Next Madden Game Coming August 27, Name Change Imminent

The NFL football season is almost over, with the season-ending Super Bowl being held this Sunday. However, Electronic Arts is already planning out its next football game for the 2013-2014 season. The company has announced that the next Madden will be arriving August 27, 2013, but it looks like they'll be taking a different approach this time around.

According to the EA Sports website, the developer has announced, "Madden 25 coming soon," suggesting that the next Madden title won't actually be called Madden NFL 14, but just Madden NFL 25. It wouldn't be the first time that a Madden game didn't use the traditional yearly naming scheme, but it'll mark the first time since 1991 that they're breaking away from it.

If you didn't know, the next Madden game will mark the series' 25th anniversary, and according to the graphic above, as well as the title of the blog post on the EA Sports website, it looks like the developer will be naming the game after its anniversary. The blog post on their website says to come back for more details, and since they usually officially announce the next Madden title during the Super Bowl, we may get more details come Sunday.

The Madden series started in 1988 when it was called John Madden Football. The first game came out for MS-DOS, as well as Commodore machines and the Apple II. It wasn't until 1991 when the series started put the year after the game's name, starting with John Madden Football '92. Then, in 1993, the series was renamed to Madden NFL, and has remained as such ever since.

[via Polygon]