EA Sports is working on a new open-world football game, seemingly separate from Madden and College Football.

In a new letter about EA's future, the company outlined what's on the horizon for its different portfolios. For its sports games, the publisher reaffirmed that it is working on a brand new Fight Night game, which will be EA's first boxing game in well over a decade. However, the more interesting announcement is that EA is working on a new open-world football game that it calls "Project Gridiron."

"We have two new projects in development you’ll hear about over the next few months, including a brand-new, social-first open-world experience for our American Football team that we call 'Project Gridiron,'" said EA. "And we are also in pre-production to bring back a beloved, fan-favorite in Fight Night, leveraging capabilities from our simulation fighting team."

It's unclear if Project Gridiron will have some kind of narrative or if its open-world will be a shared online universe, not unlike NBA 2K. Could this be a more mature and gritty football game, similar to what Fight Night Champion did for that series? It's hard to say right now. Madden briefly dabbled with narrative-driven campaigns in the mid to late 2010s with decent results, but eventually turned its focus back toward a broader career mode for those looking for a progressive single-player experience.

While a new College Football is expected to release next year per previous statements from EA Sports , the existence of Project Gridiron creates a question over whether or not Madden will be benched in favor of this new game.

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