FIFA 22 has been confirmed, with PSG star and France international Kylian Mbappe once again taking centre stage on the game’s cover.
EA hasn’t revealed a great deal of information about FIFA 22 just yet, although we do know that Alex Scott will become the very first English-speaking female commentator in the game, while the new HyperMotion Technology will help to create more realistic animations.
Otherwise, we’re expecting minor tweaks for the series, despite Konami recently confirming that eFootball will replace PES and take on a free-to-play model with an entire new game engine. Can FIFA 22 compete with that?
Here’s everything we know so far about FIFA 22, including release date, price, trailers, features and a few things we’d love to see added.
FIFA 22 release date
FIFA 22 will be released on October 1 and it’s available to pre-order now, both in physical and digital forms.
FIFA 22 Price
The standard edition of FIFA 22 will cost £69.99 on PS5 and Xbox Series X. It will be priced at £59.99 on PS4 and Xbox One, and £49.99 on PC. And finally, it will be available for £34.99 on Nintendo Switch.
There will also be an Ultimate Edition available, which features the following extra goodies:
- FUT Hero Item
- 4 Days Early Access
- FUT Ones to Watch item
- 4600 FIFA Points
The Ultimate Edition will cost £89.99 on PS4, PS5 and Xbox. It will be slightly cheaper on PC at £69.99. The Ultimate Edition will not be available on the Nintendo Switch.
Trailer
The official FIFA 22 trailer has already dropped, which gives a sneak peek at the new visuals and the new HyperMotion Technology.
EA has also revealed a more in-depth look at the game, including a look at HyperMotion Technology, improved goalkeepers and the new ‘explosive sprint’.
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FIFA 22 cover star
PSG forward Kylian Mbappe once again stars on the cover of FIFA. While Mbappe hasn’t had the best season as PSG slumped to second in their domestic league and France exited Euro 2020 early, he’s still one of the finest young players in world football.
Personally, we’d have switched things up and gone for someone like Marcus Rashford, Erling Haaland or Jadon Sancho. Or maybe even Jamie Vardy.
Features and gameplay
The initial trailer for FIFA 22 didn’t reveal too much, aside from the game’s use of a new tech called HyperMotion.
This feature, exclusive to PS5, Series X|S and Stadia, uses motion capture from real players to get accurate movement.
EA states that “A cutting-edge proprietary machine learning algorithm learns from over 8.7 million frames of advanced match capture, then writes new animations in real time to create organic football realism across a variety of interactions on the pitch.”
Basically, this should seriously improve realism and hopefully reduce the number of times you see the same animations – a real issue many had with previous FIFA versions.
Other features coming in FIFA 22 (we assume to all versions aside from Switch) include improved goalkeepers, faster sprints, new attacking tactics and improved ball physics.
EA has also confirmed the return of Volta football, Pro Clubs, Ultimate Team and updates to Career Mode.
FIFA 22 wishlist
These are just a few of the smaller features we’d love to see implemented in FIFA 22:
1. Classic players in more modes
Classic players have been a part of Ultimate Team for years now, so why not bring them into more areas of the game, like career mode?
We’d love to sign up a prime Zidane or Beckham for our current-day teams.
2. A better, more realistic career mode
FIFA 21 was meant to be a reset for Career Mode and it was hyped up heavily ahead of launch. However, in truth, the mode is still bare-bones and incredibly frustrating.
Many of the features added, like training regimes, were so dull we ended up skipping them entirely and the transfer market is still broken.
The focus on extra cutscenes in the next-gen versions helped, but there’s still a distinct lack of atmosphere in matches too.
3. Much improved animations
It seems like this point will be addressed with the introduction of HyperMotion, but it has to be said that FIFA gets stale after hours of play due to the constant repetition of the same animations.
This is even more noticeable when you’re not controlling some of the star players. Playing with lower-league teams or lesser-known players becomes dull very quickly.
4. Dynamic weather
This is a small one, but we’ve always found it odd how weather doesn’t change during the course of a match. It’s either raining for 90 minutes or not all.
Having the drizzle slowly descend into a torrential downpour would add some extra bite to matches and surely could be easily achieved on current-gen hardware.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.