EA reveals College Football 26 & Madden NFL 26 release dates, platforms

Are you prepared for some soccer? There’s by no means actually an offseason for America’s hottest sport, however the largest occasion on the offseason calendar — the NFL draft — begins Thursday evening, and Digital Arts has marked the event with a fantastic draft-themed advert for EA Sports College Football 26 and Madden NFL 26, alongside the affirmation of the video games’ respective launch dates this summer season.

EA’s two-and-a-half-minute business “The Call” — which is able to air throughout protection of the draft on ABC, ESPN, and NFL Community — focuses on a fictional broad receiver named J.D. Matthews Jr. We see every thing that goes via his thoughts when Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn calls him to let him know that the workforce is taking him with the twenty ninth general choose within the draft. And as Quinn recounts the chip-on-his-shoulder story of Matthews Jr.’s soccer profession via highschool and school, we see the emotion play out on the Texas Longhorns star’s face.

The draft is the good crossroads between school soccer and the NFL, the place the place NCAA standouts hope to understand their lifelong dream of changing into skilled athletes. For these fortunate few who get that life-changing telephone name on draft day, it’s the end result of a lot laborious work — and, in fact, a brand new starting, with every kind of potentialities and pitfalls forward. “The work’s simply beginning,” Quinn reminds his new rookie wideout.

EA’s pitch right here is that soccer followers can expertise the total spectrum of this journey by enjoying each EA Sports activities Faculty Soccer 26 and Madden NFL 26. The writer introduced Thursday that this 12 months’s iteration of the franchise previously often called NCAA Soccer might be launched July 10 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Sequence X. It will likely be adopted on Aug. 14 by Madden, which might be out there on Nintendo Switch 2 and Home windows PC in addition to PS5 and Xbox Sequence X.

That’s proper: EA is now leaving last-generation consoles behind, making 2024’s Madden NFL 25 the ultimate entry within the collection to be launched on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Talking of older consoles, Madden NFL 26’s Change 2 model will finish an almost 13-year drought for Madden video games on Nintendo platforms — the final one was a scaled-back version of Madden NFL 13, which was a Wii U launch title again in November 2012. EA has not but launched any actual details about the modes and options of this 12 months’s Madden recreation; we’ve requested the corporate about whether or not there might be characteristic parity between the Change 2 model and the PC/PS5/Xbox Sequence X variations, and we’ll replace this text once we obtain a response.

Pre-orders are actually out there for College Football 26 and Madden NFL 26 on all platforms. (When you can’t get the Change 2 model via EA’s web site, Amazon is taking pre-orders for a game-key card “bodily” copy of it.) Just like last year, individuals who know they wish to play each titles can get them in a reduced package deal often called the MVP Bundle. This set, which is simply out there digitally and solely on PS5 and Xbox Sequence X, packs collectively the deluxe editions of the faculty and professional video games for $149.99 — a financial savings of $50 over shopping for them individually for $99.99 a pop. Together with a raft of in-game bonuses for modes reminiscent of Final Group, Street to Glory, Dynasty, Franchise, and Celebrity, every Deluxe Version comes with three days’ value of early entry to the sport in query. (You’ll be able to see the total checklist of pre-order goodies on the College Football and Madden web sites.)