I play hundreds of hours of Madden NFL every year, but one thing I haven’t done in nearly 20 years is play Madden on a Nintendo platform. To my recollection, the last time I played the series on a Nintendo system was Madden 08. After that, I switched to playing the game on Xbox consoles, and I’ve never looked back, as Xbox became my preferred platform. Just a few years after I quit Madden on Nintendo, EA Sports quit Madden on Nintendo, too. But the Switch 2 promises a new beginning for Madden on Nintendo platforms, and based on a Madden 26 demo I played on Switch 2, that future may be brighter than the pairing’s lackluster past.

The last Madden game released for a Nintendo device was Madden 13, released in August 2012 for the Wii and Wii U. After that, EA stopped supporting the platform with its American football game, seemingly because technical limitations made it untenable to continue. In the Wii and Wii U era, the games routinely underperformed critically, offered fewer new features than their counterparts on Xbox and PlayStation, and performed worse graphically. I played a game of Madden 26 on Switch 2 in handheld mode–I didn’t see it docked–and though it did look like a graphical step down from what I later played on PS5, nothing else about it felt compromised by the platform.

Even in the case of the visual downgrade, it was no different than what I’d expect if I were to play Madden 26 on my Steam Deck. Handhelds still come with the baked-in understanding that you’re losing a bit of luster for the convenience of the experience, and knowing that, I was able to enjoy Madden 26 on Switch 2.

The heftier Switch 2 felt better in my hands than the original Switch, and I was glad to see that Madden 26 offers feature and mode parity with the other versions. No longer did it seem to be “Madden, but…” The older Nintendo games were so often Madden, but without the new physics engine, or Madden, but without the foundational sim gameplay. I realized during my session that I had initially sat down with some skepticism, but it evaporated during my Pats-Chiefs clash. Madden 26 on Switch 2 seems to be, well, Madden.

To the extent that Madden 26 may come with its own set of problems, it at least doesn’t seem like I can pin the issue on Nintendo as the responsible party. Having said that, I definitely still want to see more of the game before I finalize my opinion. I’d like to do a comparison of loading times, both from menu to gameplay and also from menu to menu, as Madden’s laggy menus are a legacy pain for the series on any platform. But at least now I’ve seen for myself that when I step onto the field with Madden for Switch 2, I’m not being asked to compromise on either my football know-how or the game’s mechanical depth.

I play Madden in a fun, friendly, yet still competitive league of 32 players (which you can sign up for here), and for those games, I want to play on a big screen. I also prefer Xbox’s standard button layout over Nintendo’s–which feels backward in my mind and cost me two interceptions in my demo–so I won’t be making Switch 2 my go-to platform for Madden this year. But because the game no longer feels like a port with missing pieces, I can definitely see a future where I would get the game on Xbox and Switch 2 if EA offered cross-save functionality. Of course, for that, I’d also need to track down a Switch 2, but you get it.

To be able to manage my roster, play practice mode, sign free agents, and give my fake players cool names on the go would be more than enough to get me to buy into the Switch 2 version as a second option. And for players who actually do prefer Switch’s button layout and would enthusiastically play it in handheld mode, this feels like the first Nintendo-based Madden that holds up to other platform versions in two decades.

For more on Madden 26, check out my impressions on the best feature the game offers (and took from College Football 25), and learn how the game had to change for one very special rookie.

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