In case you haven’t been following the world of sports in the age of a global pandemic – or the wild social and cultural shifts happening across the US – there are some pretty big shakeups happening with the NFL’s Washington Redskins. After sustained and heavy lobbying by advertisers, partners, and social media, the historically controversial name is being changed. And while it isn’t clear when we will know the new team logo and name,ÂMadden 21Âand Electronic Arts is proactively scrubbing any reference to the Redskins in the upcoming game.WithÂMadden 21Âaround the corner, many are wondering how they will handle the incoming name and logo change from the Washington Redskins. As a bit of background, the Washington Redskins – in the wake of movements like Black Lives Matter and other George Floyd protests – announced that they would be formally reviewing both their name and logo:

Alongside other campaigns for advertisers topressure companies like Facebookto cut out hate-based speech, it was reported that major and partners of the Washington team were pressuringfor a full name change. With this pressure in mind, it was little surprise when it was revealed that the review board had agreed to move away from the Washington Redskins at the end of the formal review:

While this is good news to many who have been looking forward to this change for years, it left a looming question for upcoming football games… what do we do with the Washington team. When a representative for developer EA Sports was asked the question bypublication Kotaku, they responded that there will be a generic Washington team name until this review has been decided:

We are pleased to see Washington’s decision to change their team name and visual identity. We are quickly working to updateMadden NFL 21to feature a generic Washington team, while we await final word on the updated team name and logo design.

However, it’s worth noting that this is not a change that will come shipped with the game – given development is often a multi-year endeavor, the game went gold with the Washington Redskins logo and name officially inÂMadden 21. After connecting the game to the internet,an update will automaticallyremove the title - swapping it with the generic name and title.

The first changes will be available to our EA Access players and will include audio/commentary updates; motion graphics and presentation updates; stadium art, environments, crowd gear and signage updates; and uniform updates. Players may continue to see some outdated Washington references in other areas of the game at launch, but we are committed to removing all of those from the game in additional title updates coming shortly after launch.

In other words, if you are a legacy Washington Redskins fan, be prepared to spend a lot of time playingÂMadden 20– we aren’t seeing a revival of the team name and logo anytime soon.

Madden 21launches forPC, PS4, and Xbox One on August 25. It will come to PS5 and Xbox Series X once the two next-gen consoles release. In case you think the physical versions are set to become collector’s items, you can still grab the Deluxeversion of the game on Amazonto help support DualShockers.