Six months. It’s been six months since EA Sports released the first of supposedly three major live service updates to Madden 22.
The scouting update — whether good or bad is beside the point — was a major post launch overhaul that had fans more hopeful that maybe, just maybe, Franchise Mode was no longer going to be the red-headed step child of the series. What other updates were going to come? What new features should fans expect to see from the other two live service updates promised to them? It was all so exciting.
Then, crickets.
No updates; no messaging; no answers; nothing.
Of course, the reason was that the other two updates were ultimately cancelled, which SGO reported back at the end of November. Despite EA publicly disputing the report to a different outlet days later, there was still no evidence to suggest that the original updates were still coming. Whether they tried to suggest it or not, skepticism was abound.
Then, more months went by. December turned to January which turned to February, and still not a word about what was coming. The NFL season was coming to an end, and fans still didn’t know when or even if another Franchise Mode update was coming from EA Sports for Madden 22.
Finally An Update
Then, Thursday March 10. EA Sports releases the March Title Update for the game, and in the promotion of it mention the “Second Franchise Update”.
Well, finally! Better late than never, right? So, what exactly is this “second live service update” for Franchise Can you now sign free agents to multi-year deals during the regular season? What about that update to team relocation with new brandings that was mentioned on the update roadmap two years ago?
Nope. None of that. You know what did get added? Five — yes, five — new scenarios to the scenario engine.
That’s it. That’s the update.
You mean to tell me, it took over three months from your original denial of the report and stating that “information will be coming in the new year” to implement just five new scenarios? It would be one thing if it was 20-plus new scenarios as that would coincide with the “major update” to the engine SGO was told was cut. But five?
What that sounds like is that plans were cut, and the five were created after the report was released and the backlash became too big to ignore from the Madden community.
The 2021-2022 NFL season is over, and the 2022-2023 league year is just around the corner. EA Sports promised franchise mode players three large scale updates to the mode, and delivered one. No matter what they try and spin, adding five scenarios is not a large update to the mode.
That begs the question, is EA Sports serious with this?
This feels like when you’re a waiter/waitress and someone tips you with pennies. No tip would’ve been better off than that nonsense.
No franchise update would be better than being fed five scenarios as if that’s sufficient for how they tried to pass it off before the game’s launch. It just feels like a complete slap in the face to everyone who still plays Madden 22 and still spends their time in the game’s Franchise Mode. They were waiting for something good, and all they got…were pennies.
So sports gamers, what do you think about the second live service update in Madden 22? Let us know in the comment section below, and take the conversation further at the official SGO Discord server.