In recent years, the Madden franchise has made several unsuccessful attempts to include a narrative driven story mode in the game, starting with Longshot and progressing into the current Face of the Franchise mode in Madden 23. Instead of creating completely original narratives, EA and the development team of Madden 23 should learn from NBA 2K23's Jordan Challenge, which tells a narrative so good it's already been written.
The Jordan Challenge in NBA 2K23 gives fans all the great parts of a mode highlighting the great moments in a career without the sometimes cringe-worthy original narrative that has been in some sports titles. Much like the Rey Mysterio-focused Showcase mode in WWE 2K22 which revisits his greatest matches, the Jordan Challenge allows players to relive all of MJ's greatest moments, from the 1982 National Championship game at North Carolina, to Jordan hitting the game-winning shot against Utah in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals. There are 15 challenges in total that comprise the entire mode, and players earn stars for completing the primary challenges and the secondary challenges inside them.
Experience A Legendary Career
There is so much potential in a Jordan Challenge-style mode in Madden that it feels strange that it hasn't happened already. Aside from Major League Baseball, none of the North American sports has the type of tradition and legendary players that the NFL has. There is a wealth of NFL players throughout history that could be the focus of a similar mode, from Jim Brown in the 1960s to Joe Montana and Walter Payton in the 1980s, and legends of today like Tom Brady. The NFL's 100 Greatest Players list has no shortage of football legends that would be great as the focal point of this type of mode in Madden.
American football is an even more ideal sport for this type of mode in a video game, because it isn't a game of flow like hockey or basketball, each of which has far fewer clock stoppages and possession back and forth flows freely. Football, like baseball, is a game defined by moments because each play is its own entity that is connected to everything else but also stands alone. MLB The Show 22 does historic moments really well inside of Diamond Dynasty, and Madden is a natural fit as well. If a legendary moment happened on a 3rd and 7 play with 5:03 left in the 4th Quarter of a Super Bowl, it's incredibly easy to recreate that moment in Madden, right down to the type of defense the opponent was running and if they blitz or not.
From a presentation standpoint, NBA 2K23 really gets the Jordan Challenge right, as they set up each moment with interviews conducted with the personalities that were or impacted by that specific moment, whether it is teammates, opponents, announcers, or fans. The team at NFL Films seems tailor-made to do the exact same type of thing in Madden, as they have a virtually endless supply of footage and interviews from every era in NFL history. Packaged correctly, it could make for a compelling lead-in to any moment that gives fans context and acts as a way to let younger fans know about the great players in the history of the sport.
Skeptics will point out that much of EA's focus when it comes to Madden is on Ultimate Team, which is a stance that certainly has validity after the recent struggles Madden's Franchise mode has seen despite player pleas to improve it. Currently, historical moments are included in the Ultimate Team mode, and completing them helps gamers earn packs, coins, or other items. That's not a reason to keep these moments exclusive to Ultimate Team though; Madden should be a celebration of football legends past and present, and a mode just like the highly praised Jordan Challenge could give players a great new experience in future games.
Madden NFL 23 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
