Forget Lionel Messi winning the Copa America, or Italy triumphing at Euro 2020, football fans have much more reason to celebrate: EA Sports has unveiled the trailer for the brand-new FIFA 22.
And for the second consecutive year, Paris Saint-Germain and France forward Kylian Mbappe will grace the cover. It's a rarity to have the same star be the face of FIFA's franchise, with the most recent examples being Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
According to EA, this will be the most realistic chapter to date. That's because FIFA 22 makes use of what's called "HyperMotion" technology, which utilises motion capture of 22 players on a pitch at high intensity, said to be a first in the industry.
The developers claim that HyperMotion, combined with their own machine learning, makes for "the most realistic, fluid and responsive football experience," with nearly 9 million frames of match action have been captured and analysed, giving EA reams of data to reference in creating movements "organic" to the game. So no more complaining about broken controllers or questionable AI.
This latest edition is as robust as ever, with more than 17,000 players across 700-plus teams in more than 90 stadiums and over 30 leagues available to play with, including the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, the brand-new UEFA Europa Conference League, Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores and CONMEBOL Copa Sudamericana.
So charge up your controllers and count the days until Oct. 1. A brand-new edition of FIFA is coming home.