Update: As promised, EA Sports has released an update for Madden NFL 21 which goes further than we ever anticipated with the SpongeBob SquarePants content. As of today, you’ll find a new arena in the yard: SpongeBob Reef-Top. This is, as you’d expect, packed with references to the Nickelodeon show.
There’s a trailer in the tweet embedded below:
I’m ready, I’m ready‼️ 🍍
Welcome to @SpongeBob Reef-Top in #Madden21 pic.twitter.com/BhEN5dVh6Y
— Madden NFL 21 (@EAMaddenNFL) January 7, 2021
You’ll be playing by SpongeBob’s rules in this new arena, so you’ll find new gameplay challenges where you can pull off impossible catches, launch the ball 80-yards, and even move in slow-motion. As you progress through the seasonal content, you’ll unlock various SpongeBob-inspired clothing items to equip your players with.
No, you’re not imagining any of this — we even downloaded the update to verify and can confirm that it exists. To be fair, the developer’s also taken this opportunity to implement some improvements to Franchise Mode as well.
Original Story: Don’t tell Doug Pederson, but SpongeBob SquarePants appears to be coming to Madden NFL 21. The embattled American football sim attracted the worst user reviews in Metacritic history when the annual update launched on the PlayStation 4 last year, but a barely-any-better PlayStation 5 port later and EA Sports is now promoting the crossover of the century.
Are You Ready? @SpongeBob#Madden21 pic.twitter.com/RVamcE4BYW— Madden NFL 21 (@EAMaddenNFL) January 5, 2021
Presumably this will amount to little more than licensed threads which you’ll be able to unlock in arcade mode The Yard, but we can’t imagine it will sit well with disgruntled fans who feel the developer’s efforts would be better spent elsewhere. The content is due to drop on 7th January, and we’ll update when we have a better idea of what it entails.
