Madden NFL is recognized for its fresh and engaging presentation elements with each new release in the franchise. These elements, including commentary, field-level camera work, and halftime shows, are often inconsistent at best and leave much to be desired, especially when compared to features in games like NBA 2K and MLB The Show. However, the recent presentation misstep in Madden 25 comes across as an unusually careless mistake.
In the latest update, the EA Orlando team unveiled the Group Rush, a brand new battle pass-like reward system that offers both free and paid unlockables for player banner customization options. Players can unlock items such as profile pictures, backgrounds, and borders, similar to what is available in Call of Duty or numerous other titles. These cosmetics revolve around one selected team and are meant to be proudly displayed in-game.
Consequently, this means the scorebug in any match will replace the logo of the team you are using with imagery based on the squad you selected in the Group Rush. This feature is relatively harmless for game modes like the arcade-style Superstar Showdown and the fantasy-sports-inspired Ultimate Team (MUT). Nevertheless, enforcing this aesthetic change in Franchise mode quickly turns into a visual issue, as players commit to one specific team—and not necessarily the same as that of their Group Rush—and are more inclined to emulate the content they see on television.
You cannot switch your selected team once you’ve opted into the Group Rush, although the game hints at a new Group Rush being offered in a few months during the upcoming live-service season. The Group Rush seems to be based on the assumption that players will choose their preferred team, and that this team will likely be the same one they tend to use in other game modes. It is arguably a reasonable assumption most of the time, but Franchise is a mode where players often intentionally choose a team different from their favorite.
Perhaps they want a rebuilding challenge, or they wish to create a custom team in a new city with a new name and uniforms, or maybe, like in the case of my online league, there are 32 players, and few of us will have our favorite team. My league operates year-round, switching to the latest Madden every August. Our teams become part of our identity. To have an unrelated team tied to our long-term profile is a startling feature the moment you first see it on the screen. Why would I want a team other than the one I’m controlling and working with to be displayed on the scorebug?
In the worst-case scenario, the scorebug now displays up to four teams: the two teams playing each other, identified by their three-letter abbreviations, along with as many as two additional teams whose logos have been replaced with potentially different flashy cosmetics. I can’t comprehend how this passed through testing. It feels somewhat like if the scorebug’s timeout indicators had been replaced with various emojis. Can I spot it quickly enough? Sure. But does it enhance anything? Does it make sense? Does it look appealing, as cosmetic elements within a game should? Nope. No one looked at a game between the Steelers and Ravens where the scorebug erroneously suggests—in Stroop test fashion—that it’s actually the Seahawks and Patriots and thought something was right?
Equally baffling is what happens if you opt out of the Group Rush entirely. The game then assigns a default logo to your profile, the NFL shield, which causes your experience to resemble the NFL franchise embodiment of Rob Lowe, simplifying every game into an unappealing one-team-versus-the-league experience. This is easier to interpret than the possibly cluttered illustrations the Group Rush might provide, but it still swaps out a meaningful team-based logo for the default NFL mark as a way to compel you to engage with the Group Rush. It’s akin to NBA 2K’s yearly bland, brown shirt that all new create-a-players must wear when entering the game. It seems deliberately unappealing to encourage you to spend money on something better. However, in this situation, the nicer option is not particularly enticing.
There are more significant issues within the landscape. In fact, there are even larger concerns within the Madden franchise. I haven’t lost sight of that. But so often, superior, more consistent sports simulations pay attention to the minutiae to such an extent that it’s fascinating to observe what these games will produce.
roll out with every modern game. In the context of Madden, I have been trained to simply wish that the game would not permanently wipe out my countless hours of Franchise save files or that I could finally disable an unbalanced feature that has remained unchanged through multiple versions.
I’m not particularly interested in trying to find the Team Rush, but I admit that it might be enjoyable and harmless for