Rugby 25

[Sour Patch Kid]

Game released yesterday and already from what I have seen a massive, day 1 patch has been reported. Sounds just like AFL 23 when it came out

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

So for this today and tried doing some of the tutorials which mostly are impossible.

Either the controls they are showing you are wrong or the game is broke as they don't work.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

I'd also add on ps4 it takes about 2m to load each match which is ****.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

Loads of bugs, every game we've played so far has crashed. It's been released way too early I think.

Really hard to select a player on defence and really hard to see which player you have selected. I'd also add the game seems to play without any human interaction. It's odd.

 

[Bluemoon]

Wish I could say it was great to hear the feedback but it really sounds poor.

The nfl games get the coming together at the line of scrimmage down pretty well so it always bemused me why the ruck is so complicated. The passing motion and open play I understand a bit more.

 

[Sour Patch Kid]

Everything I've seen on Big Ant's forums about the game are terrible. It is being pretty well savaged by everyone who has played it.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

Everything I've seen on Big Ant's forums about the game are terrible. It is being pretty well savaged by everyone who has played it.

I mean the game crashes all the time, some part or functions just don't work (you can't even get a kick away), the subs are all wrong, teams have their 2 kicking, the commentary says the opposite of what is happening on the pitch in areas, the breakdown is not fun, passing is really slow and poor…(the list goes on)

But the graphics are nice.

 

[Sour Patch Kid]

I mean the game crashes all the time, some part or functions just don't work (you can't even get a kick away), the subs are all wrong, teams have their 2 kicking, the commentary says the opposite of what is happening on the pitch in areas, the breakdown is not fun, passing is really slow and poor…(the list goes on)

But the graphics are nice.

That is one consistent thing I read. The graphics are great and the number of licenses is better than any game before buuuuuuut....... when it comes to game play a lot of people are saying that Rugby Challenge 4 is better.
Sad, I was hopeful but based on recent Big Ant projects, saw this coming.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

That is one consistent thing I read. The graphics are great and the number of licenses is better than any game before buuuuuuut....... when it comes to game play a lot of people are saying that Rugby Challenge 4 is better.
Sad, I was hopeful but based on recent Big Ant projects, saw this coming.

The game is so far off a rugby union game it's shocking. You can tell it's made on a league foundation as it's a rugby league game in all but name.

From what people have said though the company should keep improving things but at the moment it's not fun at all and basically unplayable.

 

[nik]

The game is so far off a rugby union game it's shocking. You can tell it's made on a league foundation as it's a rugby league game in all but name.

From what people have said though the company should keep improving things but at the moment it's not fun at all and basically unplayable.

Rugby 25 is based on a 10 year old rugby league game. They would have been better off starting fresh instead of converting rugby league to rugby union. They used all the RLL4 animations as well (which is different to rugby union especially around contact, rugby league contact is far more upright nature, whilst rugby union the ball carrier often goes low to enable quick recycling) hence they cut corners. Remember when Rugby Challenge first came out they had the late great Jonah Lomu doing motion capture - rugby specific motion capture.

I am confident BA will continue working to improve the game, but there is a long way to go gameplay wise just to get to the standard of Rugby 22, RC4 etc.

 

[Sour Patch Kid]

I am a bigger fan of league than union but play both RC4 and RLL3 so I completely understand what you are getting at. Pretty sad with all this time that they did not get something so fundamentally basic as animations/movement patterns right. I don't know a lot about programming, but I would think that would be a pretty massive fix to the game.

 

[woosaah]

Ok so I have played a bit and yes it's not fun. I'm just playing it and trying to send bugs and such back to big ant hopefully they fix some things.

My son is loving it, which is great but I'm not having fun. I get random penalties when I'm hot on attack and from 90m out he chooses kick at goal.... he can move the ball to the 50m line and drain a kick from there (from a lock or a prop even, as penalty kicks are taken by who had the ball last) so he is loving that.

I'm sure they will fix things but at the moment I'll just keep getting beaten by my 9 year old.

 

[AlRums]

As an IT professional, NEVER buy the first release early. Let them find the bugs first, then if you have to have it, buy it.

 

[nik]

As an IT professional, NEVER buy the first release early. Let them find the bugs first, then if you have to have it, buy it.

Early Access was released in June 2024, they have been getting consistent feedback on the game, making updates. They got up to EA7 (7 major patches, with a number of minor patches in between as well). Yet the official release (along with Day 1 patch) has been a mess. They just haven't prioritized the game play at all. I believe the Dev 'game play team' have been too busy trying to fix other games games they released in the last couple of years (AFL23, Cricket 24, Tiebreak).

 

[woosaah]

as a software dev myself I understand what they were doing, they probably ran out of money and had to do it. I bought it to keep sending in feedback. I didn't want to do EA and I really didn't want to do this but on the flip side I like to keep my son happy

 

[saulan]

as a software dev myself I understand what they were doing, they probably ran out of money and had to do it.

I believe the Dev 'game play team' have been too busy trying to fix other games games they released in the last couple of years (AFL23, Cricket 24, Tiebreak).

This is exactly what I think happened. Tiebreak launched terribly and they were in chaos mode at the beginning of last year trying to fix it, while Cricket 24 also needed a fair amount of attention.

I think there was a journalist at the Nacon event last year Q1/Q2 that asked where the game is there and they were told there was nothing to show. I think they probably were in incredibly early prototype mode then and really didn't have much to show.

Even when early access 1 came out, there were a lot of complaints of how much of a barebones shell the game was. Likely because it was the minimal viable product that they had cobbled together that could go out the door, and aimed to build on from there.

Realistically, even though the game announcement was two or three years ago, I'm not really sure if the actual game development (coding and gameplay development, not facescans and some modelling) has been going for more than a year because of all the other problem games Big Ant launched.

They are an ambitious studio that really try to do a lot, but for their size they tried to push out too many big ticket games in a small window and bit off more than they can chew.

The positive they have a good track record of fixing their broken games into a good state, but I can't see this being a good thing for their potential sales as they missed WC hype and have landed with a flop during 6 nations. Their next big push they'd want to have from a sales perspective is Lions tour. Hopefully they got the license for that…

 

[shoulderboy86]

The game is fun at times but definitely needs more work, I hope the patches will continue to improve the gameplay, and release more tournaments like the Lions Tour & Rugby Championship later this year