Madden NFL 21 has one of the lowest user scores on Metacritic

(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

EA's latest iteration of the Madden NFL series was released on August 28, with the PC version available on Steam as well as Origin as part of EA's new partnership with Valve. User reviews on Steam are currently sitting on a rating of 'Mixed' and on Metacritic they're even worse. The PC version has a user score of 1.2 at the time of writing, with PS4 enjoying a score of 0.4. That's even lower than Warcraft 3: Reforged's record low of 0.5.

Common complaints include bugs and glitches, many of them carried over from previous versions of Madden NFL, but also new ones that weaken even those parts of the game players have half-hearted praise for—like the Yard mode with its "house rules" backyard football. Increased focus on the heavily monetized Madden Ultimate Tournament mode, which like FIFA Ultimate Tournament is about maxing out your credit card for a chance to unlock the players you like, is also criticized by many of the user reviews. Players say they want more updates to franchise mode and the neglected simulation side of Madden NFL.

"EA never disappoints us when it comes to disappointing us", one user wrote, while another summed up their stance by saying, "This is Anthem in cleats."

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.