Madden NFL 24: New Franchise, MUT & Gameplay Features

There is already some information about the new features in Madden NFL 24, especially the franchise mode has been reworked by EA.

Madden nfl 24 josh allen cover
All the new features in Madden NFL 24! | © EA

The Madden NFL 24 Deluxe Edition just got released! Do you have Early Access? We have all the info on the new Franchise and Gameplay features for Madden NFL 24.

Taking the spotlight as the cover star of EA Sports' newest football simulation is Josh Allen, the highly regarded quarterback of the Buffalo Bills and one of the NFL's most promising talents.

As more information about the upcoming Madden game surfaces, anticipation continues to build. EA has already revealed some exciting new features, but what truly intrigues us is the valuable insight shared by beta testers.

Madden NFL 23, its predecessor, was an overall successful game, albeit lacking in attention to detail. While the gameplay was largely enjoyable, there were some questionable mechanics from EA. One major drawback of Madden NFL 23 was its servers, which hopefully have been addressed by the North American team.


Madden NFL 24: Release Date And Crossplay

Madden NFL 24 is scheduled to be released on August 18, 2023. That's about three weeks before the NFL season starts. Via Early Access you can already play Madden NFL 24 from August 15, 2023. The game will be released for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

EA Sports has also announced that crossplay will be introduced for the first time in the game's history. With this, Madden is following the lead of FIFA 23. However, crossplay will only be available for the next-gen, i.e. PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. The reason for this is that the different games of the console generations are not compatible. For the PS5, completely different mechanics are used that cannot be implemented at all in the old-gen consoles.

New Franchise Features

Franchise has been the most popular game mode in Madden for years. Here you can either lead your favorite team to the Super Bowl on your own and offline or play it out with 31 other players online. The focus here is on developing the team and developing the young talents and rookies. EA Sports has lacked some creativity in the past, but that could improve with Madden NFL 24.

Reddit User "electhell" played the Madden NFL 24 beta version and gave us his opinion on various new features:

  • Unique coaching trees: Every coordinator has scheme specific upgrades trees that are in unique combos making it even more important to find a coordinator who's a good fit for your team.
  • XP and regression sliders have even more customization: You can now pick exactly how much extra or less XP you earn at each age and position. You can also pick how bad regression affects players of a certain age and at a certain position allowing you to feel the short lifespans of RB and longer careers of QB's.
  • Training Camp: Week 1 of pre season allows you to go through mini games that earn your players skills points and offer extra snaps for your hidden dev rookies. It's a bit tedious but the mini games are challenging and very rewarding. You can also continue to do mini games with your focus trained players.
  • New trading system: there is a slider that changes the difficulty of trading and putting it on very hard is very realistic. It's essentially impossible to trade for the number 1 pick without breaking the bank big time and the CPU seems to have a decent trade logic with some questionable offers at times. You can also put a package into the trade finder and it will show you if teams have any interest in your package. The trade block is quite a bit more organized to find players.
  • Simulation stats: The sims feel semi realistic and don't hold back rushing QB's anymore as Justin fields was a top 10 rusher for a few straight years in the simulation. The right players always seem to be leading their categories. The playbooks don't seem to affect the teams, but low rated teams would make playoffs more often than they should. The simulation also sims at a WAY faster rate.
  • New relocations: There are quite a few new cities to go to and all teams to pick from. The relocation is instant now instead of a whole season. You also no longer have to be an owner to relocate. You get to have a home field advantage but they are not city specific and are often generic "gains more momentum" type of abilities.
  • Updated news feed: News feed looks cooler not really important but cool enough to worth noting
  • Contracts restructuring and negotiations: You're able to negotiate with every player who needs a contract right away now instead of having to wait for a specific week. 5th year option appear on this screen now instead of as a scenario which means owners can access them now as well. The contract restructuring is a bit boring as it's only a button push and you get no real say in how the money is actually divided out, but it does manage to free up cap so it's not totally useless. There is also slider for how much you want a players motivations to effect where they go.
  • Player customization: This was a bit buggy in the beta but from what I could see the gear was quite customizable. It seemed like you were able to equip unique equipment that you unlock for your avatar kinda like The Yard. This means special mouthpieces and backplates with designs on them. It's hard to say if this will actually be the case as it was a hard feature to use without it crashing my system. Hopefully it's fixed but it shows potential.
  • Off season: There are sliders to change how many players you can negotiate with in free agency at each stage but other than that the off season remains largely untouched.
  • Drafting and scouting: This is exactly the same as last year, but there is a slider to change how strong or weak specific positions are in that years draft class.
  • Superstar Abilities: There are no new abilities in the game, but superstars can now have three abilities at 75, 85, and 90 OVR and X-Factor players can have four abilities, the last at 95 OVR. WR can get acrobat which allows diving catches but I have yet to see it actually work. RB's can get goalline back which was in MUT last year and gets you better blocking within 5 yards of the goalline.
  • CPU difficulty: I play on all Madden simulation and am a very good player. The CPU torched me quite a bit as most of my games were shootouts and the great players really made a difference. It was a nice challenge that I wasn't used to.

These are really interesting points and insights that electhell gives us here. The training camp could be a nice new element, and we are also very excited about the new ability slots for superstars and X-Factors. Abilities have always been a gamechanger. This could now mean - as electhell has already hinted at - that the best players in the league make even more of a difference than they already do on the field and ingame.

New Gameplay In Madden NFL 24

In Madden NFL 24, the development team remains dedicated to our core players, placing emphasis on three essential areas:

  • Heightened Realism: Experience an even greater level of authenticity with the next evolution of FieldSENSE™, providing an enhanced sense of realism on the field.
  • Intelligent AI: Numerous improvements have been made to Foundational Football, particularly in the areas of opposing QB's, run blocking, and pass coverage. The AI has been made smarter and more intuitive to deliver a more challenging and realistic gameplay experience.
  • Immersive Gameplay: Immerse yourself deeper into the game with the introduction of new SAPIEN Technology and upgraded Gameday Emotion features. These enhancements aim to provide a more immersive and emotionally engaging experience for players.

Soon you will find a detailed article about all the new gameplay features here on EarlyGame. Until then you can listen to feedback from the beta:

Reddit not only provides details on the franchise mode, but also on other innovations in the game. The beta tester electhell comments on the gameplay:

This Madden offered some new tackle animations that are very cool but also make for some wonky plays. It's the right idea but a botched execution. LBs felt like they could actually make plays on the ball and corners were actually good a covering their zones even corner routes. I found that safeties drifted according to coverage and were helpful over the top rather than being so stiff. There's a few more drops than there should be and still some weird WR/CB animations when the ball is in the air but nothing that's galring worse than the past. The blocking is noticeably much better and every player on your team will try to find someone to block. The announcers are still mid and still some recycled commentary. Overall the gameplay is like a C to B range with a lot of cool additions but still some issues with how smooth every animation is.

That sounds promising, and maybe EA will be able to improve the gameplay and fix the remaining bugs before the game's release.

MUT In Madden NFL 24

EA has finally filled us in on the latest features for MUT 24! For example, there will be seven seasons, which should make the game attractive even after the Super Bowl. Furthermore, there is a new item catalog, through which you can track which special cards have been released.

The biggest new feature is Crossplay, which has been introduced for all Next-Gen consoles. Crossplay is not available for the old-gen.

Those who like to play MUT Champs no longer have to exchange tokens for participation in Madden NFL 24. In addition, the MUT Competitive Pass has been completely renewed. You can read about all the detailed new features in our Madden NFL 24 Hub:

It won't be long until Madden NFL 24 is released. Until then, you can read the latest patch notes for Madden NFL 24.

Jonas Sohns

Content Creator for Sports Games & FIFA. Jonas studied sports journalism in Munich and has been working for EarlyGame since 2021. His favorite games are FIFA, Madden NFL and Formula 1....