EA Sports has released a list of changes that are coming to Madden NFL 22 prior to its August 20 release date based on player feedback. Every year, Madden gets a graphical upgrade and plenty of new features and improvements, and in recent years, EA has been doing its best to make these changes based on player feedback.
Madden has consistently tried to improve the series’ accuracy in an attempt to mimic the true NFL experience while still implementing mechanics and features that make the game fun and accessible for players. This year, EA has been very transparent about the development process of Madden 22, continuously informing its fans about recent changes to the project, some of which include new crowd animations and dynamic gameplay. In order to test these new features and assess the game’s stability, EA recently began a Madden NFL 22 playtest.
The game received an “outpouring of feedback” according to EA via the most recent Gridiron Notes on Madden 22, and there are a lot of fixes that are planned for the game prior to its launch in a couple of weeks. Many points of contention seem to be due to the development team making the game more realistic, a good example being player movement, which received feedback that was “almost evenly split between like and dislike.” As of last year, EA uses NFL Next Gen Stats to help create Madden’s AI and ratings, culminating in what is referred to as “Next Gen Player Movement…” which will only be available on next-gen consoles. In a dev note, EA acknowledges “how big that adjustment is for players, but we are confident that a more realistic movement system… is what’s best for our players…” Nonetheless, the team is still working to improve some aspects of player movement according to feedback.
Another whole section of the dev notes is dedicated to Madden’s Franchise mode, which is one of the game’s oldest and most popular game modes, as well as one of its least perfect ones. This year, players appear to have gripes with the brand-new fatigue system EA has implemented, which appears to need a lot of tuning. Once again in an effort to imitate the NFL, “fatigue will be progressive… increasing in magnitude as your team gets deeper into the season.” Other concerns surrounding free agency, draft classes, and simulation stats also make appearances in the Gridiron Notes, some of which have been noticeably problematic in Madden’s franchise mode for years. Hopefully, some of Madden 22’s Franchise improvements will help revitalize and reinvigorate the game mode for long-time fans.
Unfortunately, quite a bit of the feedback given by players has been addressed in dev notes that simply state the purposes of features and mechanics, no doubt leaving some fans to wonder if their voices are actually being heard. It’s important, however, to note that the development team seems confident that some of these Madden 22 changes are going to feel much better after release and possibly a few patches. Said improvements will hopefully allow Madden 22 to meet the expectations that were set in June.
EA desperately needs a bounce back from Madden this year after Madden 21 received some of the franchise’s worst reviews, especially from fans; Madden 21’s PS4 version currently holds an astounding 0.2 user score on Metacritic, with many of the reviews expressing disgust at its unoriginality. Hopefully, Madden NFL 22 will finally bring Madden back to its former glory with its new features and a focus on player-driven improvements.