With those yearly grievances aired, Madden NFL 22 is still a worthwhile pickup if you were on the fence. Every year, a different team is picked, and you’re tasked with doing different challenges in the hopes of making the season a successful one. My QB was drafted by the New York Jets, which seems odd, as in real life, the Jets just used their Round 1 Pick 2 to select Zach Wilson.

They’ve eliminated the melodramatic narrative structure, which may be for the better, and replaced it with just dumping you into Franchise mode as a player, with a few cut scenes at the beginning.This series has been a mainstay on home consoles for over three decades, faithfully producing a new edition each year. There is no shortage of interesting ideas, too bad that there are quite a few gameplay issues and that some game modes (Face to the Franchise, for example) are way too boring and uninteresting.

Still, you may as well grab your tipple of choice and settle in for all the Madden 22 info you'll ever need. As well as revealing this year's cover athlete we've details of big changes to franchise mode, a sweet-looking trailer, and 99 Club intel – with good news for Patrick Mahomes (surprise! Every year, it’s a rehash of the previous entry with updated rosters and minimal improvements in an attempt to keep the community happy. The biggest difference is apt to be in Madden NFL 22’s new performance mode, which pushes the framerate to 120fps on Xbox Series X|S.

It is shocking how poor the quality is, especially juxtaposed against the gorgeous and detailed presentation of the rest of the game. Like recent previous installments of the series, the game received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the attempts to improve Franchise mode but criticism at glitches and the lack of innovation elsewhere. EA CEO Andrew Wilson recently promised "a massive year of innovation" across its sporting line-up, including Madden 22. Why EA couldn’t have just incorporated The Rich Eisen Show from Face of the Franchise into Franchise Mode is beyond me. As expected, Madden 22 will include a multitude of enhancements to Next-Gen Stats, with data governing passing aggressiveness, how ballcarriers break tackles, and team strategy.

These controls will let you change things up at the line of scrimmage to counter what the defense is showing you. Mud and grass stains accumulate over the course of games, and the improved crowd models are a thankful upgrade over the dated low polygon versions from before. For pass coverage, you pretty much have to stay in zone coverage plays, as man coverage is still broken. Key moments during the season are told via cut scenes that would have been ridiculed during the PS2/Xbox Era.Like most games in 2020, Madden NFL had to deal with the unprecedented challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the team to shift to work from home right in the middle of development.

Hits can be brutally nasty using the Hit Stick and seeing different tackles, catches or sack-evading animations will leave you impressed. Madden 22 still uses canned animations, versus a physics based system, which is the origin to many of Madden’s gameplay problems. Wouldn't go to great lengths to say that the yard is amazing by any account and I don't love all the pay to play features, but when you want something different to play outside of standard football, it's fun and a great way to kill some time.

These modes tie in much more firmly into the player avatar who sits front and center on the main menu screen, with progress in The Yard applying to Face of the Franchise, and vice versa. We expected Adams to be joined in the 99-OVR receiver club by Stefon Diggs after his phenomenal 127-catch year for the Bills, but Josh Allen's favourite target has to make do with a 97 rating, placing him fourth in the receiver rankings behind Adams, Hopkins and Tyreek Hill (Kansas City). It’s EA’s pay to play feature in Madden, encouraging you to spend money to unlock better player cards for your team.