Madden NFL Archive

Madden NFL 99 is considered to be a major turning point for the series with the introduction of the franchise mode, which lets you take the helm of a team and steer them through fifteen seasons, chopping and changing your lineup to make it the best it can be. It was also the first of the Madden games on the PlayStation to feature 3D models for the players.

Despite being released 3 years into the 5th generation era, Madden NFL 98 was still using 2D sprites for its players – a factor that lead to Sony’s NFL GameDay 98 being the go to game for football fans in 1997 and 1998. While Madden NFL 99 would return the series to glory, the 98 game serves as a reminder that EA’s behemoth was not always invincible.

Madden NFL 97 marked the series’ debut on the PlayStation and Saturn, due to the cancellation of Madden NFL 96 for those platforms (and the PC) for quality control reasons – an unimaginable turn of events for today’s EA, who will release new Maddens without regard to quality. Amusingly, the developer behind the ill-fated Madden NFL 96 was Visual Concepts, who went on to develop the NFL 2K series for Sega.