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Madden 21 is now the worst user reviewed game on Metacritic

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
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Madden fans are making their voices heard as EA's new installment in the franchise has quickly become Metacritic's worst user-reviewed game of all time.
Madden NFL 21's Metacritic score is currently sat at a paltry 0.4, making it tied as the site's worst reviewed game by users.
Metacritic has come under fire in recent months over review bombing and other such controversies. However, the site is pretty much the only avenue for gamers to vent their frustration or make their voices heard. Fans utilise user reviews to express displeasure over issues with their favorite games like bug, monetization, and sometimes less justifiable concerns. The recently released
Madden is one such title that fans have taken umbrage with. The game has quickly become Metacritic’s worst user-reviewed game ever. At the time of writing, Madden NFL 21’s Metacritic score is a dismal 0.4 from users. This ties Madden with the previous record holder, The Division 2: Warlords of New York.
Many have been complaining for years that EA Sports have been favoring modes that are monetized, ignoring other popular modes. It seems that all the anger and frustration accumulated over multiple years has come to a head. With less than 1000 user reviews at the time of writing, Madden NFL 21’s Metacritic score could get worse in the coming days.


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EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Reviews aren’t as important as they use to be in getting a games message across nobody benefits from troll reviews
 

Agent X

Member
I wish they'd just go back to not granting exclusive licenses like this to EA. Life was better when these games had to compete with NFL2k series and so forth.

Didn't the NFL just recently renew their exclusive license with EA for another 4 or 5 years? Sheesh.

Also, is this game really that bad? I'm sure there's some backlash about microtransactions and such, but a bunch of random people rating a game a 0 doesn't effectively communicate that. We've seen system cheerleaders frequently rate their favorite company's games a 10, or rating competing systems' exclusives a 0.

Metacritic might need to reevaluate the way user reviews are submitted, in order to avoid review bombing by people who like/hate a certain company's games. Here are a couple of suggestions:

  • Require users to rate several criteria (graphics, sound, control, etc.).
  • Require users to give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to another review of the game, before they can submit one of their own.
 
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JORMBO

Darkness no more
I haven’t bought Madden in awhile. The last one had so much menu bloat and garbage all over the place.
 
I wish they'd just go back to not granting exclusive licenses like this to EA. Life was better when these games had to compete with NFL2k series and so forth.
Problem is that at this point, games are so expensive to make that even if EA lost the exclusivity I doubt any publisher would even attempt to create a "sim" NFL game. Maybe a platform holder would be able to make it work, but then they would be directly competing against the cash cow of a huge third party publisher, and that might not make many friends.
 

TimFL

Member
Can somebody explain what's the reason for this review bombing?
It‘s a lazy franchise game by EA, that only focuses on gameplay modes they can monetize... which has you start over every year (so all money you invest in this installment is void when the next one hits, start over).
 

LordCBH

Member
I can’t say I dislike it. Face of the Franchise mode is fun (even if it said fuck the character you made your character is black now....until I went in and hit “Edit character” in the mode. The fuck EA)

That said, Slants and RPO’s are hilariously broken on practically all difficulty modes. The AI has no idea how to defend against them. At all.
 
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About fucking time.
People have been eating EA sports shite up for decades and have been willingly handing over cash for full-priced games no better than DLC.
Its about fucking time people realise they've been conned.
 
People say this but I'm 100% sure this game will sell more than games like 13 Sentinels and Sakuna, just like how games like Anthem and Fallout 76 in their unfinished state sold more than games like Valkyria Chronicles 4 and Dragon Quest XI.

I'm sure you're right. No accounting for taste.
 

Abear21

Banned
The last great Madden was on PS2. All PS3/360 Maddens felt like players were on ice skates and all the current games since frostbite transitions haven terrible tackling and blocking mechanics. It’s so unrealistic that despite everyone knowing this guy was only going to run the ball he was able to win the Madden tournament without throwing a pass.

Where is cancel culture when it’s actually needed? Oh yeah, nobody that socially angry plays sports games.
 

Smoke6

Member
The game is not bad at all! It’s the crybabies who can’t glitch and cheat their way to wins on a consistent basis as years past.

now the lack of franchise mode features and upgrades is what this should be solely based on as that sucks ass!

but for the most part it plays pretty damn close to where it should have been a while back. So it’s the only game in town and some of us know how to get our fix without supporting EA
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I watched some videos on Madden 21 and yea, it seems pretty bad. Both EA and the NFL should be embarrassed, it's like nobody on either side actually gives a shit. It looks like they focused all their dev work on making a super casual cosmetic loaded mode for Fortnite type monetization (as opposed to UT monetization).

People say this but I'm 100% sure this game will sell more than games like 13 Sentinels and Sakuna, just like how games like Anthem and Fallout 76 in their unfinished state sold more than games like Valkyria Chronicles 4 and Dragon Quest XI.

Well the thing to note is that Madden has a higher budget and higher expectations than Sakuna. Madden could easily sell 10x that game and still be a money loser and disappointment and spur on change. Look at the WWE 2K20 situation for an extreme example. Probably won't happen though because the game is just selling to addicts at this point, everyone else tuned out long ago.
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Well the thing to note is that Madden has a higher budget and higher expectations than Sakuna. Madden could easily sell 10x that game and still be a money loser and disappointment and spur on change. Look at the WWE 2K20 situation for an extreme example. Probably won't happen though because the game is just selling to addicts at this point, everyone else tuned out long ago.
makes-sense-gif-10.gif
 

Dthomp

Member
Someday we will realize that MC is trash and stop going there for any reason. All the people I’ve seen streaming this years Madden seem to be really enjoying the game. Sports gamers just go in and enjoy their games, they don’t care about what is happening in the studios or in other genres. Maybe if more people just enjoyed their games and spent less time “hating” What they don’t like we’d all be better off.
 
I don't get the low score. Isn't is the same as last year's game?
You got to check Twitter it’s a bunch of people uploading video where the game is broken like there was no play testing. It’s pretty hilarious. Like player gets tackled clearly on the ground for a couple seconds gets back up and starts running and the play is still live
 
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Abear21

Banned
I’ll admit it, I buy Madden every year but with the console transition I’ll wait until 22 on next gen. With only one option what choice does anyone have? I like playing with friends and having the newest Madden is always a given. I can’t bring myself to buy this year’s version though and obviously the next gen version will be a half baked product.

This is what happens when a Monopoly is allowed. To enjoy half the game you have to spend more money. I really hope this lights a fire somewhere, somehow, and things change with next gen.
 
People say this but I'm 100% sure this game will sell more than games like 13 Sentinels and Sakuna, just like how games like Anthem and Fallout 76 in their unfinished state sold more than games like Valkyria Chronicles 4 and Dragon Quest XI.

They hated him for he spoke the truth. Luckily I doubt Vanillaware needs to sell millions to make a profit. EA on the other hand payed billions for the NFL licence.
 
W

Whataborman

Unconfirmed Member
Most of the fan complaints mention how their have been barely any improvements over the last game in the series, with many stating that the game’s “Franchise Mode” has been the same for years. Many fans also take offence at the game’s egregious monetisation.

Hasn't this been every Madden game for the past decade, yet the game is always one of the top-selling games each year? Why the sudden hatred?

Also, doesn't EA have a relatively long exclusivity contract with the NFL?
 
Madden 21 is still gone to sell between 5-10 million copies so unless the reviews effect sales a lot things won't change it won't really matter it all about sales to the game company so unless sales drop by a lot they don't care.
 
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