Madden 26 Franchise Mode, explained: What to know about all new features for 2025 game

Madden 26 Franchise Mode, explained: What to know about all new features for 2025 game originally appeared on The Sporting News

With preseason football underway, that means it is time for Madden. EA Sports' annual football video game drops every fall to get gamers and football fans alike excited for the upcoming season.

EA Sports receives a lot of flak. Fans criticize the company for reskinning the game year after year and focusing primarily on its pay-to-win Ultimate Team mode. In response, the video game giant has branded Madden 26 as having "the most meaningful update in over a decade." 

Gamers are right to be skeptical; we have been told this before. But, to their credit, it does seem like they focused on presentation updates, overhauling the coaching system and more. 

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Here is a look at the new features in Madden 26's franchise mode. 

Madden 26 Franchise Mode features

Madden 26 features 12 key new additions to its Franchise Mode. 

Coach Creation

Starting off, they have revamped what it is like to create a coach. Now, you will have vastly more choices when creating your head coach. EA Sports has added 200 new heads, 50 new shirts, 15 new pants and 40 new shoes to choose from. All told, developers are saying that there are now more than 30,000 combinations you can put together for your coach. 

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Coach Archetypes

Once you design your coach, you have to choose their archetype. The three options are Offensive Guru, Defensive Genius and Development Wizard. The choice you make is extremely important. You will be locked into each coach development path. So, if you choose Offensive Guru, all the traits you can unlock will help the offense, and you won't unlock any defensive traits for your coach. If you decide to choose a current head coach rather than creating a custom one, they have already been assigned one of these three archetypes. 

Each custom coach will start at level one, and you can max them out at level 50, giving you plenty of choices for how you want to develop your coach's skill set.

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Coach Abilities

There are two types of abilities: Gameday and Seasonal. As you'd expect, the Gameday abilities kick in during games, while Seasonal abilities are active throughout the entire season. At launch, there are 46 total Gameday Abilities, with 22 designed to help the offense and 24 focused on defense. There will be 28 Season abilities at launch, and they are geared more toward player progression, building your staff and scouting. 

Every coach ability consists of four tiers. When you unlock an ability, it begins at Tier 1, but you can upgrade it to Tier IV, which improves the impact of that ability. Abilities can be upgraded either by meeting certain goals or using your staff points. You have to be careful about goals, though, as they have implemented two types. The upgrade goal is self-explanatory in that if it is met, the ability will be upgraded one tier level. If the knockout goal is hit first, however, the ability will drop down a tier level. 

Once you hit Tier IV on an ability, a new goal unlocks called a Mastery Goal. Each Tier has its own Mastery Goal, and when it is completed, that tier is permanently unlocked and cannot be lost if the knockout goal is hit. 

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Gameplan Building

Gamers may remember the old Weekly Strategy screen. You can see more information about the best players on offense and defense for your opponent that week, as well as the scheme they run. You would then also select a group of players to get focused training. Now, your weekly strategy includes you selecting which coaching abilities you want to play with. It also displays some wear and tear information, which is discussed further below. 

There are six available slots for your weekly game plan, and the number of available slots to you depends on your coach level. Each slot can be filled with either a Gameday or Seasonal ability from either your coach or one of your coordinators. Your loadout for each week will be auto-populated, but you can change it to match your play style. 

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Coordinators Matter

Remember how we talked about the archetypes locking you into one path of abilities? Well, this is where the coordinators come in. If you picked Offensive Guru, for example, as your archetype, your only chance to get at defensive abilities will be through your defensive coordinator. They also said that coordinators have been revamped, so there is hope that you don't see the same coordinators available to hire each season. 

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Playsheets

Have you ever seen how coaches on the sidelines in real life hold play sheets? Madden attempted to replicate this by developing playsheets. They are essentially a playbook within the playbook. Playsheets, like abilities, come in four tiers. You can create a playsheet loadout along with your game plan. 

Some examples of playsheets to choose from include "West Coast," "Wide Empty," "Run N Shoot," "Heavy Sets," and "Batch O' Blitzes." Your playsheet loadout will have four slots, with your coach level determining how many slots you have available to fill with types of plays you want to add. 

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Coach Storylines and Approval Rating

Similar to past seasons, storylines are back. Your first season in the league begins with you speaking to the media and setting the tone for your goals for the inaugural season. The decisions will be linked to goals that determine whether you earn certain XP, and success or failure will impact your coach's approval rating. 

Approval ratings are also something new. Similar to your job security measure in CFB 26, it gives you a sense of how much your coordinators and your organization trust in your abilities. A low coach trust means that the organization could fire you, or that your coordinators choose to leave in the offseason. Your approval rating carries over from year to year, so if it is low and you retain your job, you will be on the hot seat and need to work to improve it the following season. 

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Real-Time Coaching AI

EA Sports has overhauled its AI to make each game against the CPU feel unique. It is also supposed to help play calling under the coach suggestion tab feel revamped and different, so you aren't running the same play over and over. Supposedly, if you repeatedly go back to the well in the game and keep running the same play, the defense will key in on it and should improve against it each time. 

From the franchise deep-dive, the developers described an example of the Real-Time Coaching AI (RTC) update as "Defenses can now disguise their intentions through delayed safety rotations, pre-play defensive front adjustments, and precisely timed blitz packages. This evolution forces players to read and react after the snap carefully. With the dynamic nature of the RTC system, every game you play should feel more rewarding and strategic, while displaying the signature identity of the team you’re playing against every week." 

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Wear and Tear

Gamers who have played CFB 25 or CFB 26 have been introduced to wear and tear. It is a system that forces you to substitute players with lower stamina ratings so that they can get a breather. If you don't wear them, their wear and tear increases, and the chance for injury becomes much more common. They did make subbing much easier, and you can do quick subs from the huddle rather than having to go through the play call or substitution screen. This also plays into Madden 26's revamped injury system. 

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Dynamic Injuries

EA Sports tried to make injuries more realistic with the introduction of dynamic injuries. In the past, an injury would occur, and you would be able to see exactly how many games your player would miss. Now, you will be presented with a range of weeks. Additionally, injuries can worsen or improve on a weekly basis. If the player practices too hard, they could end up suffering a setback in their injury, like in real life, and it could sideline them even longer. 

Players will also be assigned injury designations, similar to those in real life. A player can be listed as questionable or doubtful, and if they aren't rested for practice, can be ruled out heading into the weekend of a game. 

Trainer Abilities

To help with this new injury system, Madden 26 incorporates the use of a trainer. They come with their own set of abilities that help keep your team healthy. The abilities can help determine how much health is recovered each week, or even lower the chance of injuries happening in-game. Similar to coach abilities, you would need to activate your trainer abilities in your weekly strategy game plan. 

Player Progression and Regression

EA Sports has once again stated that they have revamped the draft class generator to provide more variability in player selection. One aspect of this is also changes to player progression and regression. On the regression side of things, players at certain positions tend to remain in their prime longer than others, aligning with what we observe in real life. In the past, development trait regression could tank a player's value. One bad season could take an X-Factor back to a player with normal development. Now, the most that a player can regress is one development tier per season. 

Additionally, in the past, some of the development regression was based on random chance to maintain an even playing field across the game. Now, it will solely be based on performance. Additionally, players must now take more steps to maintain or enhance their development traits, which depend on the stats within a specific position group. 

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