EA Sports Madden NFL 19

On EA Sports Madden NFL 19, my final role was Embedded Quality Assurance Analyst II.

What is EA Sports Madden NFL 19?

EA Sports Madden NFL 19 is the 2018-2019 edition of the EA Sports Madden NFL game series developed by EA Tiburon and EA Sports. EA Sports Madden NFL 19 was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows in August 2018, acting as the first time the franchise was officially released for the PC market since EA Sports Madden NFL 08. EA Sports Madden NFL 19 released with a standard edition of the game featuring Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown as the cover athlete, while a limited edition "Hall of Fame" version of the game featured Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Terrell Owens on the cover in his Dallas Cowboys uniform.

Key features of EA Sports Madden NFL 19 include:

  • Real Player Motion

  • Interactive Touchdown Celebrations

  • New Story Mode: “Longshot: Homecoming”

  • Madden Ultimate Team Improvements: 3v3 Online Matchups, Solo Battles, & Leaderboard-Driven Rewards System

My work as Embedded Quality Assurance Analyst II on EA Sports Madden NFL 19

  • Seamlessly embedded with EA Sports satellite team to assist with QA efforts in developing EA Sports Madden NFL 19 with a specific focus on improving the end-user experience with ‘Franchise’ mode.

  • Conducted robust testing and validation efforts on EA Sports Madden NFL 19 for platform compatibility, gameplay experience, asset iteration, user interface, audio, input, and various other product components comprising the completed EA Sports Madden NFL 19 experience.

  • Supported offsite feature teams and stakeholders with QA testing and validation efforts required to ship new ‘Longshot: Homecoming’ story mode content in EA Sports Madden NFL 19.

  • Contributed to designing new, front-facing features built exclusively for EA Sports Madden NFL 19 (I.e., Archetypes & Updated Player Rating Attributes).

  • General daily collaboration with various engineers, designers, artists, producers, project managers, and game directors to effectively align on and drive the necessary testing and sign-off criteria required for shipping all new and updated ‘Franchise‘ mode features introduced in EA Sports Madden NFL 19.

Challenges & Learnings: Working on EA Sports Madden NFL 19

Shortly after my departure from the team I was previously working with at Xbox, I came into my next role contracting with the EA Sports satellite team in Austin, TX supporting the development of EA Sports Madden NFL 19. As an embedded QA specialist, I immediately grew to know the key differences between working on hardware-focused SoWs and software-focused SoWs, which became my key challenge and learning experience during my time in the role. With an increased emphasis on the end-user experience and how that experience can alternate depending on how a specific user type will play the game, I had to rapidly learn the ins-and-outs of the ‘Franchise‘ mode in Madden NFL games in order to properly conduct testing efforts that ensured player concerns from previous year’s entries had been properly addressed. In addition, my team was also tasked with supporting development of the ‘Longshot: Homecoming‘ story mode that was being primarily developed at EA Tiburon in Florida, which often had my team quickly picking up various support tasks requiring quick understanding of tools and mechanics we had little or no previous interaction with, all against differing time zones that made alignment on certain tasks more challenging than they otherwise would be.

Where to get EA Sports Madden NFL 19

EA Sports Madden NFL 19 was officially released to all major physical and digital video game retailers in August 2018 (current availability may vary).

EA Sports Madden NFL 19 - Links & Media

*All images © Electronic Arts Inc.