Madden 22 (PS4)

Product Information

GameSpot gave the game 7.0/10, writing: "When everything's working as intended, Madden 22 marks a recent high point for the series. The gameplay doesn't move the needle much mechanically, but changes to the AI make for a more interesting and varied challenge, while Gameday Atmosphere and Momentum bring every team's fans to life to palpable effect. With Franchise making the moments between these games more engaging, it's relatively easy to sink hours into building a team to challenge for the Super Bowl. It's just unfortunate that this comes with the caveat that technical problems might prove to be the biggest obstacle standing in your way." [11]

After years of justifiable clamouring from fans, EA finally makes transformative changes to franchise mode this year. For instance, you’re now – finally! – able to hire and upgrade coaching staffs across four positions: Head Coach, Offensive Coordinator, Defensive Coordinator, and Player Personnel. Each position has its own RPG-like skill tree which enables you to improve coaches in a similar vein to individual players. Yes, I included the improvements in franchise mode as a part of my “good” section, and I called it a “MAJOR” positive. I meant that, but it doesn’t mean the mode is where it needs to be overall. Halftime adjustments will add a bit of realism to the flow of the game: Franchise mode has long featured the ability to choose certain plays to emphasize before the game, thus incurring corresponding stat bonuses. Now it's possible to do something similar during halftime. It's a minor change, but it does add just a bit more realism to the flow of the game.The deep passes into single-coverage no longer feel like as much of a crap shoot, and more like a battle of positioning and timing. This leads to more satisfying results in these situations and in the passing game overall.

No major sports video game franchise has successfully incorporated home-field advantage in a game. Madden 22 has taken major steps toward doing this with M-Factors. The “M” stands for momentum, and they are arguably the best inclusion in this year’s game. While there are some things I don’t care for in franchise mode and still some glaring omissions, we see some real growth in franchise for the first time in more than a decade. The cutscenes with press conferences are a nice start when it comes to adding an organic narrative to your franchise experience. Tying them into weekly goals was smart as it keeps them from becoming sequences players simply button through. Ever since the introduction of Longshot, this entire mode has felt unpolished and a waste of time. I’m more inclined to play a Career Mode in Madden if it was good. It’s better than other modes like Madden Ultimate Team or The Yard, but not by much. If EA wants replayability, there needs to be depth. The Yard – Half Baked NFL Street

Ball Carrier

M-Factors are like X-Factors for entire teams while playing at home, and each team has unique ones based on their location and franchise. A coaching tree is being introduced: Outside of homefield advantage, another feature that Madden 22 is seemingly lifting from NCAA Football 14 is the ability to hire offensive and defensive coordinators and improve them through a skill tree. It's a long-requested feature that should add a solid layer of depth to franchise mode. As for its inspiration, Executive Producer Seann Graddy says Madden isn't looking toward NCAA Football. "[H]onestly, their influences are more rooted in games like God of War," Graddy says, "My son and I have been playing a lot of it." EA CEO Andrew Wilson recently promised "a massive year of innovation" across its sporting line-up, including Madden 22. More in our news story. This is Face of the Franchise’s third year, and it’s hard to get a read on EA’s intentions for the mode. Is it story-driven wish fulfillment? A glorified tutorial? All of the above? I have a sneaking suspicion it’s that last option, which is why it feels so messy and unfocused. As with everything else in Madden, an extra layer of polish would do Face of the Franchise a world of good – a character progression system that isn’t needlessly obscured, a better sense of how rewards can be spent across the various modes, and a finale that doesn’t consist of a handful of NFL players offering congratulations in hastily recorded cellphone videos. Madden’s biggest problem seems to be that it’s trying to be all things to all football fans. It wants to be an in-depth sim and a silly arcade game and a competitive multiplayer game, and it wants to do all of it with roughly 10 months of development time per year.

The PS4 and Xbox One versions are also getting updates: While EA's focus has plainly shifted to the PS5 and Xbox Series X, previous-gen consoles will continue to be supported for another year. Graddy confirms that all of the modes should be very similar across all platforms. "So Face of the Franchise is going to be very similar between Gen 4 and Gen. Ultimate Team will be very similar. The Yard and Superstar KO, which we didn't talk about a lot, those that are going to be a fairly similar," Graddy said. "With franchise, staff management will be there, game planning will be there, but some of the other dynamic gameday elements around atmosphere, and obviously the Next-Gen stats gameplay, which is only available on Gen 5, won't be there. But I think our Gen 4 audiences are going to be happy with a lot of the content that they're getting." Scouting will be updated... later: Scouting has been another sore point for franchise mode, and fans will be happy to know that it's finally being overhauled in Madden 22. It's just not happening right away. Graddy says the team considered pushing the update to Madden 23, but ultimately decided to make it part of a live update. "We've been treating the whole game and certainly not just franchise like a live service," Graddy says. "So we said, well, let's continue to work on it and get it out, you know, close to the NFL season in that September timeframe. So the fans can have it this year." When it does arrive, it will feature elements like a dynamic draft board that changes throughout the year The momentum meter, which also is what triggers your team’s M-Factor, serves as a game-long heartbeat for the current contest. When things aren’t swung in your favor, there are on-screen effects that make you feel the anxiousness of the moment (a wobbly screen and scrambled play art), it is all a nice touch. EA does about as good of a job with Face of the Franchise: United We Rise as you can expect considering this is a concept that needs a refresh. Overall, I feel like the bar is always set low when it comes to improving the presentation in Madden. Not only does EA have the official NFL license, but the license to ESPN. This includes officially licensed ESPN music too. It would be nice to see some of that incorporated into the Madden series. Just look at ESPN NFL2k5’s halftime show with Chris Berman, a game that came out in 2004, and you’ll realize that EA puts almost zero effort into its game when it comes to presentation.Career mode lets you hire offensive and defensive coordinators: In the real NFL, offensive and defensive coordinators are almost as well-known as the head coaches. Madden NFL 22 now makes it possible to hire (and fire) offensive and defensive coaches at will, each of which have a unique skill tree that offers buffs to certain position groups. I like the idea behind it, but its rough interface makes it feel a bit cobbled together, and there are virtually no consequences for simply firing a coordinator and hiring someone else. Like many of Madden’s ideas, it’s a start, but it could be taken so much further. You can choose how hard players practice, and how reps are split. That feeds into the all-new fatigue system. Practicing harder yields more results, but the increased fatigue can lead to more injuries. It’s an enjoyable, if shallow balancing act. That will finally change in Madden 22. Now, away teams forced to play in notoriously difficult stadiums like Lumen Field will see their playart wave dangerously, with some of their receiver buttons hidden. EA is calling such features "M-Factors" — special advantages enjoyed by all 32 teams that will activate depending on the momentum of the game. Yes, even the Chargers, notorious for having more away fans than home fans in their stands, will gain an offensive boost if they are doing particularly well at home. The O-Line still has moments with bafflingly low awareness. This can leave you scratching your head if you dare replay one of the sequences. No matter how much I try to enjoy The Yard, the mode is still missing some of the elements that worked for similar concepts like NFL Street and Blitz. It almost feels like it is fighting for an identity.