'Big' Madden Patch, Roster Updates All Around, and Valve Pumps Brakes on Console-Level Prices for Steam Machine

It’s Friday and it’s news time, and there’s quite a bit to get to even if there’s not one “major” story for this week like there was last week with the Steam Machine announcement.

This week, it’s about what you would expect from this time of the year, which is a lot of patches — some bigger than others — a bunch of roster updates, and then a couple interesting tidbits that are worth mentioning.

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Madden Gets Midseason Refresh Patch

The biggest patch/title update this week (at least for the majority of you) is the Madden 26 update that hit on November 19. This title update is the “All-Madden” update that does a reshuffling of X-Factors and Superstars for franchise mode/play now. It also added a new Master Motivator archetype for your coach selection in franchise mode — paying homage to John Madden himself.

The All-Madden Legacy game they added in this patch is probably worth scoping out once because you do get the Madden 06 theme song (fitting during Xbox 360 month where I bring up Madden 06 on PS2 as well, which is really what that theme is more in reference to), and there are actual real Madden calls sprinkled in to sweeten the pot.

There are also plenty of patch notes, but I will only include the AI ones below:

AI Play

• Modified AI run game playcalling logic - to rely more heavily on their most effective run types.

• Reduced unnecessary skill moves by ball carriers - inside the tackles and behind the line of scrimmage ball carriers focus on north-south running.

• Improved AI QB’s taking unnecessary sacks - better consideration of throwing the ball away when all receivers are covered.

• Improved AI QB decision-making when the game clock is low — QBs now manage the clock better by targeting the end zone or throwing the ball away near halftime and in late-game situations.

I have only played two games so far post-patch, and I think with this stuff it’s important to remember Madden (and CFB) can be weird in terms of people getting very different results based on how you have the game setup. I do think if you test this stuff out while using sliders you were using before the patch, your results could be wildly different from someone else.

What I would tell you to do after my couple games is try the game out back at “default” All-Madden or All-Pro and see if you notice the AI run game being better. If you’re someone who already thought the run game was good enough, then this is not as relevant.

As for the human run game (which, to be fair, is not listed in the patch notes anyway), I have not noticed a massive difference. This has been my bigger point of contention than the AI run game. For example, I think the north-south AI running is worse in CFB than Madden even before this patch, but it’s very easy as a user to run inside zone out of shotgun sets very effectively in both games.

Since it doesn’t look like the human run game was a major focus for this patch, I can only judge the AI aspects as listed. I do think the AI runners are being more definitive, but I think it’s more to do with AI coaches actually calling better run plays so far, which was also listed in the patch notes. I see more indecisiveness in CFB running backs than Madden ones as it relates to the AI running game, it’s just in Madden certain teams had playbooks where they ran worse run plays. Again, this seems to have been fixed at least a bit.

But depending on the sliders you were using, I wouldn’t be shocked if you notice nothing being improved because sliders can do weird knock-on things or cancel out things that might be different otherwise — this is the burden we live with as folks who tend to toy with sliders more than most.

While I personally see an improvement, this wasn’t one of my “biggest” complaints even before the patch. Still, if you are intrigued at all, it is Black Friday season more or less, and you’re going to see Madden for $35 or maybe even less from here on out.

Lastly, this patch also included a massive update/refresh for playbooks, which can have as big an impact as anything now with how AI teams play, but I can’t say I have done enough testing to see how different some teams feel now. Either way, I always like to see that stuff.

You Get A Roster Update, And You Get A Roster Update!

…Well, at least a ratings update:

• CFB 26 has the Week 12 roster update out now, which is really more a ratings update.

• NHL 26 got a ratings update on November 20.

• Madden 26 got a Week 12 ratings update.

• NBA 2K26 got a ratings update on November 20 as well, which is its second update of the year.

New Stuff Coming Soon (Or Just Released This Week)

If you’re looking for fresh sports games to play, it obviously gets a little bleak around this time of year as most of the major stuff is out now. However, here are some things to take note of for today and the near future:

-PGA Tour 2K25 will come to the Switch 2 in February, and it appears it will keep most of its features — and this includes the course designer. The concern when most sports games come to Nintendo’s platforms is what features will be removed or how the graphics will be scaled back, so it’s nice to see a sports game will be essentially “whole” on that platform.

-The Madden 26 Companion App is finally out, and yet it’s still mostly irrelevant for most of us. The franchise mode tools are still MIA, and so it’s really just a tool to use if you want to keep up with some MUT stuff. The franchise mode tools in the past were more helpful for online franchise modes you were in with your friends, and I would assume that’s the functionality they might hopefully add back. Nevertheless, it’s already November, so it’s ridiculous the “companion app” is still this useless in that sense.

-If you want to be an insane person, you can now play WWE 2K25 on Netflix. Don’t do it.

-Franchise mode is coming to Maximum Football on December 9. If there ever was a time to give that game a shot and see if you vibe with it at all, that will be the time.

-College Bowl is now out on Xbox consoles. I have given various versions of this series a big thumbs up in the past, so I always implore folks to scope it out if they have any interest in some retro-style football.

A Smorgasbord Of Little Things To Note

The holidays are around the corner, and we did highlight on OS some interesting notes from what the ESA published about what kids want this year. It’s not too different than in the past in that kids want their in-game currency (GIVE ME MY V-BUCKS!) more than consoles/games, which tracks with the general trend of kids continuing to play the same small bucket of games more than always looking for something new.

But if you want the warm and fuzzies, a big ask from a majority of the kids was that they also want to play more games with their parents. In other words, all those skills us millennials picked up as kids are now ready to be given back to the next generation.

OS writer Kyler Wolff ran a good experiment testing out offensive lines in Madden 26. It’s something worth reading if you want to see the limits of what Madden’s attributes really do right now for you in both games played and simulations. He tests the extremes and the middle ground and showcases the results.

As is the case every year, there’s tons of debate about shooting in NBA 2K26. The latest came after NBA 2K dev Mike Wang showed that shooting in the game is close to mimicking real life NBA stats (if not being harder than in real life).

A lot of people don’t buy that (including myself) because the real issue here is the extremes between both poles. Because of “green or miss” being a thing, it really means you either run up against demons who shoot 80-plus percent or true bozos who you never have to guard because they’ll miss almost everything.

And because this is a game played by millions of people, the bozos will always outweigh the demons, but that does not mean the game has been balanced properly. This is usually my issue with pointing to a bunch of stats/metrics in a sports game and saying “see, there is no problem” without really digging deeper into what that all means.

It’s the same problem I have when Developer X cites “low franchise mode play times” as why the feature doesn’t get more love. Well, is it not being played because people aren’t interested in franchise modes, or is it not being played because it’s not good?

Football Manager 26 got its third big update. I am so out of the loop on this one right now, but I gather things are not going very well? My only real thought on this is that even the best games can hit the wall, and the last two years show not even FM is above going through some dark days.

And then at last we get to Xbox/ASUS and Valve. ASUS says there has been unexpected demand for the latest Xbox-branded handheld. The reviews for the handheld were somewhat muted, mostly due to price and the lower-end model feeling somewhat useless, but I do think it shows that people continue to remain interested in that “deeper” handheld experience — or perhaps even a PC when they’re away from their PC — even if the price is higher than it perhaps “should” be.

As for the Steam Machine, there have been some back-and-forth rumors about potential pricing. I don’t think many realistically think the machine will come in at $400-500, but I think some are hoping it comes in around the price of the top-end Steam Deck model, which is about $650 USD. After all, there is no pretty OLED screen to factor into the pricing with the Steam Machine.

With that in mind, some of the latest news about the potential pricing is speculation more than anything, but the vibes given off when well known tech influencer Linus Sebastian talked with Valve reps seemed to indicate the pricing being hinted at would be closer to PC pricing than console pricing. That said, considering due to tariffs and whatever else that top-end console prices are already getting closer to $1000 than $500, I don’ think the sticker shock will be too detrimental if we see something around $800-1200 for the Steam Machine.

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase