Madden NFL 22 - Review

It is the year 2076 and last year the unthinkable happened yet again, Tom Brady at the age of 167 won his 32nd Superbowl. While this scenario is totally fabricated, but yet certainly still possible with the way the arguably G.O.A.T player defies his critics and also the ageing process that other less mortal humans seem to go through, it is still amazing that at the age of 44 years old that a QB was able to lead his team to the pinnacle of heights in the NFL, a Superbowl trophy. Madden itself though younger than Tom Brady has been struggling to even post a winning season in the last 5 years and has largely been stuck in a rut, is this the year that Madden breaks it’s playoff drought? Or will it languish at the bottom of the standings once again?

I have been very critical of EA and the Madden franchise in years past and none more so than in my review of Madden 21 where they failed to address the concerns of their player base and add much needed features to their game, features that used to be in the game that for some reason disappeared over the years. This year though a wave of hope started to surge through the community when EA began announcing that finally the franchise mode of the game was going to get some love and attention, something that players had been anticipating for years and this certainly had me in high hopes for the future of the franchise as I booted Madden 22 up for the first time on my PlayStation 5.

Face of the franchise mode returns once again this year, though I am not sure why. EA seems determined to make us play this mode each year even though most of the Madden player base don’t even play the mode. I am not sure why EA deems it necessary to keep rehashing this mode each year and spending time on it when this time could be more wisely used on other areas of the game that are sorely lacking, possibly they are trying to prove that they can make a story mode as good as the NBA 2K series but in all honesty they can’t. This year, mercifully, the story portion of this mode seems a lot shorter than in years past but unfortunately this doesn’t mean there is less bad acting, tired stereotypes and diversity for the sake of diversity than in years past. I must make a disclaimer here and admit that I actually never got through the whole story in face of the franchise this year and that was due to a game breaking bug, I got about 50% through the story when my game froze, after rebooting the console and loading up my save the game froze again at exactly the same point.

This led me to delete my save and have to play through from the start again, unfortunately once again the game froze at the exact same point as previously mentioned and I could not continue yet again, I am not sure if this bug happened due to some of the choices I made during the story and perhaps if I made alternate choices I may have been able to continue through it, still it is very, very not good for such a massive bug to have made it through play testing. What I did see of the story though was tired, uninspiring and full of the amount of stereotypes and lack of depth you would expect from a Nickelodeon teen series about high school. Please EA for the love of all things holy, drop the story component of this game mode and use the newfound time to focus more on the actual gameplay part of face of the franchise, your fans will thank you for it. 

There are new features in franchise mode.... I will just pause to let that sink in for a moment! EA have finally shown franchise mode players some love and blessed franchise mode with much-needed improvements. There is an all-new look to franchise mode that starts with the UI which has been given a massive overhaul and looks absolutely fantastic. A coaching progression system has been added, much like the one in NCAA 14, and this allows you to spend experience points earnt while playing the game on your head coach and offensive and defensive coordinators in order purchase upgrades that effect everything from on the field skills through to player trading and contract negotiations, this adds much needed depth to the franchise mode and is one of the things I am most pleased about, EA has also promised that a brand new and much needed player scouting mode will also be delivered sometime in September. Game preparation and planning has also received a makeover and have given the player much more flexibility on the areas they want to concentrate on for their upcoming games. 

Action on the field has also been upgraded with every team now having a “home field advantage” for example this means when playing in Denver at Empower Field the air is thinner due to the altitude and the away team will have much less stamina due to not being used to the conditions, this is a fantastic addition and adds a great deal of immersion to the game, if this wasn’t enough there is also now a momentum meter that swings between teams to reflect how well they are playing, play well enough and you will get added bonuses to your players on field attributes allowing you to keep the momentum alive and put the game out of reach of your opponents. Unfortunately, it is not all good when it comes to franchise mode though as many of the bugs from previous iterations of the game have returned the biggest one being that after you finish a game and return to the menus the scores can suddenly completely and randomly change thus handing you an L when you actually won the game, this is frustrating beyond belief and will hopefully be addressed in a future patch, the fact that it made it into the game in the first place though shows a distinct lack of care on EAs behalf.

On the field frustrating problems like infuriatingly bad ballplayer control and defending players turning into superhumans with the speed of Usain Bolt as soon as you launch the ball in the air to one of your players still remain as well as some incredibly bad player AI when it comes to the offensive and defensive lines, most of this though is due to EA using the Frostbite Engine for Madden though, an engine that has been proven many times to struggle with sports games and I highly doubt these parts of the game will improve until EA builds an engine that is suited for NFL football from the ground up.

Where online is concerned Madden Ultimate Team, Superstar KO and The Yard all return this year and if you are a fan of these modes this is probably where you will spend most of your time (and money) there really hasn’t been enough additions added to these modes to attract franchise players into online play which is a shame, EA could definitely take a leaf out of San Diego Studios book and check out the wonderful job they have been doing with Diamond Dynasty mode on MLB The Show as they have done a great job integrating both offline and online modes together in order to receive in game rewards no matter how you choose to spend your playtime.

For the past 10 years the bottom line has been that if you are into simulation football then Madden is really your only choice and sadly due to EA Sports still holding the exclusive license to the NFL this is still the case, I believe that if the licensing were opened up and other studios were allowed to step into the simulation market then the healthy competition that would ensue would be great for fans of NFL Football video games. Due to the licensing agreements though we are stuck with Madden and due to some of the big improvements to the game this year being stuck with Madden is slightly less frustrating than it has been in the past. Madden 22 is a lot more than just the usual roster upgrade that EA release year after year and is a massive step in the right direction but is still far from being close to ideal.

Madden needs to be taken off the Frostbite engine before the on-field action can be improved to the point it is not animation based and relies more on the physics at play in an actual NFL game. Even with this years improvements to the game it is still hard for me to recommend this as a purchase due to the glaring number of bugs and inconsistent on-field action, if you are on the fence about it though rest assured that this is a different game than last year and EA Sports have given me hope that this franchise may return to greatness if they continue on this path.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by Electronic Arts

The Pros

+Great additions to franchise mode show EA could possibly be on the right track

+On-field presentation especially with the added Next Gen stats are moving closer and closer to an authentic game day experience

+New coaching upgrade system adds much needed depth to franchise mode

The Cons

-Glaring number of bugs that should have been addressed during QA

-Frostbite and animation-based gameplay is Maddens biggest hurdle, it needs to go

-EA needs to admit that Face Of The Franchise is a failed experiment and remove or rehaul it