How to fix Madden NFL 25 early access not working

After the excitement of college football, it’s time to return to the NFL with the annual Madden release. Madden NFL 25 has some big shoes to fill with the warm reception to EA Sports College Football 25 still fresh in players’ minds, and there’s an early access period available for sports fans who want to test out this year’s pro football game a bit early.

Just like every year, however, some players are having issues getting Madden NFL 25 early access to work even if they’ve purchased the correct edition and have done everything correctly. It sucks to be locked out of the game after paying extra specifically to play it early, so here’s what you can do if you’re having trouble with Madden NFL 25 early access.

How to play Madden NFL 25 early

There are two ways to get early access to Madden NFL 25 before the game’s official release on Friday, August 16, 2024. The first method is to purchase the Deluxe Edition of the game for $100 on PC, PlayStation, or Xbox. There’s also a bundle with EA Sports College Football 25 that will get you the Deluxe Editions of both games at a discounted rate if you’re interested.

The second way to get early access to Madden NFL 25 is to sign up for EA Play. All EA Play members can download a limited 10-hour trial of the game beginning on Tuesday, August 13, 2024, when early access begins for Deluxe Edition owners.

This works even if you’ve already pre-ordered the standard edition of the game, so you can test out Madden NFL 25 a few days early without forking over the extra cash for the Deluxe Edition upgrade. EA Play is also included with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, so you can get access to the 10-hour trial on PC and Xbox with that as well.

How to fix Madden NFL 25 early access not working

The Madden servers always get slammed during the early access release window, and things are never completely smooth. The same problems happened last year with Madden NFL 24 and even a few weeks ago with College Football 25, so it’s no surprise that early access for Madden NFL 25 isn’t working for a lot of people.

If you’re on PlayStation, then you can try restoring licenses by going to Settings > Users and Accounts > Other > Restore Licenses. This will verify your eligibility for early access and make sure the game knows that you’re supposed to be able to play right now. Restart your console after doing this for the best chance of success. Xbox players don’t have any way to restore licenses, but restarting your Xbox console can still help.

If you’re having issues with the 10-hour EA Play trial for Madden NFL 25, then there are a few things you can try. Firstly, ensure that you have an active EA Play subscription. If you have EA Play via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, make sure the correct accounts are linked. Reinstalling Madden NFL 25 via the EA Play app can help, too.

If you’re on PC and can’t get the game to launch on Steam, then fully exiting Steam and restarting the client should fix your issue. Some users have reported that fully restarting their PC and relogging into Windows works as well.

If none of these solutions work for you, then you’ll unfortunately just have to wait for EA to fix the problems with their servers so you can log into the game. There are always problems with early access for Madden games, but they usually get sorted out within the first day or two. You should still be able to play Madden NFL 25 before everyone else on Friday. There’s always College Football 25 in the meantime if you can’t log in.