For Madden NFL 26, I took over my first feature as design owner from start to finish. I was responsible for Gameday Beats in the Madden Superstar mode. I worked directly with a team of engineers to ensure we had all functionality we needed to create this feature from scratch. On the design side I worked with a contractor who aided in the design and creation of the content for Gameday Beats. Gameday Beats were a brand new feature to Madden in Madden NFL 26 that was aimed to make the week to week simulation be meaningful and different. Every week there was a new “Gameday Beat” that was based on your matchup. An example of said Gameday Beat would be “Hot Pocket” where you as the user Quarterback are going up against and opponent who is known to Blitz often. The mechanics on the Gameday Beat would then have the opposing AI call blitz plays more frequently as well as add different modifiers to the gameplay. Some of these modifiers would be rating changes on the players to impact their stats, some would give teammates or opponents certain abilities, others would be things that effect the entire side of the ball, for example: “Offense has trouble Blocking.” Each Gameday Beat would also have specific quests associated with them that would then tie in to the Sphere of Influence, which was another brand new feature to the game. Working through the design there to bring two brand new features in to the game that are interconnected like this brought some challenges but also many interesting opportunities to enhance the user’s experience. I owned this feature from design all the way through launch and in to live service, where we would update and tune weeks after launch.