14 DAY TRIAL // I heard a lot about Ultimate Team before I finally decided to try out the game mode that was rapidly gaining popularity in the various EA Sports-made simulation titles by putting together a team in last year’s FIFA 14, very soon after the title was launched.
I played with it for about one full month, trying to find the Chemistry settings that could make it more successful and taking on a variety of other players in order to get access to more content, but it ultimately failed to draw my attention because the mode is too focused on real-world money use and on extracting every ounce of performance from a lineup.
Madden NFL 15 also includes an Ultimate Team mode and the development team at EA Sports has taken a few steps to make the mode more attractive and to give gamers more reasons to play even if they are not hyper-competitive.
It’s very easy to just jump in, select a name for the team and a color scheme, and then there’s a simple set of early goals that can gently guide the player through the steps required to get his team up and functioning.
Madden NFL 15 is a great teaching experience and the team who has worked on it needs to be commended for the way it has sought to give new players ways to engage with new content without feeling overwhelmed and disoriented.
Ultimate Team can remain a very complex and competitive experience and I am still not convinced that it can capture my attention in the long term, but the EA Sports team has made it easy to get a glimpse at what it has to offer and jump right into the potentially addictive gameplay.
It will be interesting to see whether, for the future of the Madden NFL series, there are plans to introduce any entirely new game modes or if the studio will focus on the addition of small incremental changes for Connected Franchise as Ultimate Team grows both in terms of hours played and generated revenue.
I suspect that Ultimate Team for Madden NFL 15 will be somewhat less popular than for FIFA 15 because fans tend to be focused more on the performance of their favorite teams than on that of their favorite players but the mode is still a compelling one, especially now that it gives gamers goals to guide them.