Fifa 22 is absolutely packed with modes and options allowing you to experience every facet of the beautiful game, whether that’s role-playing as a young professional scoring a tournament-winning goal for Barcelona, or knocking a ball about on an Italian backstreet with a bunch of pals. The Fifa series wants to be all things to all fans, and Fifa 22 gets closer than ever.

It’s not often you get a chance to quote Die Hard’s Hans Gruber misquoting classical literature when discussing the world’s best-selling sports simulator, but that line really does a lot to sum up how I feel about Fifa 22 having lived with it for a week now. If you love football then there sure is a lot of it here. There’s street football, mystery ball football, Premier League football, Champions League football, loot box football, RPG-style football and plenty, plenty more where that all came from. It is overwhelming and, for the most part, plenty of fun with something for everyone.

This year’s new feature adds the possibility for the gamers to create a club from the ground up including the kits and stadium. This adds a new, fun way for the gamers to have the option to create their own team, rather than take over an already established club.

This year's game seems to be slower paced than previous editions. The “HyperMotion” technology makes the game feel a bit more realistic when it comes to the play style that suits it best.

Other improvements to gameplay are less grand, but still make for a better gaming experience. Goalkeepers are some of the most important positions in both real-life soccer and in FIFA, and they've seen a bit of an upgrade here. Better stops and smarter AI positioning makes it so that you can't score so easily on opponents anymore, which should lead to less lopsided scores that don't accurately reflect how the real sport is. Improved ball physics and general tweaks to the way AI players will move and react have also been added, resulting in an overall way better playing experience that left me wanting to keep playing rather than being done after the latest 7-0 victory.

While the fundamental principles of a great kickabout are rock solid here, a lot of the surrounding gloss and highly monetisable chaos detracts from experience: a bit like a digital manifestation of Paris Saint-Germain’s front three. Being all things to all people is a fine way to run a supermarket, but Fifa 22 is often as discombobulating as it is entertaining, often in an identical manner to what has been the status quo for a good while now. If you wanted to play the same match-up three times in a row in Seasons while grinding your way to a cup final, then Fifa 21 can happily provide that experience. Yet here it is again unchanged and unloved for the umpteenth year running.

Overall, FIFA 22 is an enjoyable game that has some flaws. Gameplay can be better and some features should be tweaked to cater for a wider audience, but anyone that picks up the game is sure to have fun.

FIFA 22 retails for $70 ($60 on last-gen consoles) and is available on PC, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.