Microsoft is hoping that you’ll want to celebrate NFL Draft week with all of your fellow Xbox One owners this weekend. For the rest of the weekend Electronic Arts’ Madden 16 is available to download at no additional charge. That’s provided that you have a subscription to Microsoft’s online gameplay service.
The company confirmed Free Madden 16 Weekend earlier this week in a post on its Xbox Wire news blog. Free access officially started on April 28th and runs until May 2nd. Users who try the game and actually like its new presentation mechanics, tweaked playmaking abilities and new uniforms can purchase a digital copy of Madden 16 from the Xbox Store for $19.90. Any players that you create or progress that you make in a season will transfer over to a disc or digital copy of the game. Get a bunch of friends together and all of you can take turns being “the playmaker.” (No seriously, that’s the marketing tagline for the game, if you can believe that.)
Both the discounted game and free weekend require an Xbox Live Gold subscription. That’ll set you back $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year, if you don’t have it already. The discount should last until early next week when Microsoft rolls out a fresh set of Xbox Live Deals with Gold discounts.