Madden NFL 25 releases today. It marks the 25th anniversary of the most successful football video game series in history. One of the most anticipated unveilings is who exactly is going to be featured on the cover of the latest Madden video game. This year, fans voted for Barry Sanders to hold down the cover over Adrian Peterson. Let’s take a look at all of the Madden NFL video game covers over the years.

The Original John Madden Football

The original Madden Football game debuted on June 1, 1988 and was available on the Commodore 64/Commodore 128, Apple II and MS-DOS platforms. The game wasn’t licensed by the NFL so no official NFL teams were used, just 16 cities loosely based on the teams.

John Madden Football

The series skipped 1989 for some reason, but came back strong with their second installment of the game for the Sega Genesis platform first and the Super Nintendo platform a year later. The first All-Madden team was featured.

John Madden II

John Madden II was only available for PC users.

John Madden Football ’92

The infamous Madden ambulance debuted in Madden ’92.

John Madden Football ’93

The ’93 game sold over one million copies.

Madden NFL ’94

Madden NFL ’94 was the first game in the series to be officially licensed by the NFL.

Madden NFL ’95

The ’95 game featured passing windows. It was also the first Madden Cover to feature NFL players in Erik Williams and Karl Wilson.

Madden NFL ’96

The ’96 game was the first to feature the “Create a Player” functionality.

Madden NFL ’97

It was the first edition in the Madden series to implement the salary cap.

Madden NFL ’98

It was last of the Madden series to be released for the SNES, Sega’s Genesis, and Saturn platforms.

Madden NFL ’99

It was the first in the series to feature “Franchise Mode”.

Madden NFL 2000

It was the second cover not solely feature Madden on the cover with Barry Sanders in the background.

Madden NFL ’2001

It was the first game in the Madden series to predominately feature an NFL player on the cover.

Madden NFL 2002

The was the last game in the series to feature John Madden and Pat Summerall together as commentators.

Madden NFL 2003

The first game in the series to feature Al Michaels as a commentator.

Madden NFL 2004

This was the first game in the series to feature the new “Owner mode”.

Madden NFL 2005

It was the first Madden game in the series to be compatible with Xbox Live.

Madden NFL 06

It was the first Madden game to be compatible with Xbox 360.

Madden NFL 07

It was the first game in the Madden series to be compatible with Playstation 3.

Madden NFL 08

This was the last game in the Madden series to be released on PC.

Madden NFL 09

This was the twentieth anniversary cover of the Madden series. It featured Brett Favre in a Packers uniform even though he was traded to the New York Jets five days before the game was released.

Madden NFL 10

It was the first time that two players were featured on the cover. Those two players being Troy Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald.

Madden NFL 11

It was the first time that the fans were allowed to vote who was on the cover of the game. They selected Drew Brees.

Madden NFL 12

The Madden NFL 12 game sold over 3 million copies.

Madden NFL 13

The game featured “Tebowing” and Victor Cruz’s salsa dance touchdown celebration.

Madden NFL 25

The 25th anniversary Madden cover features Hall of Fame running back, Barry Sanders.