The online multiplayer is what I am sticking around for, though. In the absence of anything new, I’m holding out for a training mode that lets you play skill games with your Ultimate Team to get used to how they play together ahead of matches. Some extra stadium customisation options help make your club feel more like home, and the Division Rivals framework has been made more forgiving with checkpoints and seasonal rewards. Over in Ultimate Team, it’s another year of minor revisions on a formula that clearly works very well for EA, even if it delivers waves of Stockholm Syndrome to many players.

I’ve muttered ‘what a ball’ more than ever this year, most often after spotting one of my wingers in space and switching it with a dreamy late lob across the pitch that leads to a dazzling equaliser. Patience often seems to trump pace, which is very refreshing. There’s not a lack of goals you just have to earn them with careful passing play and a healthy dose of vision. Simon Cardy, DecemScore: 7įIFA 22 is a slower game than FIFA 21 as a result, but that doesn’t mean it’s all about defence. All in all, FIFA 21 is a year of small improvements with much to enjoy, but little to shout about.

Career Mode has received small enjoyable additions but has not seen the overhaul I’m still wishing for and feels like an opportunity missed, while Volta still struggles to prove its relevance. Attacking is fun and fluid, defending is a real challenge and an art to master, but goalkeeping leaves a lot to be desired and the AI is inconsistent in several ways. Through small tweaks and refinements, FIFA 21 plays as well as it has done in recent memory, but lacks the relatively big features that are usually used to justify a new version of an annually released game. Collisions seem to have been improved, with opposition AI being dragged up in tandem. Players still clatter into each other and fuse into well-paid Cronenberg monsters, making the ball’s trajectory anyone’s guess, but it’s a rare occasion this time around. Midfielders will react naturally to the blowback from a strong pass, and wingers with high dribbling stats feel more flexible on the break. This may sound like brain-numbing marketing jargon, but it actually results in tangible improvements on the pitch.Ī forward’s legs will buckle from the momentum after they ping a shot in the top corner from outside of the box. Most of the improvements this year can be attributed to “HyperMotion,” a new motion-capture technology that EA is leveraging to make FIFA 22 feel more fluid on new-gen consoles by adding over 4,000 new animations harvested from real-life matches. This is where FIFA 22 has made some meaningful progression. If you’re a perennial FIFA player, you’ll know that graphical bumps are nice-to-haves, but gameplay is king.

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