EA Sports and developer EA Tiburon have just announced Madden NFL 20 (out August 2nd), and while there are some sweet-sounding new features like superstar players and Face of the Franchise mode, fans want to know that the underlying gameplay is fixed. Last year’s title was not only buggy at launch and beyond, but there were also plenty of complaints about key aspects like the running game, blocking, and catching.

Although the developer hasn’t started talking about specific gameplay changes for Madden 20, creative director Mike Young said, “There is probably going to be a laundry list of things the community would get excited about… I think we did a lot with animations. It’s a cleaner and a more bug-free game.”

One of the structural things the team did to improve the game this time around was to address bugs and tune gameplay as they went along instead of trying to do it all at the end of development. Young says the game was playable earlier than ever and this has helped them fixed more bugs than previous years.

Young says the shifted development timeline has even resulted in a gameplay feature that is being internally playtested for possible inclusion. The under-wraps feature was first meant to fix a legacy issue, but “actually became a new way to maybe play.” Hopefully, the feature makes the beta as planned.

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Madden Gets Modern With The Run-Pass Option

Run-pass option (RPO) plays were conspicuously absent last year, especially on the back of the Eagles further popularizing them on the way to their Super Bowl victory in the 2017-2018 season. At first, RPOs were considered “too big” to include, but Young says it was prototyped, polished, and added to Madden 20.

Young thinks the result is going to be big for the teams that have RPOs in their playbooks. Along with Superstar and X-Factor abilities for the top players, Young believes RPOs are going to give teams multiple strategies to win games, whether that’s in your franchise mode team or Ultimate Team.

Speaking of playbooks, Madden 20 won’t have a play-creator feature, but they will be updated through the year, and overall Young says they have more variety this year, especially with the RPO.

Madden 20 has a lot on its plate, and fixing its lingering gameplay issues and adding RPOs will hopefully make the game feel and play differently.

Madden NFL 20 ships for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on August 2. To learn more about the game, read our in-depth breakdowns of the superstar skills, what’s new in Franchise mode, and the new Face of the Franchise career mode.