UPDATED Madden 21: Sliders for Most Realistic Sim Experience

Published: Oct 01, 2020, 6:03 am Updated: Sep 05, 2024, 1:58 pm

Madden 21 has now been out over a month!

For players still looking for the most realistic football sim experience in Madden 21, these are the sliders for you!

Just remember, things might not be as easy as they were before.

Latest News - Player Rating Adjustments Week 3

EA releases mass-scale Madden 21 ratings adjustments according to performances in each week of the 2020 NFL season. These help keep the game in line with how football is progressing.

Week 3's player rating adjustments will go live on Thursday, 1 October!

You can read over our predictions for which player ratings will receive the biggest changes here!

How To Adjust Your Sliders

Madden 21 sliders are there to help adjust the experience to make it a little more personal to you.

Depending on whether you want sim or arcade you can tweak them to make the game harder or easier for your current ability and style.

You can find the Gameplay sliders in the settings menu in game or on the home screen.

There are a few options for different gameplay sliders for you to edit; Penalties, CPU Skill, and Player Skill.

Player Skill sliders change how well human-controlled players play, with the CPU sliders changing the AI.

Adjusting the penalty sliders will change the frequency of specific referee calls during the game. If you don’t think DPI isn't called enough, you can move the slider up.

This will only work in offline games.

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For Online head to head player modes the sliders are set by EA, or commissioners in Online Franchise and you can't change them.

Game Options

The game options are pretty straight forward and are mostly optional as they are focused on the length of the game.

If you are looking for a challenging sim experience these are what we recommend;

Slider Option	Slider Setting
Skill Level	All-Madden
Game Style	Simulation
Superstar Abilities	On*
Quarter Length	15 Mins*
Min Play Clock Time	10 Seconds*
Ballhawk	Off
Injuries	25
Fatigue	50
Speed Threshold	0

*these can be changed to suit without affecting the play style too much

These aren't easy settings, and you will be in for a long game. But these are closest to an actual NFL experience.

Penalty Sliders

These sliders affect how common penalties are called in the game.

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It can take a while tweaking them until you are happy but this is what we recommend;

Slider Option	Slider Setting
Offside	99
False Start	55
Holding	60
Face Mask	60
Block in the back	60
Roughing the Passer	50
Defensive PI	70
Ineligible Receiver Downfield	On
Offensive PI	On
Kick Catch Int	On
Intentional Grounding	On
Roughing Kicker	On
Running Into Kicker	On
Illegal Contact	On

Get it wrong and it can severely change the gaming experience so be careful playing around with them too much.

Player/CPU Sliders

These sliders dictate how difficult it is for you and the computer to be successful at certain aspects of the game.

There are two sets of sliders depending on whether it is a user controlled player, or the CPU.

The number on the left relates to the User setting, with the number on the right the CPU setting.

Slider Option	User	CPU
Accuracy	20	50
Pass Blocking	20	45
Catching	40	60
Run Blocking	20	50
Fumbles	25	40
Reaction Time	30	60
Interceptions	40	60
Pass Coverage	30	60
Tackling	30	60
FG Power	50	50
FG Accuracy	50	50
Punt Power	50	50
Punt Accuracy	100	100
Kick-Off Power	50	50

Remember, you can make these even harder or slightly easier depending on how you find them.

The key is to find something that suits you but also makes you feel like its a challenge - nearly every game in the NFL is a tough match up!