This mod brings concussions back into Madden 26, including symptoms like blurred vision, dizziness, and slower reaction times

A football player holding his head — (Image credit: The Derek Sheely Foundation)

The NFL has an extremely ugly history with concussions. I won't rehash it all here, but in broad strokes, the American football organization spent years denying a link between head injuries sustained by players and the devastating long-term effects, was eventually sued by more than 4,500 players for negligence and fraudulent concealment, and settled the suit for nearly a billion dollars in 2013.

The Madden football series, for their part, included concussions in the games for a few years (in part due to John Madden's insistence), though a less-specific description of "head injury" replaced the term in Madden 13.

It's obvious the NFL and the Madden games want to distance themselves from the word "concussion," but now a mod called Modden 26, created by a non-profit foundation dedicated to increasing awareness of sports-related brain injuries, is bringing concussions back into the game—along with their effects.

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While using the mod for Madden NFL 26, if your player sustains a head injury in the game, you'll begin experiencing some of the commonly reported effects of a concussion, which could be headaches (the screen will throb with a reddish color), shortness of breath (you'll hear the player's ragged breathing), tinnitus (a ringing sound), light sensitivity, nausea, dizziness, and other symptoms, which you'll see and hear manifested onscreen while you play.

If a pro athlete is hurt during a football game he'll be immediately surrounded by medical experts who will (hopefully) pull them from the game if they suspect they're concussed, but for teens and kids playing football at school or in the neighborhood, it's helpful to know the warning signs themselves—especially since young athletes are so often told to brush it off and get back into the game.

The mod was created by The Derek Sheely Foundation: Derek was a 22-year-old college student who suffered a head injury during football practice and died soon after. His parents believe Derek was already suffering from an earlier concussion at the time of his fatal injury—his death was preventable, in other words, and the Foundation now works to educate others in an effort to prevent similar tragedies. You can download the Modden 26 mod here.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.