In The Game: Visiting EA Orlando to Play Some Football
Restart was invited to EA's Orlando studio to go hands-on with Madden NFL 25 and College Football 25, and see the tech behind bringing the big game to life on your screen.
Posted 6 months ago
Football season is still a few months away, but for the video game world, the season is starting early this year. Madden games traditionally launch before the season – and Madden NFL 25 on August 16 is no different – but this year we get a double dip with the grand return of EA Sports College Football 25 on July 19. Restart was recently invited to Electronic Arts's Orlando studio to play the games, tour the studio, and meet some of the people behind both games.
EA Sports Madden NFL 25
Release Date: August 16, 2024
Day One: Madden
Our first day at EA Orlando was all about the pro game, as Madden NFL 25 took center stage. We entered the building, passed security, and eventually found ourselves in a conference room turned locker room. After a while, the writers and content creators in the room realized that our names were on the lockers, and the helmets of our favorite teams were sitting in them. The EA rep asking us for our favorite team suddenly made a whole lot more sense.
©Jason Fanelli / Restart
Once the excitement died down, it was time for the presentations. Multiple members of the Madden development team addressed the group, going into incredible detail about the game, its new features, the individual modes, and more. After over two-and-a-half hours of dissertation and dissection, we went up to the fifth floor to have a quick lunch before it was time to take a quick tour around the building.
First up was the art department, where we were shown the incredible state-of-the-art technology used to scan uniforms, cleats, helmets, and more into the game. Using a handheld laser-like device, the team member scanned a shoe hanging from a hook in the middle of the room, which instantly appeared in the 3D modeling software on the computer behind him. Each individual stitch, dirt mark, and fabric texture was intact in the virtual representation, and within two minutes the entire shoe was scanned. It was remarkable how fast that tech worked, and it explains how the in-game equipment looks so close to the real thing.
Next up was a room specifically formatted for motion capture, with huge rigs lining the perimeter of the room and a patch of turf positioned in the center of the floor. We were shown two different kinds of mocap suits: the traditional suit with the bulbs, as well as another suit that lacked the bulbs, but still accurately reflected its wearer on the screen behind them. There were a few differences – the suit with the bulbs, for instance, would pick up a chair if the wearer sat on it, while the other suit would not – but both made for an interesting demo.
Finally, we got a taste of how Madden's audio commentary is created, with one of the game's newest commentators, Kate Scott, showing us the ropes. We stood in the booth with her as she recorded intro lines for Madden Ultimate Team, each with different inflections and voice tones despite the handful of lines being written nearly identical to one another. She may be new, but Kate Scott certainly sounded like she'd been doing this for a long time… maybe it was the "120+ hours" she'd already logged recording lines for this year's game.
After our tour, we were free to get as much hands-on time with Madden as we could until the end of the day. Our time was split between hands-on and interviews with dev team members, which were conducted in a TV-studio-like room that seemed to magically appear when we walked through the door. Once time was up, it was time to head out for the day… but we'd be back the next morning for the new game in town.
Day Two: College Football
Our second day at EA played out much like the previous day: Morning check-in, over two hours of presentations in the conference/locker room (this time sporting posters of our preferred college teams), and then lunch before hands-on time and interviews. However, this was all about College Football 25, and you could feel the energy from the development team as they excitedly listed everything that makes the game what it is.
We listened to recordings of fight songs played by the DCA Blue Devils professional drum corps (not to be confused with Duke University) and flipped through the massive music books the team put together for each of the over 180 fight songs in the game. We heard commentary from longtime sports announcer Chris Fowler – only for Chris himself to stand up and address the room. We heard stories about how the developers modeled the individual stadiums for every team in the game – or how the schools themselves helped capture their beloved arenas. One school, Clemson, sent a map of the arena with numbers on it, and then individual pictures of the numbered areas… and there were thousands of pictures.
Once the presentations were over and lunch was served, the day shifted once again to a mix of hands-on playing time and interviews with key members of the team. Not having the studio tour on the schedule allowed for even more time to check out the game, which gave us all even more reps with the experience that’s been 11 years in the making. Eventually, though, our time was up, and the event was officially over.
Are you ready for some football?
It was a whirlwind two days in sunny Orlando, but the peek behind the curtain of game development was a welcome one. Between the dense presentations – we took 12 pages of hand-written notes per day over the course of the event – and the energy from the team, we left EA Orlando excited for what Madden NFL 25 and College Football 25 will bring later this summer. It's a new era for EA Sports, and based on what we saw and heard in Orlando, it's one the team is very excited to kick off.