Madden 12 Reveals First Two New Features

The Super Bowl halftime developer blog delivering the first substantive information on Madden NFL 12 has arrived. Surprise onside kicks have been added and “Tuner Sets” will be implemented in the game. Check out the full blog which includes some video here.

The “tuners” have been featured in the NHL series and NCAA Football series as well as the upcoming Fight Night Champion. It allows for updates to be made to the game without going through the typical patch process. Those games have received several gameplay related tweaks that otherwise would have not have come at the same rate and has proven to be a valuable feature.

Of course the surprise onside kicks have been debated heavily on Twitter. Check out some of my earlier back-and-forth discussion with Ian Cummings. The big instance came in the Super Bowl last year making it a glaring omission (especially given it was in the opening video of Madden 11) and then it became a more heavily utilized coaching decision throughout the season. There were something like 14 of them attempted which would be more than some plays included in Madden already.

The question has always been how to implement something that relies on the element of surprise. Going into this year the surprise onside kicks have been successful at an over 60% rate so obviously it can’t just be used all the time and work at that percentage. It will be interesting to see what type of restrictions have been placed on the feature. I would be satisfied with it being limited to one attempt per game.