"Madden NFL 17" is being praised as one of the best games in the recent history of the acclaimed series, but it's not without its problems.
In the week since its release, some players across multiple platforms are having their experiences ruined by a malicious glitch.
The bug, which is coming up in several YouTube videos and forum threads, makes it impossible to run play-action pass plays. For the uninitiated, those are the plays when the quarterback fakes a handoff to a running back before throwing the ball.
Specifically, after the player fakes the handoff, the passing icons over the receivers' heads don't appear and it becomes impossible to throw the ball. Here's footage of the glitch in action, from YouTube user John Smith:
Players have reported the glitch happening in multiple modes across the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. It was brought to my attention by Business Insider markets editor Jonathan Garber, who reported the glitch ruining his experience playing multiplayer in the Xbox version of the game.
This is a big deal because play-action passing is a huge component of a modern NFL offense. If the defense isn't sure whether you're going to run or pass, you've already won. That logic applies both in real and virtual football.
It's also not especially surprising, given that there are several physics calculations happening on any given play in a "Madden" game. For as realistic as the games are most of the time, there are always weird glitches here and there.
The description on the above YouTube video suggests clearing your Blu-Ray persistent storage to fix the bug on Xbox One, while other users have reported that hard resetting the console will fix it. We've reached out to EA to see if they're aware of the bug and are working on a fix, but have not received a response at this time.