Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman won the cover vote and the rest of the Legion of Boom defense was featured on the game's start menu. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are based on the previous game, '' Madden NFL 25''.

Cover vote

Due to the late release of the game, EA created a much smaller bracket than the previous years with a cover vote. It featured a 169-player bracket with offensive and defensive players. On June 6, 2014, Seattle Seahawks

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover Wide receiver, receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such Play from scrimmage, offensive running plays as sweep ...

Richard Sherman was announced as the official cover athlete. Also featured in the bracket were Alshon Jeffery,

Jimmy Graham Jimmy Graham (born November 24, 1986) is an American professional American football, football tight end. He was selected by the New Orleans Saints in the third round of the 2010 NFL draft. Graham has also been a member of the Seattle Seahawks, G ...

, Demaryius Thomas, Luke Kuechly,

Colin Kaepernick Colin Rand Kaepernick ( ; born November 3, 1987) is an American civil rights activist and former professional football quarterback. He played six seasons for the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League (NFL). In 2016, he gained na ...

, Nick Foles,

Cam Newton Cameron Jerrell Newton (born May 11, 1989) is an American former professional American football, football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons, primarily with the Carolina Panthers. He is the NFL le ...

, Antonio Brown, Jamaal Charles, A. J. Green, LeSean McCoy, T. Y. Hilton, Andrew Luck, Eddie Lacy and Alfred Morris. The official cover image was released on the NFL's

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page.

Development

The game was announced in late April 2014. It was shown in a release video featuring Carolina Panthers linebacker and Defensive Player of the Year Luke Kuechly. The game was further detailed at

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014 The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014 (E3 2014) was the 20th E3 held. The event took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. It began on June 10, 2014, and ended on June 12, 2014, with 48,900 total attendees. Maj ...

; a particular emphasis was placed on improvements to defensive play. Creative director Rex Dickson noted that many players had difficulties with the

pass rush On defense in gridiron football, a pass rush is charging across the line of scrimmage towards the quarterback in an effort to stop or " sack" them. The purpose is tackling, hurrying or flushing the quarterback out of his protective pocket or th ...

and tackling. The "player lock" camera from '' NCAA Football 14'' was added, along with a cone (similar to the controversial "QB Vision" cone from '' Madden NFL 06'') to determine whether or not a player can make a non-aggressive tackle against a player from their current location. In an effort to improve the presentation of the game, Brian Murray, who was mentored by NFL Films' Steve Sabol and was a consultant on previous editions, was given a new role as "Presentation Director" for the game. The game builds uses technology introduced in previous installments. It introduces a new "global dynamic camera system" to enhance the game's "broadcasts" and provide a professional touch with more details. Improvements include replacement of pre-rendered "post-play" cut scenes with dynamic scenes featuring players interacting naturally, and can respond to references of players by commentators with relevant camera shots and on-screen graphics along with the revival of the halftime show. Jumbotrons in stadiums now display scenes generated by the dynamic cameras (as opposed to generic splash screens or the same camera angle in use), and NFL teams also provided the graphics they use for their respective screens and ribbon displays. Following Ray Rice's indefinite suspension on September 8, 2014, EA Sports announced that he would be completely removed from the game. His card in Madden Ultimate Team was renamed Baltimore Halfback #25.

Release

The game was released in North America on August 26, 2014, for

and

Soundtrack

Madden NFL 15's menu music was once again an original orchestrated score, composed by Mark Petrie. The soundtrack was reused in Madden NFL 16 and Madden NFL 17.

Reception

''Madden NFL 15'' was met with mostly positive reviews from critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the game has scores of 80 and 82 on

and

, respectively (both score higher than the respective scores of 73 and 74 that '' Madden NFL 25'' received).

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

gave the game a score of 8.7/10, praising the graphics and improved gameplay, while noting the mediocre commentary, but said that it is both "exciting and reassuring" that EA Sports is not wasting opportunities to improve the series. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of ''Madden NFL 15'' received backlash for removing certain features; online team play was the most notable omission, forcing users to play only 1v1 games. In a review for gaming website

Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017 and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. Histor ...

, Steven Hansen called the last-gen versions an "extra scummy ripoff" that tends to run poorly due to slow loading times and a "clunky" UI. Hansen also noted the absence of the defensive view and player lock features that were in the PS4 and Xbox One versions. Hansen summed up his review by declaring the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions "junky, janky and inferior". During the 18th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated ''Madden NFL 15'' for " Sports Game of the Year". ''Madden NFL 15'' was the second best-selling retail game in the United States in 2014, behind '' Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare''.

References

External links

* * {{Portal bar, American football, Video games, border=no 2014 video games EA Sports games Madden NFL PlayStation 3 games PlayStation 4 games Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Mark Petrie Video games set in the United States Xbox 360 games Xbox One games EA Tiburon games