Every August with football season on the horizon, gamers are treated to the next installment of the Madden NFL series. This year’s entry, Madden NFL 16 , seeks to improve upon last year’s entry, focusing heavily on the passing game. As the NFL has proved over the past few years, the NFL is now a passing league, so Madden NFL 16 looks to improve not only the quarterback mechanics, but it strengthens the wide receivers as well as the cornerbacks who cover them.
So every August, we’re given the same Madden commercial for the launch of the game, which in years past has featured players and actors alike playing the game on the couch. But not this year.
Madden NFL 16’s commercial might be the most over-the-top video game commercial to date, complete with A-list actors, a car-crushing Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan, and Atlanta Falcon’s wideout Julio Jones. Oh, and Rob Gronkowski shoots footballs out of an over the shoulder ball launcher and Colin Kaepernick plays “Al Pacino from Scent of a Woman .”
Yes, this commercial is about a video game involving football.
Video game commercials have been over-the-top in recent years, with some of the biggest titles showing off the big advertising budgets going into promoting the game. Call of Duty started the trend with their 2010 commercial of the original Black Ops , featuring many celebrities including LA Lakers guard Kobe Bryant. Destiny , who is in the throes of releasing their upcoming expansion “The Taken King,” has had high-budget commercials as well, especially given the half-a-million dollar budget the game was given, as reported by GameSpot .
While the Madden NFL 16 commercial shows very little Madden actually being played, the commercial does feature Julio Jones whacking a guy for a full 20-seconds or so. It also has Christopher Mintz-Plasse summoning a dinosaur with a flute. Oh, and Rex Ryan actually coaching Dave Franco on how to beat a blind guy in Madden NFL 16 .
EA Sports, the studio responsible for bringing us Madden: The Movie , also announced last month that Madden NFL 16 would be bundled with Microsoft’s Xbox One console, as well as a free year subscription to EA Access. The commercial is about five minutes long, but is completely worth watching, even if you’re not a football or Madden fan at all. I know this; the commercial caused me to actually want to buy Madden NFL for the first time at launch since Madden NFL 10 when Arizona Cardinals Wide Receiver Larry Fitzgerald was on the cover .
What did you think of the Madden NFL 16 movie commercial? Sound off in the comments below.
[Image via Madden NFL 16| Madden: The Movie ]