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. The campaign is simplistic, giving you goals to complete in each match, and some matches will come with preset modifiers such as higher team fatigue. Being able to play the mode with real NFL teams added something to the experience. It is a much better way to entice players to try Ultimate Team, if they haven’t already, and it was nice to play the KO style under those parameters.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson recently promised "a massive year of innovation" across its sporting line-up, including Madden 22. More in our news story. Buying Madden every year only emboldens EA to continue down the same path. We know EA is fully capable of providing a premium NFL football experience. Just look at the 2000’s Madden games. It’s long past the point for EA to do better. 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.That’s why this one is marked as “minor,” and you should understand: a non-simulation sports feature has to be REALLY good for me to plug it into my regular rotation. 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. In the Super Bowl’s aftermath GR curated suggestions from the most respected fan forums to form your Madden 22 wishlist. For instance, these two selections from the excellent Operation Sports are both constructive, with very good reason: All-new features in Franchise include staff management, an enhanced scenario engine, and weekly strategy. Share avatar progress and player class between Face of The Franchise and The Yard with unified progression. And for the first time ever in Ultimate Team, adjust Superstar X-Factors at halftime. 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.

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. Madden 22 still uses canned animations, versus a physics based system, which is the origin to many of Madden’s gameplay problems. Ever since the conversion to the Frostbite engine, Madden’s gameplay has suffered in this department. Height, weight and momentum of characters and even most skill stats seem to have zero effect in most plays as they are confined to predetermined canned animations. I could be wrong, as there may be a deeper meaning and driver behind the scenes, but in Year 2 of the implementation of this tech, I’m not seeing a positive impact on user experience. 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.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. 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]