Madden Wii U producer on lack of Infinity Engine support, Ultimate Team mode
As much as we appreciate the fact that EA is bringing Madden NFL to the Wii U this year, there are some disappointing aspects about the game. It’s missing a number of features included in the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 versions such as Madden Ultimate Team and Online Team Play, and it won’t be making use of the new Infinity Engine.
Producer Yuri Bialoskursky commented on the decision to leave out the engine in an interview with ESPN:
“It’s not for a lack of want. We definitely wanted to get the physics into the game. The Infinity Engine is something that is a point of interest for ‘Madden’ fans, it’s just something we weren’t able to achieve for this first year on the new hardware. A lot of times, new hardware comes with new challenges. But we were able to add things to ‘Madden’ on a lot of different levels, like being able to draw your own hot routes and being able to change your plays on the fly and create your own plays, giving you the ability to do whatever you want to do pre-play. Play-calling is another area that could be underestimated at face value. You have your playbook fully exposed to you. You don’t have to dig through menus and dig back out of menus to find the perfect play. There’s a lot of searching around, I think, on the other consoles. Just the way it’s laid out enables you to access everything very quickly. Then, of course, you’re able to utilize substitutions and packages, making changes very simply and very intuitively by just tapping and swiping the screen.”
As far as Madden Ultimate Team’s absence is concerned, Bialoskursky hinted that we could be seeing it in the future:
“Madden Ultimate Team is something that we’re not going to have in year one. It’s another one that we plan to add in as we go.”
One other point I should mention: the Wii U version of Madden NFL 13 will only be released in North America. It’s not coming to Europe.
