In a post on the EA website, the FIFA 22 development team has provided a thorough breakdown of the game's new features, AI technology and mechanical improvements. The post complemented a new FIFA 22 gameplay trailer, which itself provided a deep dive into the game's animation tech.
The FIFA 22 official reveal trailer released earlier this month briefly mentioned EA's new HyperMotion Technology and proprietary machine learning, but it didn't provide many details on how those two features would impact gameplay. Aside from explaining the game will "deliver the most realistic, fluid and responsive football experience," the trailer simply showed smooth transitions between footage of real-life professional players and "simulated" gameplay footage of their in-game counterparts, who replicated their exact movements.
The new FIFA 22 trailer is a lot more in-depth, and EA's accompanying "FIFA 22 Gameplay Deep Dive" post further elaborates on the new information presented. Both the written notes and gameplay trailer dissect the developer's HyperMotion Gameplay Technology and machine learning, the latter of which led to the development of a neural network called ML-Flow.
According to the post, HyperMotion is the "foundation" of FIFA 22's gameplay, though it's only available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Stadia. The technology involves a combination between machine learning and motion capture; FIFA 22 developers mocapped 22 professional football players competing at high intensity in order to replicate their movements as accurately as possible - both individually and as a collective in team formations. HyperMotion made way for the "biggest animation refresh in FIFA 22 history," and ML-Flow subsequently takes over to continue enhancing ball approach animations in real time.
The FIFA 22 gameplay breakdown includes information on over 40 significant gameplay improvements, 10 of which are exclusive to new-generation consoles and Stadia. EA also detailed the game's development goals: The team first hopes each aspect of FIFA 22's gameplay will respond directly to previous feedback in order to make the game feel more polished. The developers also focused on both FIFA 22's fairness and gameplay variability, explaining they intend to reward players for using different on-field strategies and for "performing the right action at the right time."
With so many enhancements on paper, it's worth wondering whether FIFA 22 will actually feel different from its predecessors. For those playing on new-generation consoles, this might be the case, but it sounds like those playing on older models will have a less drastically altered experience. Either way, it's a step in the right direction for EA, considering the FIFA franchise has been criticized for not pushing gameplay improvements far enough between iterations.
FIFA 22 will be released on October 1, 2021 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Google Stadia.
Source: EA, FIFA 22/YouTube