It was not very challenging finding things to be bummed out about with sports games in 2023, and we would argue it was easy to pick franchise modes as the biggest disappointment in 2023.
In 2022, Madden’s franchise mode won out as the biggest disappointment because it was a down year for the mode that was topped off by a franchise-ruining bug that erased many online franchises. For 2023, I don’t think any one franchise mode was the biggest disappointment, it was more that we didn’t have anything even like a MyEras moment to smooth over the rough edges elsewhere.
I do think you could point to almost every franchise mode and say “yeah, okay, it got better in some way” but that’s not really good enough anymore. In a year where there was some really good gameplay to be found in some of the major sports games, the same could not be said for the person who just wanted to lose themselves in franchise mode.
I do think there is some nuance to be found here because PC folks got to do some great things with Madden this year, and NBA 2K’s sharing components make MyEras very flexible and fun to go through with various rosters during various eras of the NBA. However, if we go beyond the fun the community conjured out of pure passion, the developers of most of these major games let us down.
The runner-up in this category was the low point overall it seems sports games went through with reviews. MLB The Show 23 held up okay, but otherwise all the major sports games really took it on the chin from reviewers. Now, we’re not every outlet and approach sports games in a different way than most, but the point remains that this felt like a rough year for sports games overall.
Beyond that, this points to it not even being a misuse of resources or anything like that because this was probably the worst year ever for card-collecting modes as well. So if franchise modes, card-collecting modes, and the games themselves were all down, then you can’t point to just one thing and say “well there’s the issue.” This comes at a time where pandemic restrictions are no longer a major factor and the consoles themselves should be very familiar for developers. In other words, it seems like we should be getting the best games of the generation right now rather than the worst.
Whatever the reasons may be, franchise modes feeling outdated or slow to reach new peaks are the best way to sum up the biggest disappointment in 2023.
With 50 percent of the vote, the community went the same direction we did with franchise modes being the biggest bummer. Review scores showing sports games being down in general and NBA 2K developers mostly abandoning PC players came in second and third. Nothing else beyond those three issues really got any traction.
In a year where we actually got some fresh competition and new games back, it stinks to feel so down on sports games. However, 2024 does have some promise, with the headliner being EA Sports College Football likely returning in 2024.
