Run Free with Madden NFL 25 All New Contextual Awareness 4/29 update

Today EA SPORTS revealed the new “Run Free” mechanic in Madden NFL 25 that will have you juking, hurdling, stiff arming and spin moving down the field as the run game finally gets a much needed upgrade and attention. Now I’m a running type player by nature so I was still able to run but last year was a lot frustrating because of the new Infinity Engine that had Adrian Peterson falling down just from running into the back of his lineman. Now with the new Infinity Engine 2.0 you won’t have that problem, but what’s even more impressive to me is the “Precision Modifier” that will have even the most pass happy player wanting to run just a tad bit more.

The “Precision Modifier” allows you to pull off 30 new moves for the ball carriers (including QB out of the pocket and defenders with the ball) and string together combos that could leave defenders grabbing air.

There are five major areas of focus that EA SPORTS paid close attention to when it came to the run game.


Locomotion

Let’s talk about the improvements of locomotion first. One of the most glaring issues with previous Madden NFL versions in regards to locomotion was the ability to swerve and lack of footplanting with runners. Some of the running in Madden was just unrealistic and just impossible to do in real life and should be impossible to do in the game with proper footplanting. I know you’ve seen it, we are running down the sideline and with a defender coming we swerve, zig zag, and swoop around our defender without even planting a correct foot. Our Game Changer group; especially with the additions of some guys from the SIM Standard (Azure, SimFB, and Smitty), really made sure that EA knew the community wanted to get away from this type of legacy issue and pointed to 2K doing it right. There is no reason why a game like 2K had correct footplanting in their game years ago and it wasn’t in Madden 7 years later. So EA took a hard look at NFL2K and implemented their own version of footplanting mechanics that I think was done nicely. Now when I played the game back in February, there were still a very small amount of sliding, but it was also very early in the build. EA just had to bite the bullet on this one and get it done and I think the Sim Standard guys are pretty happy about what EA has accomplished. Make sure you check out their impressions, videos, and articles as well from their time with the game. Madden NFL 25 now has authentic hard cuts at 45, 90, 135, and 180 degree angles to eliminate the swerve, the zig zag, and the unrealistic running.



Acceleration Burst

Auto sprint is now out. No longer is there an auto sprint, which I never liked and neither did the gameplay team when they talked about revamping the running game. I’ve always felt like having auto sprint on took away another weapon that I could use to be extra shifty or to get to that gear that you didn’t see coming and letting the CPU decide. Just never worked for me and this new “Acceleration Burst” is exactly what I was looking for in more ways than one. The right trigger is the “Acceleration Burst” and what is great is it is tied with a new stamina system that they’ve put into Madden NFL 25; which we’ll get to later. The “Acceleration Burst” now allows me to set up my blockers or to stutter and then accelerate around a corner on toss plays. It really felt good to gain a burst like you see in the NFL and it really adds another dimension to running game. It’s not over powered and sometimes you don’t realize it it’s there until you use it, but when you do you can feel your guy accelerate through the whole.



Running Avoidance

So if you’ve played Madden NFL 13 with the new Infinity Engine, then I know you’ve experienced this. You hand off to your running back, there is a big hole but your offensive lineman gets in the way and instead of a 5 yard plus run, you go into this funky animation that pushes you back and it ends up being a 4 yard loss. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve yelled out “PHYSICS” on those type of plays. It was so frustrating, to the point where guys would just play you to run outside because they had a 50/50 chance of you getting knocked down by your own team if you tried to run the ball in between the tackles. Well in Madden NFL 25 running in between the tackles is fun again and effective. EA SPORTS has put in what they call the “Assassins Creed” avoidance mechanism. In Assassins Creed when you walk through a crowd, you put your hand out to avoid people and get by, well in Madden NFL 25 it is the same thing. You don’t even have to do anything as it automatically knows when you are near a lineman and it will put your hands out to maneuver around the lineman instead of having a Sanchez “Butt Fumble” and screaming in frustration. I was very happy to see it in the game as this was something that Victor Lugo showed some of us late last year as something he was working on but it wasn’t quite ready. This makes such a huge difference in the running game and it’s very evident on counters, sweeps, and draw plays where you can get hung up on your offensive lineman a lot.



Precision Modifier

The precision modifier is what will make running the ball fun again in Madden NFL 25. Basically as a ball carrier you have a number of different moves/actions you can perform – juke left, juke right, juke back, spin, dive, hurdle, stiff arm, and truck. Now by holding the L2 you can modify those moves which give you now twice as many moves, and if your ball carrier is someone like Adrian Peterson and has a high rating (above 90) in Juke, Spin, and Truck you now have access to the baddest set of moves a ball carrier can have. So now depending on the ball carrier you have over 30 moves available to get by defenders. So how does a modified move differ from a regular move. It’s hard to explain in just words but I’ll try. Let’s say I have Roy Helu of the Washington Redskins and I perform a hurdle, it’s going to be a regular hurdle. If I perform a modified Hurdle with Roy Helu, he’ll jump higher. If I perform a modified hurdle with Adrian Peterson, not only will he hurdle as high as a modified hurdle but his legs will go wider, sort of like if he was jumping over hurdles. The modified hurdle with Roy Helu will be higher but he still will be proned to clipping a guys head where as Adrian Peterson’s hurdle will probably clear the defender without clipping him because his legs will be farther apart. That’s just one example of a modified move. With spin moves, the spins get tighter if you are a higher rated spin ball carrier. It’s something that you just have to get your hands on and feel for yourself. Now, please note that using a modified move has a high risk/reward attached to them so you may see yourself fumbling the ball or getting hurt if popped by a player mid spin or mid hurdle.

The stiff arms are much more improved and EA acknowledged that it didn’t correctly do this in years past but this year there are a bunch of stiff arms, including a punch stiff arm. These are activated by the precision modifier and the higher the player stiff arm rating is the more severe the blow will be.



Run Blocking

The last thing I want to talk about is the new and improved run blocking in Madden NFL 25. What EA has done is redone all of the running plays in Madden, stripped them all down to provide more realistic run blocking matchups. They have also created new pull out animations that look more realistic. The meat and potatoes of the run blocking is the new targeting system which calculates the closest threat to the ball carrier in his path. I’ve seen this too many times in Madden NFL 13 where my FB is in front of me, but because there is a closer threat behind me, he’ll turn back to block that guy and in most cases get in my way and causes me not to pick up as many yards as I should. I’ve seen this with WR as well turning back to get someone behind me instead of getting that safety that is the threat in my path. So now what EA has done is create an expected path for the ball carrier and any player in that path is a threat. It also calculates how fast a defender can get to that path. If a player is not in the path of a threat then the lineman or blocker will just convoy with you until someone is a threat to that path. What I’ve noticed is that if you change your path suddenly then the threats change just as quickly and the blockers do a good job of attacking the new threat by changing their new path.

*******************UPDATE 4/26/2013****************************************

Defensive players should be bolstered this year with better tackling pursuit angles and "breakdown behavior," which is related to a defender's reaction to the ball-carrier. Players will also make use of "heat-seeker" tackling, an under-the-hood feature that can be turned off in the game. Heat-seeker tackling "does more to reduce the number of missed tackles and over/under-steered tackles due to user error," Creative Director Rex Dickson.

Defense in the game will see other various tweaks, such as better zone coverage logic and improved safeties to guard against previously-exploitable streak routes.

********************UPDATE 4/29/13*****************************************

The Force Impact system uses the size of a player, the weight of a player, and the impact of the collision to produce realistic outcomes. What this means is that big backs will feel like bigger players when going against small DBs in the open field.

Contextual Awareness

Contextual Awareness is not only evident when guys are getting up after the play but also when a guy may hurdle over someone, he may place his hand on the player’s shoulder or even when a player spins, you may see his hand feel for the defender. With this players are also a lot more solid so that when you run into your own player you won’t just fall down.

Anyone else notice that every team was running over the packers in the run free trailer? Lol
Screw the packers!
Go Vikings! 2013-2014 NFC North champs!

Yeah I notice. Glad they didn't use the Eagles defense. Lol.

Post Update 4/26/13

updated 4/29/13