Performance enhancers: Madden NFL 18 will run on Battlefield’s Frostbite graphics engine

Electronic Arts has some of the best visual engineers in the gaming industry, and the publisher is now bringing that graphical firepower to its football sim.

EA is shifting its Madden NFL football franchise to the Frostbite graphics engine starting with Madden 18, according to material the company provided to its shareholders today. Frostbite is the same technology that powers the visuals for EA’s near-photorealistic shooter Battlefield 1 and Star Wars: Battlefront. Battlefield developer DICE created Frostbite, and now EA has an engineering team dedicated to updating and maintaining those tools. What this means for Madden players is that the next entry in the franchise could have a higher level of graphical fidelity than ever before — or at least, that’s what EA is promising.