John Madden Football '93

Development

John Madden Football '93 was developed for the Sega Genesis by LookingGlass Technologies, which was simultaneously working on Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. The game was an original work by the company, not a port. Electronic Arts approached LookingGlass soon after production on Ultima Underworld began, a contact company head Paul Neurath attributed to his involvement with the EA project Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer. Neurath stated that EA was dissatisfied with another studio's work on the game and was scrambling to find a replacement team to meet the deadline.

LookingGlass received the source code of John Madden Football '92 and had to develop a sequel in five months. Development was part out-of-house and part in-house. The visuals were created by Doug Wike, who also worked on Ultima Underworld. In 1991, Neurath contracted outside programmer Mark Lesser, who had previously worked on Mean 18, to handle technical aspects because no LookingGlass employees had experience programming for the Sega Genesis.

Neurath believed LookingGlass introduced some nice improvements. A preview in Mega noted added animation compared to predecessors. A writer for Mega Drive Advanced Gaming observed that the most obvious addition was digitised speech, which did not appear in the Super NES version. Electronic Gaming Monthly estimated the game was 100% complete in its November 1992 issue.

The Genesis and SNES versions were released simultaneously. The game lacked the NFL license, preventing official teams, colors, player names, and stadiums. Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy ports were licensed and developed by Ubi Soft but cancelled; a prototype of the cancelled Game Boy version was obtained from the Nintendo data leak.

Reception

John Madden Football '93 was a commercial success, selling over one million copies. It has been cited as the highest-selling game developed by Looking Glass Studios, and Neurath later called it one of the most successful games he had worked on. Paul Mellerick of Mega commented that the only noticeable difference from its two predecessors was the animation, which made the game incredibly good to look at and increased difficulty through new motions like stumbling.

He found the two-player mode as exciting as ever but was disappointed by the lack of a full-season mode, calling it unforgivable given its appearance in Sega's NFL Sports Talk Football '93. He concluded it was the best game the Mega Drive had to offer but advised owners of John Madden Football '92 or the original to ignore this game completely. A GamePro writer noted that at first glance the game was largely identical to its predecessor but that once played, a wealth of All-Star enhancements appeared, with faster and smoother gameplay and sharper, more detailed, better animated graphics.

He believed Electronic Arts had made the best even better and that the game was more fun than Madden '92. The staff of Mean Machines Sega called the game hopelessly redundant and very disappointing, believing the series was on its last legs. They considered it arguably worse than its predecessors due to framerate problems, concluding it was not a bad game but suggesting readers buy John Madden Football '92 instead.