Unlike many sports, rugby hasn’t typically been one to see yearly video game releases. In fact, despite having had two studios and publishers working on games over the course of the last generation, there were often multiple years between games. That’s all changing, as Bigben Interactive and HB Studios already released Rugby 15 at the start of the year, with plans to kickstart a yearly franchise, and their recently announced licensing deal for the upcoming Rugby World Cup.
Today, they’ve released a trio of new screenshots from the game, alongside confirmation that Rugby World Cup 2015 will be releasing in September on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation4, PlayStation3, PlayStationVita and Windows PC.
Unfortunately, this is not the kind of development powerhouse that we see at EA or 2K, capable of throwing hundreds of people at a project and always pushing to reach new heights graphically. Though we don’t know which platform these are from, the graphics aren’t exactly mind blowing, so we’ll have to hope that they can deliver on the gameplay front, which has always been a bit of a stumbling block for rugby games.
Source: press release
Takyu
Why can’t EA start making rugby games again? Graphically, this looks to have all the characteristics of your standard forward’s cauliflower ears. And I would be be incredibly surprised if this improves even barely on Rugby 15’s awful gameplay, though official team licensing is at least a step up.