Madden 23’s ‘Face of the Franchise’ tries to solve two big problems with one small change

polygon.com:

The polite way to describe Face of the Franchise’s biggest problem is that Madden NFL players simply wanted to get to the NFL faster in the game’s single-player mode. The blunt way to put it is that for the past three years, they were forced to play through a slow-paced preamble dotted with story clichés, laughable dialogue, and barely earned progression.

“There was a lot of feedback about the prologue, or Road to the Draft, whatever you want to call it,” gameplay producer Clint Oldenburg recalled during an interview at EA Tiburon’s new Orlando, Florida studio. “It was like, ‘I want to go play in the NFL; get me there.’ […] And, this is a big headline, ‘The narrative feels aimless and pointless and lacking context,’ something like that. That was in one of the reviews.”

Whether that’s two problems or the same one by different names, EA Tiburon will try to fix it by starting Madden NFL 23’s Face of the Franchise mode, The League, in the fifth season of the created player’s career. No more college, no more draft, no more dithering through half a dozen games locked to Madden’s easiest difficulty just to end up picked by the abysmal New York Jets or Jacksonville Jaguars.

Face of the Franchise’s players will begin after the end of their rookie contract, as a free agent able to sign with any team they choose. By my reckoning, it’ll be the first single-player career mode in any sports title where a created player begins as something other than a rookie.

“This is the first year of reprioritizing what’s important in that mode,” Oldenburg said. In the three years since Face of the Franchise picked up from two chapters of a true narrative mode — Madden NFL 18’sand 19’s Longshot — the developers had given highest priority to the