MUT Squads - Hands on Impressions

majesty95

Admin
Staff member
EA announced a new feature today coming to Madden 18 called MUT Squads. MUT Squads is a new 3-on-3 online team play mode within Madden Ultimate Team. Team play has been an oft requested feature from the Madden community for the past several years. Finally, with Madden 18, team play returns to the franchise.

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I was part of a small group that was flown to the EA studios in Orlando last week to test out new features in Madden 18. To be honest, going in, I had absolutely zero interest in team play. However, after playing several games in MUT Squads with the group that I was a part of, it quickly became my favorite way to play Madden. I literally had more fun in one day playing Squads than I have at any other time in the 27 years I’ve been playing Madden.

You might find that last sentence hard to believe, and I can hardly believe I’m writing it, but it’s true. There is something about team play that gives you a feeling that playing against the computer or even another user just cannot give you. I’ve won CFM Super Bowls, MUT Super Bowls and even live tournaments. But none of those can match the excitement of hearing your teammates celebrate after you make a big play. Or the excitement you get form cheering on a teammate who just made a big play to win the game. It was exhilarating and I cannot wait for launch so I that can play the mode with my friends.

One of the very cool features about Squads is that each person on the team has a unique role. You have an offensive coach who calls the offensive plays, a defensive coach who calls the defensive plays and a head coach who calls the time outs. The offensive and defensive coaches’ MUT teams are merged together to create you squad (offensive players/special teams from the OC and defensive players from the DC). The head coach is only responsible for the head coach, stadium and uniforms which makes it an ideal position for those new to the game and/or who haven’t invested heavily in their team to that point.

You can play Squads with two other friends or just one other friend and pick up a random player on your way into a game. You can also join Squads by yourself and the game will match you with two other users (either a team of two or two individuals not connected to each other). While some may think that playing with random players may not be enjoyable, I’m excited to try out that aspect as well. It will certainly be the most fun playing with two other friends. However, it could be fun to meet other users and possibly build new friendships through playing with random users. The fact that you have those options is a big win for EA. Besides, most people already do that in Call of Duty, Battlefield, NBA 2k, etc.

MUT Squads is by far one of the biggest and most exciting new features to come to Madden in a long time. I didn’t want to stop playing it when we had the opportunity to test it out last week and I can’t wait until I can play it again. I know who's going to be in my MUT Squad, who's going to be in yours?
 
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