Are you ready for some football? There’s never really an offseason for America’s most popular sport, but the biggest event on the offseason calendar — the NFL draft — begins Thursday night, and Electronic Arts has marked the occasion with a great draft-themed ad for EA Sports College Football 26 and Madden NFL 26, alongside the confirmation of the games’ respective release dates this summer.
EA’s two-and-a-half-minute commercial “The Call” — which will air during coverage of the draft on ABC, ESPN, and NFL Network — focuses on a fictional wide receiver named J.D. Matthews Jr. We see everything that goes through his mind when Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn calls him to let him know that the team is taking him with the 29th overall pick in the draft. And as Quinn recounts the chip-on-his-shoulder story of Matthews Jr.’s football career through high school and college, we see the emotion play out on the Texas Longhorns star’s face.
The draft is the great crossroads between college football and the NFL, the place where NCAA standouts hope to realize their lifelong dream of becoming professional athletes. For those lucky few who get that life-changing phone call on draft day, it’s the culmination of so much hard work — and, of course, a new beginning, with all kinds of possibilities and pitfalls ahead. “The work’s just starting,” Quinn reminds his new rookie wideout.
EA’s pitch here is that football fans can experience the full spectrum of this journey by playing both EA Sports College Football 26 and Madden NFL 26. The publisher announced Thursday that this year’s iteration of the franchise formerly known as NCAA Football will be released July 10 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. It will be followed on Aug. 14 by Madden, which will be available on Nintendo Switch 2 and Windows PC as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X.
That’s right: EA is now leaving last-generation consoles behind, making 2024’s Madden NFL 25 the final entry in the series to be released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Speaking of older consoles, Madden NFL 26’s Switch 2 version will end a nearly 13-year drought for Madden games on Nintendo platforms — the last one was a scaled-back version of Madden NFL 13, which was a Wii U launch title back in November 2012. EA has not yet released any real information about the modes and features of this year’s Madden game; we’ve asked the company about whether there will be feature parity between the Switch 2 version and the PC/PS5/Xbox Series X versions, and we’ll update this article when we receive a response.
Pre-orders are now available for College Football 26 and Madden NFL 26 on all platforms. (While you can’t get the Switch 2 version through EA’s website, Amazon is taking pre-orders for a game-key card “physical” copy of it.) Just like last year, people who know they want to play both titles can get them in a discounted package known as the MVP Bundle. This set, which is only available digitally and only on PS5 and Xbox Series X, packs together the deluxe editions of the college and pro games for $149.99 — a savings of $50 over buying them separately for $99.99 a pop. Along with a raft of in-game bonuses for modes such as Ultimate Team, Road to Glory, Dynasty, Franchise, and Superstar, each Deluxe Edition comes with three days’ worth of early access to the game in question. (You can see the full list of pre-order goodies on the College Football and Madden websites.)
