A fairly large part of Madden NFL 22’s pre-release hype cycle focused on the changes that EA Sports is making to the game’s Scouting system in Franchise mode. This was, at launch and in previous entries, fairly rudimentary. You’d get a handful of points each week which you could spend to reveal further information about rookies you were interested in recruiting.

With the release’s latest patch, the entire system has been redesigned. Now you’ll be responsible for hiring and firing scouts, setting them assignments, and drilling into the nitty-gritty of the college players you want to draft. You’ll get data on their performance at the NFL Combine, and the rest of the league will be paying attention to the players you’re looking at, influencing draft projections.

This is an absolutely enormous overhaul, and while EA Sports still has a long way to go to get its flagship American football simulation’s Franchise mode on par with, say, NBA 2K22’s equivalent mode, we’re eager to dig into these changes imminently to see just how much they add to the core Franchise experience.

Of course, there’s a lot more to Madden NFL 22’s latest update than just the new Scouting mode. A new ranked mode with various rewards has been added to The Yard, while various legacy uniforms and player likenesses have been included. Other improvements have been made to pass coverage – which was an issue at launch – and there’s even a new X-Factor to boot.

[source youtube.com, via ea.com]