Sports games have recently come under fire, with most of the criticism aimed at franchises with yearly releases. Fans and critics have been dissatisfied with what they perceive to be a lack of effort, as several series, such as FIFA and NBA 2K, only make a few modifications each year.
Although Football Manager 22 does not deviate from the trend of sports games introducing only a few new features each year, the ones that have been added are all worthy additions that make the latest game the best way to play the prestigious management series.
Here are the 5 additions!
Wide Center-Back
With three-at-the-back and five-at-the-back formations becoming more prominent in the sport, Sports Interactive has added a new duty for defenders.
When the team is in control, the wide center-back role does exactly what it says on the tin, ordering the left and/or right-sided center-back to shift out wide into a full-back role.
The role includes Defend, Support, and even Attack tasks, which is a rarity for a center back role.
Brand new animation engine
The old FM animation engine essentially bound players to the 2D discs that served as the foundation for our transition from 2D to 3D vision, limiting real-life movement and motion.
The new FM22 engine, on the other hand, is constructed around the new inclusion of root motion, which means that the players no longer move on those 2D discs, and the 3D model movement is now based on the animation of their skeleton, allowing for far more realistic movements.
Updated Match AI
The match AI in FM22 has advanced again more, with a slew of improvements that make them the most clever in the series’ history.
Sports Interactive has rebalanced how the length and difficulty of a pass affects accuracy, so long-range through balls, for example, will have a lower likelihood of finding their target.
The appearance of under-hit and over-hit passes in the match has also been greatly improved.
Data Hub
The Data Hub is one of the most intriguing new features this year, providing more tactical insight and analysis than ever before. The Data Hub is chock-full of useful information, numbers, and graphs concerning the manager’s squad and the forthcoming opponent.
Pass maps, cross accuracy, team shape, XG performance, formation effectiveness, shot accuracy, and more, much more are examples of such data.
Essentially, the Football Manager series revolves around the Data Hub, which allows managers to examine their team’s performance from a tactical aspect and modify their style of play appropriately.
Fantasy Draft revamp
The Fantasy Draft game mode debuted in Football Manager 2016, introducing a new way to play the game for the first time by picking a dream squad and competing with your friends. Every year since then, they have added to it, gradually refining the mode.
FM22 adds a slew of new features in the Fantasy Draft game mode, including some that were highly sought by the community.
They collaborated extensively with some of the most prominent Football Manager content creators to ensure that the features they want were included in this year’s game, which we think will enhance the experience of viewing their online programming.