It’s really, really close to being Madden season again.
You can say that football is right around the corner when kids are back in school and the leaves begin to change colors, but the real sign of a new NFL campaign is when the latest version of Madden hits stores. EA ensures that it’s always on sale several weeks prior to the kickoff of real NFL games, and this year is no exception.
Madden 17 releases on Tuesday, August 23, but as always, that release date comes with some pleasant qualifiers. Namely, that you can actually grab the game at 12:01 a.m. tonight, or 9:01 p.m. Pacific time.
Indeed, anyone buying a digital copy of Madden 17 can download it now in anticipation of it unlocking promptly at midnight. In fact that’s probably your best bet considering plenty of people will go, “Oh crap, Madden is out” later tonight and the servers will be jammed full of gamers all trying to download it at once.
Some retailers will also have the game available at midnight, including many GameStop and Best Buy locations. You can use those links to find out if the stores nearest you are going to be open for the midnight release, and I’ve discovered personally in the past that you should still be able to pre-order a copy now and still have one reserved for you even though we’re just hours away from the launch.
And if you are able to do that, you’ll end up receiving bonus content that includes Madden Ultimate Team packs and Madden 17 Ranked tickets. That same deal is available through GameStop or Best Buy.
If those chains aren’t options for you, Walmart or Target could be. It’s worth checking to see if any of their stores within reasonable driving distance are open 24 hours, in which case you should be able to pick up a copy of the game right at midnight.
The bottom line is that if you want to play Madden 17 later tonight, you should be able to accomplish that. Good luck, and start making up your excuse to call off work on Tuesday now.