FIFA 22

Refining this year's gameplay highlights just how similar it is to the past two years' titles, even though the adjustments do make this installment a tighter experience overall. FIFA 22 has a number of adjustments on the pitch, mainly to the ball physics so it reacts in a more natural and realistic way. Fighting for headers feels more dynamic and unpredictable, and it's possible to actually accelerate past your opponent if you time your run toward the goal and get the pass in stride. While last year's game felt like it had more of an offensive bent to it, this year's defense feels a bit more responsive to closing down open lanes to the goal, especially on higher difficulty levels. That being said, there are still some odd moments in the gameplay, with players on both teams still running offsides more than they should, and strange hesitations where AI controlled players hold onto the ball for a second or two before choosing to make a move or pass the ball to a squadmate. It doesn't make sense, and feels like the new animations are fighting with older code to determine what animation should be played on a situational basis.

Fortunately, the modes have gotten varying degrees of content, some of which are more successful than others. Volta has jettisoned the weaker storyline surrounding Volta in favor of a faster paced leap into street courts around the world. Since this mode was always more arcade-like than the other game modes, it makes much more sense that the score multiplier and signature abilities are included to make play on these courts much flashier and more action packed. This is somewhat contrasted to the inclusion of the Volta Arcades, which are restricted solely to weekends, although the downside here isn't so much that there are mini-games like Tennis, Team Keepaway, and a corner scramble to knock balls into goals. Instead, it's the fact that few people are playing this mode, and its limited availability means fewer people are going to pay attention to it even more. Career mode does have better adjustments, by contrast, particularly when it comes to hopping in as an athlete. The addition of perks, which allows you to passively give your athlete or your team a bonus in set situations, and the options to further specify your player's growth through multiple skill trees and archetypes means that you have a better chance at making your athlete more unique than anyone on the pitch at your position. The addition of match objectives is a nice touch, because it provides more goals to accomplish than simply winning the game. But if you're spending any time in FUT, which is where many people play FIFA, the tweak on divisional play is a nice bonus – you at least feel like you're making progress against players with similar skill to your own, rather than having an inconsistent set of opponents that you might walk over or be crushed by. It might not seem like a big deal, but the checkpointing system also reduces a lot of frustration that would arise from trying to climb the ranks, only to tumble when you ran into a stronger opponent. Similarly, the inclusion of previewing packs to decide whether or not you want to spend coins or points on the content in a deck in the store goes a long way towards minimizing the long-hated impacts of loot boxes. It may not be a massive leap over the previous titles in the past few years, but the adjustments made to FIFA 22 improve the play on the virtual pitch to make it a stronger experience overall.