After taking a year off from its annual releases, WWE 2K22 has come back stronger than ever, with a new formula and game engine that has essentially revitalized the franchise. The changes made in the game have proven that WWE titles have a lot more to offer, and that moving forward, meaningful changes to the games could make future games serious contenders for game of the year. Following WWE 2K22’s success, the ball has now fallen in the court of other annual sports games such as the Madden NFL franchise that, like WWE 2K, have grown stale with few changes, and a lot of issues with each iteration.
Madden NFL games have often been blamed for not taking any risks in terms of changing the gameplay or the game modes that have ruled the franchise for many years now. While fans will continue to flock to the series, many are usually left disappointed, as they play what amounts to the same game, year in and year out. The only real changes with each entry come in the form of graphics overhauls, or updates to the roster and player ratings. So, how could taking a year off help the Madden NFL series release games that could change the face of the franchise going forward?
Madden: Updating the Game Engine
Visual Concepts, the developers behind WWE 2K22 used the year off to improve the in-game mechanics by creating a new game engine to maintain a balance between simulation and arcade elements. This ensured that the game was fun to play for fans, while still staying true to the WWE formula and giving players a sense of realism. For future Madden NFL titles to become fan favorites, the franchise is in serious need of redevelopment.
Madden NFL 22 suffered from a lack of meaningful changes, along with multiple bugs and glitches that took away from the core gameplay. The in-game mechanics and the animations used made the movement and decision-making almost robot-like and gave the entire game a sense of incompletion. This has been a theme for recent installments in the series, and for it to be rectified, EA will need to reimagine the way fans will play future Madden NFL titles. For that to work, there will need to be a redesigned game engine that will elevate features of the gameplay that work, while reworking those that do not.
Improving Madden NFL’s Face of the Franchise Mode
One of the most lackluster game modes in Madden NFL 22 was the story mode, Face of the Franchise, which was short and provided little excitement in terms of gameplay. The story mode has a lack of meaningful options that can impact the progression of the story and falters the efforts made by previous games, such as Madden NFL 20 which initially introduced a compelling story mode. The simple fact is that the story mode suffers from many of the same problems as the other game modes; poor gameplay mechanics and repetitive features that were not entertaining the first time around, let alone the second or the third.
WWE 2K20 had many of these same issues for its story mode, which were eventually cleaned up for WWE 2K22’s MyRise game mode. The year off allowed Visual Concepts to understand the changes that needed to be made and gave them the time to develop a more compelling and exciting story mode. The fact that there are multiple classes players can pick, and different decisions that will dictate the progression of the story, means that replayability for the game was handled well. This is something that future Madden NFL titles would need to address to give fans more playtime that they can enjoy even after multiple playthroughs.
While Madden NFL is one of the many games in the sports world that requires a thorough revamp, EA needs to look at the approach Visual Concepts took while creating WWE 2K22. A year off will give the developers more time to understand the areas that need to be fixed and give them a chance to avoid rushing through certain areas of the game, like design and animations.
For many game franchises, an annual release is often a stepping stone towards real progression, however, EA’s line of games, especially Madden NFL and FIFA, have focused too much of their attention on the money-making online modes and have dismissed making significant changes to the overall game. Taking a year off would be in the best interest of EA if they want the future Madden NFL titles to return to the glory of older releases like Madden NFL 09.
WWE 2K22 is now available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.