Once you pick up FIFA 22, it doesn’t take long to recognize EA’s primary focus with this year’s version of the game was improving gameplay.
Thanks to a series of genuinely welcome improvements to both visuals and gameplay, FIFA 22 feels like a decidedly different offering from its predecessor. It’s not without the same issues that have plagued the franchise for several years, and a few of its supposed enhancements still feel like superficial additions, but this is the first soccer simulator that truly looks and plays like a next-generation experience.
Audibly and visually, FIFA 22 also has the same effect as the on-pitch action. It truly is next-generation, and it looks fantastic. Players look like their counterparts, even if my create-a-player looks like a dead-eyed monster from the otherworld, and the amount of detail is impressive. It's a small niggle, but even though I'm impressed by the hair physics, the closer you get to the hair, the more it seems to move in a block and unrealistically. Also, I've noticed a few players' eyes roll unnaturally. I'm honestly not even complaining about this though, it's a football game, and I'm picking at their hair and eyes moving a little unnaturally.
Meanwhile, new features have been added to a variety of the ‘modes’ available to players. For the most part these additions represent slight tweaks on last year’s game, however they build on the remarkable breadth of options available to players.
FIFA 22 players can simply jump into a quick ‘head-to-head’ match, or play through a league or tournament as the team (or teams) of their choice.
From a gameplay standpoint, the new skill meter serves as the primary function that separates the VOLTA experience from traditional matches in FIFA. Signature abilities help to diversify the players, and that’s important when using an archetype structure in any game.
As such, HyperMotion has a big impact on gameplay, too. FIFA 22 is a much slower game, everything feels heavier this time around, but in a good way. There’s a real weight to players and the ball, which makes passing and, in particular, dribbling a more rewarding experience. There’s still nothing better than putting a defender on their backside with a fleet-footed winger and, this year, center-halves hit the deck with pleasing force – the bad ones, anyway. Gameplay also seems more physical, with fewer fouls given and greater opportunity for free-flowing, end-to-end matches.
FIFA 22's version of Ultimate Team feels almost as shameless as the countless F2P cash-grabs out there or the digital casino that is NBA 2K. There are so many objectives, but small and large. The small ones are just easy enough that your brain keeps getting that rush, and you want to come back for more. Opening packs, again, it's the same rush as I get from a slot machine. It's gambling, and it always has been, it always will be. It's insidious, how it gets its clutches in those who know better. But when it comes to those who don't or those susceptible, it's atrocious.
At its heart the in-game controls - like dribbling, passing and shooting - are all easy to get your head around at first. But pressing the right button at the right time, for just the right duration, with just the right curve applied, is another thing altogether.
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