quarterback and 2019 NFL MVP Lamar Jackson revealed he would be the cover athlete on April 21, 2020. Jackson will be the second Ravens player to be cover athlete of a Madden game, after Ray Lewis in Madden NFL 2005. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not possible to do a standard photo shoot for the game's cover; instead, EA Tiburon contacted Shawn Hubbard, the official team photographer for the Baltimore Ravens, to provide photos of Jackson for the cover. Due to the Washington Redskins announcing the retirement of the team's controversial moniker on July 13, 2020, EA announced on July 17 that it would be doing an update on the game to remove the team's logo and name. A generic Washington team will be used in the interim pending further developments.
Release
The game is scheduled to released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on August 28, 2020. The other "special" version of the game will be called the MVP edition, which will be available to play three days earlier. The game was officially announced on May 7, 2020, and it was also announced the game would be available on upcoming consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X upon their releases planned for holiday season 2020. EA had previously announced that the next installment of Madden NFL would also release on Stadia in winter 2020.
Gameplay
Madden NFL 21 will include new innovative gameplay mechanics that offer advanced levels of control and inspire creativity on both sides of the ball. The new stick skill ball-carrier system will give the user all out control, fresh pass rush moves will be introduced. Tackle improvements will create more open-field realism, and there will be new user-controlled celebrations. This, along with the release date, was revealed in the description of a first-look video originally set to premiere on June 1, but was delayed until June 16 due to the George Floyd protests.
Criticism
On June 16, 2020, the trailer for Madden NFL 21 was released and panned by reviewers and gamers, who noted no new apparent changes to previous installments and called the game "a $60 roster update". A few days later on June 30, 2020, EA announced some new features to the franchise mode, which were also lamented. Users claim that no changes have been made to the franchise mode in recent years, and took to Twitter to express their frustration. The hashtag "#FixMaddenFranchise" became the most-viewed on Twitter in the United States on July 1, 2020, with over 100,000 tweets in 24 hours.
