Fifa 22 gives goalkeepers their long-overdue glory
Fifa 22 gives goalkeepers their long-overdue glory Fifa 22 is a tale of small changes that add up to a more organic game, based on what we've played so far, and goalkeepers are finally getting their day in the sun Robert Leedham When there's a new Fifa game every year come rain, shine or a global pandemic, spotting all the differences between each iteration is a challenge akin to convincing Daniel Levy that he should let Harry Kane leave Tottenham on a free transfer as a show of goodwill. Having played an early demo build of Fifa 22, I'm not here to tell you that the Mbappé-starring title is a transformative leap forwards; how could it be, given the circumstances it was created under? What I can say is that it's as good a game of football as you could hope to play on your console of choice.
Even disregarding the WFH development, this is a weird time for EA Sports' juggernaut. Its longtime rival PES has been rebranded as the free-to-play eFootball by developer Konami – a weirdly Y2K name for a series whose glory days definitively reside in the mid-2000s – while Fifa 21 was itself regenerated for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles in December last year, having originally released two months earlier. The upshot of all of this is that the next-gen "wow factor" of watching Alisson's locks swaying in the Anfield breeze as he palms away a goal-bound pile driver is somewhat diminished at the second time of asking.
Still, EA has come up with a salve of sorts for those who've managed to get hold of the fancy new hardware, and it's called HyperMotion. What is it with sports games and weird branding terminology? Anyway, rather than being the name for Elon Musk's crypto-funded drone racing league, HyperMotion is a collection of technologies allowing for more natural movement on next-gen machines. So when you've got a bird's eye view of the pitch teams don't move in robotic unison according to their set formation and in replays there's less of that weird juddering where a player might contort through their set animations for shots and tackling.
The whole effect was created by strapping up every player in an eleven vs eleven training match with motion-tracking tech, as opposed to the usual solo recording sessions you might have seen in the past. The end result is an arsenal of 4,000 animations that overlap throughout a match to deliver the kind of picture you might encounter on Sky Sports on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Minus Sam Allardyce sulking in the background as he contemplates the existential quandary that perhaps his industrial long-ball tactics aren't as robust as the days of yore. Whether this stuff actually requires a PS5 or Xbox Series machine to pull off is a technical question beyond our understanding, but it does definitively add a good deal of realism to proceedings, as do the new and improved net physics, which really are absurdly satisfying to behold once you've smashed in an Erling Haaland special from six yards out.
Truthfully the biggest changes we noticed from our initial time with Fifa 22 will be universal to all players. After Fifa 21 initially saw any goalkeepers catch a serious case of the vapours at the mere sight of a shot in their direction, Fifa 22's beloved cohort are made of much sterner stuff, to the extent that EA Sports says it's still fine-tuning the overall shot-stopping balance. For the moment at least, having Gianluigi Donnarumma actually perform like the man mountain we know (and England fans despair of) does a lot to make matches feel like more of a contest, encouraging you to vary your approach play in the hope of a breakthrough, something that's further enabled by the game's new ball physics, which make pinging cross-field passes a whole lot more feasible.
On PS5, at least, the variety of saves was notable. From balls that were slapped wide of the post to spectacular top-arm stretches, goalkeeping just felt a whole lot more organic in Fifa 22 and less beholden to the rigidities of an algorithm. The same is true for your use of pace in the game as well, with the likes of Sterling and Neymar not having the same ability to simply breeze past defenders. A new "explosive sprint" feature rewards those who can time their runs as opposed to slamming down the R2 button at the earliest opportunity.
Of course, so much of what will dictate Fifa 22's success is almost entirely tangential to its gameplay. What's next for the $1.62 billion cash cow that is Ultimate Team is yet to be revealed, while licensing agreements with the likes of Juventus, Brazil and Uefa's Women's Champions League teams continue to prove elusive. Then there are potential changes to the Fifa Street-esque Volta mode that's been kicking around for two years now.
Having lived with so many Fifa games that did stumble over their fundamentals, it is at least reassuring that Fifa 22 seems to have the basics in hand. Whether you're a self-confessed FUT obsessive or someone who just plays the odd round of Mystery Ball with their mates every other weekend, the latest edition of this totemic football sim looks and feels like fun.
Out on 1 October. £59.99. At amazon.co.uk
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