Madden NFL 23 officially launched this past week. It included major features to the football game's franchise mode, as well as dramatic improvements to gameplay for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game. Whether Electronic Arts had done enough to improve Madden NFL 23 compared to previous iterations of the annual franchise is another matter entirely, though. At least one Madden NFL 23 player, Mecole Hardman Jr. of the Kansas City Chiefs, has some harsh criticism to share.
Hardman Jr. is a wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs and was part of the team that won Super Bowl LIV in 2020. He has a close relationship with the Madden franchise, even hosting a promotional partnership with EA to give out Madden NFL 21 codes in 2020. Yet sometimes a franchise's biggest fans can be its harshest critics. In a recent post to Twitter, Hardman Jr. told his followers that Madden NFL 23 might be "the worst Madden ever."
Unfortunately, Hardman Jr. doesn't elaborate on why he's unhappy with the latest release in the Madden franchise. The replies to his Twitter post are relentless, though. There are multiple clips of strange bugs from Madden NFL 23, specific complaints regarding Madden NFL 23's changes to offense, and general complaints about EA not changing enough between annual releases. Hardman Jr. seems content to let his statement stand on its own, though.
While Hardman Jr. didn't speak about the quality of Madden NFL 23 any further, he did have to laugh at a joke from former NFL star Chad Johnson. Johnson replied to Hardman Jr.'s criticism of Madden NFL 23, saying," Check your new rating after practice after this comment," with an emoji showing a chart with a downward trend. Hardman Jr. laughed it off, replying with, "I'll be fine." Hardman Jr. has an impressive 97 in Speed this year, but a 79 overall.
Calling Madden NFL 23 the "worst" football game ever may have been extreme, but the new Madden game certainly isn't making any critical waves. The PS5 version of Madden NFL 23 is currently sitting at a 68 score on Metacritic. That's the same score that Madden NFL 22 received for the PS5, funnily enough.
While it's notable that an NFL star with a Super Bowl ring is willing to publicly call out the quality of Madden NFL 23 on social media, without further context this is just one man's opinion on the game. Perhaps Hardman Jr. just had a bad match and was feeling especially negative, or perhaps Hardman Jr. has a robust opinion on what EA needs to do to improve the Madden franchise going forward. Either way, EA probably won't be giving Hardman Jr. any more Madden codes to give out to his followers.
Madden NFL 23 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
