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FIFA 22 has been out for a week, or a couple of days – depends on who you ask. But what's undeniable is that with both FIFA 22 and NBA 2K22 out, the next generation of sports games is finally here. How does FIFA 22 fare, and is it worth getting right now at launch price? Check out our FIFA 22 PS5 Review to find out.
What is FIFA 22?
FIFA 22 is the 2021 entry of Electronic Arts' annual football game. This year is the first game in the series with a specific version for next-generation consoles at launch. FIFA 22 and NBA 2K22 usher in the next generation of sports gameplay. It was released on October 1, 2021.
FIFA 22 is available in PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC. This review is a FIFA 22 PS5 Review. While the description may also meet the Xbox Series X, it mainly reflects on experience with FIFA 22‘s PS5 version.
Gameplay
While most of the fundamentals remain the same, there are subtle changes that compound together to make the game feel slower. It rewards more strategic and methodical gameplay, with less emphasis on trick shots (especially in game modes such as Volta). The controls also feel somewhat stiffer compared to previous titles, and the passing felt a bit inaccurate. The skill floor has gone up, and the skill ceiling has gone down, but only for a little bit. This makes it the least accessible FIFA game in terms of gameplay, but it's the most consistent gameplay that FIFA has ever had.
Going outside of the core gameplay experience, we have FIFA Ultimate Team mode, which is where half of the players will be spending their time in. At the start, the rewards were plentiful, and it's easy to earn new packs and get gold players. There are also quests and missions that newbies can play to get them up to speed, improving their collection in the process. However, the rewards begin to dry up quickly, especially when the initial coin boost expires. While FUT offers a lot of single-player opportunities to earn enough coins for more rewards, players will also immediately have to become skilled enough for online play for their rewards to scale faster.
Hence, FUT will be dependent on the player's willingness to put their time into learning the game. While most players can just stick to the single-player aspect of the game, it will make their progressing really slow in the long run, and making FUT stale. But if they're the competitive type, they'd find FUT a lot of fun this year.
Finally, we have the Career Mode, which has both Manager Mode and Player Mode. Both game modes have received considerable updates this year, which could see a sort of renaissance for the game mode. Whichever mode you choose, you'll be able to create your own club for the first time ever. This comes with custom kit and pitch creation, allowing for a more personalized feel.
The skill tree system in the game is also a nice touch, adding more RPG elements into the game's role-play nature. Apart from the all-new experience system, players get to choose perks that can help give their players significant power boosts. It's always exciting to unlock new perks and try them out for the first time on the pitch, and this gives players more incentive to keep playing.
Story
The game's story lets you play as a relative unknown rising to the top in career mode. At the start of your career, you play off the bench. Your effort in and off the pitch will figure into your future in career mode. Your performance will affect your relationship with your teammates and the management, which will then affect your playing hours. You can easily tell everyone's opinion of you in the game's cutscenes, many of which have been added to the game.
More scenes have been added to represent significant changes and milestones in your career. The game also has improved highlights that celebrate your milestones with you.
Graphics
FIFA 22‘s graphics and presentation floored us. While there are still several notable graphical bugs here and there, FIFA 22‘s graphics was a big leap from previous titles. This is, of course, a great way to make use of the new systems that the game is running on. While we did mention in NBA 2K22‘s character models feel the most realistic to date, FIFA 22 easily beats NBA 2K22 in many aspects. FIFA 22‘s Hypermotion technology did help make the game look more authentic on the pitch. That doesn't simply concern the individual game models, but also the movements of the players on the field.
Meanwhile, there are a couple of popular players who have special character models. These players have special hair physics, which looks really cool. However, the disparity between them and normal character models makes this feature feel a bit off. If the hair physics can be implemented in all of the players, then it'll be perfect.
Finally, the game's presentation falls flat on its menus. They don't feel very intuitive, and it's hard to navigate around. Thankfully, the PS5's mode switcher feature helps here. But had it not been there, we would have had trouble getting to different menus quickly.
Music and Sound Design
The game's music is fine and suitable for the game they're played for. But while the music is enough to hype you up and make you want to keep playing, it's the sound design that really puts the icing on the cake here. The crowd, the punts, and the calls all sound authentic and add to the game's atmosphere.
The game's commentary is also one of the game's highlights, which has drastically improved from the previous version. What we noticed the most is the additional voice lines that have been added for Career Mode. These lines help make you feel even more special as the announcers talk about your achievements a lot. Your milestones feel more special, thanks to announcers highlighting your achievements.
For the first time ever, FIFA has a female English-speaking announcer. Alex Scott joins the commentary team, which is a milestone that needs to be mentioned.
Accessibility
Save for its online play, FIFA 22 is surprisingly accessible. There are six difficulty options, with the easiest one allowing even babies to score goals. Apart from difficulty, FIFA 22 also has a lot of game settings that take into consideration marginalized players. There are settings on color blindness, brightness, contrast, player icon sizes, subtitles, text-to-speech, narration, and even speech-to-speech. The game even has the option to rebind buttons on consoles, however, this is only true for the shoulder buttons and the right stick.
Verdict – Is FIFA 22 worth your time and money?
This is, quite frankly, the best FIFA experience to date. For our FIFA 22 PS5 review, we give the game a very positive rating, especially since it made use of next-gen capabilities quite nicely. However, FUT's imbalanced grind and a couple of major bugs prevent this game from being perfect.
If you're a football fan, then you're probably thinking of getting FIFA 22. It has significant enough changes from FIFA 21 to warrant an upgrade, especially if you're jumping from current-gen to next-gen. It's definitely way better than Konami's eFootball, and the rival title will have to spend a long time before they can stand on equal levels with EA's sports game. For the time being, it's really all about how soon you want to play FIFA 22. But in terms of value for money, FIFA 22 definitely deserves a day 1 buy for fans of the game.
Score: 8/10
