With Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson on the cover, the upcoming Madden NFL 21 EA Sports promises more firepower and fan features.

The latest installment of the Juggernaut Sports series will be released on August 28, and a lot of information has already been made public. This includes revealing ever popular player ratings, as well as increasingly important new features across the board and in key modes such as Ultimate Team.

As the release date approaches, let's take a look at three important areas surrounding this year's release.

Player Ratings

Since a concerted effort to level the scores across the board and stop giving 99 points to multiple players, the "99 club" is one of the most interesting aspects of the hype in any game.

This year's Club 99 is not entirely surprising:

   Patrick Mahomes, QB, Kansas City Chiefs

   Aaron Donald, DL, Los Angeles Rams

   Stephon Gilmore, CB, New England Patriots

   Christian McCaffrey, RB, Carolina Panthers

   Michael Thomas, WR, New Orleans Saints

Mahomes apparently led his team to the Super Bowl by being arguably the best direct player in the league. And Donald started another elite season with a score of 93.6 Pro Football Focus.

Patriots Corner Stephon Gilmore picked six passes, Panthers backward Christian McCaffrey overshadowed the 2,000-yard mark between speeding and receiving, and the Saints wide field, Michael Thomas, surpassed 1,700 yards to take.

That simplifies matters, but the best of the best is again an exclusive club with mostly premium positions, except for McCaffrey.

As always, the cool thing about the rankings is that over the course of the season the EA Sports team will adjust them to make the virtual pitch reflect the real field.

New Features

The list of new features always comes second after the player rating is revealed.

And this year's feature list does not despise. In terms of gameplay, this year's launch promises more innovation and fluidity as an offensive playmaker. New spins, slides and obstacles coupled with the skill bar bring the gameplay closer to what is currently a very attacking rival.

It's not that EA Sports just let the fouls run wild by not allowing players to counter some of them defensively. The Skill Bar also provides players with a wide variety of Pass Faster Moves to choose from immediately, and the Tuning Tuning now provides more precision.

A broader perspective painting in a "new" category, "Face of the Franchise: Rise To Fame" is a new player-centered career mode. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that this year's Madden release not only updates player ratings weekly - individual team handbooks are also updated weekly to reflect what each team is using on the pitch in all respects.

There are only a limited number of new majors at this stage in the franchise's life cycle. No more wishing a specific team could play a specific game that a real team is running is a nice touch and can cut your wait times. Where in the past you had to wait for next year's game releases, it could only be a week.

Ultimate Team

Ultimate Team is another major focus for Madden's release, one year after the new star system, helping players of all skill levels identify the difficulty and rewards associated with specific challenges.

This upgrade, along with the improved ability to take on challenges and better gain the desired rewards, was a nice addition to the quality of life.

Madden NFL 21 will once again push things in a user-friendly direction building on that foundation, and the gameplay side, just like last year, is likely to receive all the wider gameplay improvements.

Ultimate Team Challenges will once again be surrounded by more PvP modes such as H2H Seasons, MUT Draft, and MUT Squads, all in the interests of deckbuilding. MUT 21 coins and packs will continue to serve as a focus for players looking to refine the roster before going online.

What should be interesting is the weekly support for Ultimate Team as the Mode loops in the Hall of Fame, Events, Weekly Challenges and more all take place. As always, a regular gameplay loop should keep players coming back for more, even after the regular season is over.