EA will remove Madden NFL 23’s CPR celebration after Damar Hamlin’s collapse

EA Sports has said it plans to remove Madden NFL 23’s CPR touchdown celebration in the wake of recent real-life events.

During a Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals on January 2, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle.

The 24-year-old received CPR and had his heartbeat restored before being transported to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Hamlin has met a number of key recovery milestones over the past week according to doctors, and has since been transported to a Buffalo hospital where he’s continuing to undergo tests.

In Madden NFL 23, players can lay down on the ground after scoring a touchdown while their teammates simulate delivering CPR.

“EA Sports is taking steps to remove the celebration from Madden NFL 23 via an update in the coming days,” a spokesperson for the company told CBS Sports.

The game’s publisher recently apologised to fans after a “data storage issue” resulted in a number of players losing their Madden NFL 23 franchise save files.

Franchise mode is a long-running Madden NFL game mode which lets players manage a team over multiple seasons.

Madden NFL 23 topped the monthly US software sales chart following its release in August 2022.

According to data from the NPD Group, it marked the 23rd consecutive year that a Madden NFL game had been the top-selling title during its launch month.