Madden NFL 24 is less than two weeks from its early access release. With the hype train full steam ahead, EA Sports released a gameplay video today to give fans a closer look at this year’s game. This featured a full length game between two of the best Madden players in the world.
Dez vs Cleff
The gameplay featured Madden NFL 23 MCS Champion Dez as the Chiefs going up against MCS veteran Cleff with the Bills. With two of the best in the world going at it, we were able to see some clear changes to gameplay coming to the game this year.
Coverage Changes
The first big change is it appears top tier wide receivers will be able to beat press man coverage more often this year than the last couple of years. There were multiple times Dez ran a Cover 0 blitz, and Stefon Diggs was able to beat the press man coverage and torch the defense for touchdowns.
To balance this, zone coverage seems to finally be improved this year. The last few years, zone coverage, especially deep zone coverage, was suspect at best. Players in deep zones would often not react until the receiver was already behind them, causing you to give up big plays. Now, defensive players in zone coverage will react more quickly to balls they can see coming near their zone.
These players will also now be much more aggressive. In the past, these players were more likely to take the conservative route and tackle the receiver after they secured the catch. Now, defenders will be more likely to play the ball and attempt to either make an interception or knock the ball out and cause an incompletion.
Offensive Changes
High passes will be less effective in Madden NFL 24. High passes in the past have been an overpowered way to give receivers an advantage in one on one situations. In this gameplay, we saw multiple times Mahomes would target Travis Kelce, both of whom are 99 OVR in the game, with high throws. While Kelce was able to make some of these catches, there was a higher rate of drops and knockouts than in previous years.
This year, it will be much easier to get out of the pocket with mobile QBs. In Madden NFL 23, it was almost impossible to get out of the pocket with guys like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. This year, if the defense is not running a QB contain, it will be much easier to scramble with fast QBs.
Flipping plays has changed in Madden NFL 24. Previously, one exploit players used was flipping a play to give a fast receiver a route that was originally intended for a tight end. This year, the receiver and tight end will physically cross the field and keep their same routes when a play is flipped.
Adaptive AI
Finally, we got a look at the adaptive AI system that has been talked about a lot leading up to Madden NFL 24. This new system is supposed to keep offensive players from running the same plays over and over again. If this happens, the defense is supposed to realize and react accordingly.
We saw this in the gameplay video. The Bills ran three straight toss run plays to the right side. The first two times, the Bills were able to block well and pick up big yards. The third time however, the linebacker attacked the ball carrier more aggressively and was able to make the tackle for loss.