It's that time of year again. That time not just when studios load up the launch slate with titles in preparation for the holiday season, but also when developers lucky enough to own the rights to a major sports game release the latest annual installment of whatever that might be and rake in the cash. Madden NFL 22 is already on the market, NBA 2K22 has just launched, and on October 1 FIFA 22 will join in on the fun.
As someone who has been playing FIFA for more than 20 years, I will faithfully be picking up a copy of FIFA 22 as soon as its available. If you play FIFA as much as I do, which millions of people all over the world do, then odds are you pick up a new copy every year - millions of people do that too. Even if the changes are minimal beyond updated squads, you're still going to buy it. You'll also be able to dive right in since you have already been playing it for years.
FIFA is the only sports game I have that relationship with. However, this year, I decided to branch out. I was offered the chance to give NBA 2K22 a whirl, and much to the behest of my backlog whose muffled screams I could hear at the time, I took it. I've loved FIFA for years, and even though 2K burned me and the rest of us wrestling fans via WWE 2K20, I was willing to give it a second chance since this was a completely different series. I mean really, how hard could it be to learn how to play a sports game despite never having tried the series before?
Very, as it turns out. I wasn't a fool. I knew diving right into a game would be a mistake. I went straight to NBA 2K22's training and learned the basics. How to shoot, sprint, pass, defend, block, all of that. I even stuck around and taught myself a few neat tricks. After cycling through most of the practice drills, I thought I was ready.
I was not. The leap from practice drills to actually using them in a match was akin to trying to speak a foreign language slowly in a classroom to conversing in that language on the topic of theoretical physics. It's the equivalent of feeling proud of yourself because the Duolingo owl taught you how to say apples in Spanish, then sitting there with a blank look on your face when you try to order food while on holiday in Barcelona because apples aren't on the menu.
Nothing I had learned during the practice drills had stuck. My passes were going awry, shots were bouncing off the rim and into the open arms of my opponents, and don't even get me started on trying to stop them scoring once that happened. It quickly became evident that if NBA 2K was going to become an annual tradition for me like FIFA, I was going to have to put a lot more time into learning how to play. Unlike a platformer or an RPG, running through the tutorial at the start of the game wasn't going to cut it.
I cast my mind back to when I first started playing FIFA. There must have been a time when I was as inept at that as I am now at NBA 2K. The difference is, when I was first handed a controller and the chance to play FIFA, I was a child. I had a couple of things then that I don't have as much of now. A brain like a sponge, a lot more patience, and above all else, time. Again, three things you need to learn a new language, and as it turns out, to learn how to play and hold your own in a series of sports games you have never played before.
When I fell in love with FIFA, I picked up its mechanics and learned its ways far quicker as a child than I would have been able to as an adult. I also didn't have a job, more responsibilities than you can shake a red card at, and a child of my own demanding pretty much all of my time. Yes, I could persevere and put the time into NBA 2K, but the benefits of doing so for me no longer outweigh the costs like they would have done 20 years ago. Sports games aren't necessarily closed off to everyone other than those who are already well versed in them, but it's going to take more time and effort than your average game to learn how to play at all, let alone play well.
Don't get me wrong, as much as I wanted to embed my DualSense in the wall as I got dunked on over and over again, the complexities of learning a new sports game aren't a bad thing. Being good at the sports these games simulate is hard. There are an infinite amount of intricacies developers will continue to try and replicate and include in these games from now until the end of time. These games need to be hard to master to create a hierarchy of difficulty to keep players coming back. They will always sell well and will always have a loyal following that buys new copies every year. Plus, as long as those sports remain popular, young players who have it will continue to put the time in and add to those audiences. However, at 31, the NBA 2K boat may have passed me by.