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Early Access 3 - Major Update



We are happy to announce the release of Early Access 3, our third major update to Rugby 25.

Notes for what is included in this update are outlined below.

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  • Added Player Creator
    • The Player Creator has been added letting you create male and female rugby players, and edit their appearance and skills.
  • Added Team Creator
    • The Team Creator has been added to the Rugby Academy, which will allow creating teams, add custom players to their roster and edit kits.
  • Added Major League Rugby
    • Major League Rugby has been added to Rugby 25, with the 12 MLR teams available to use in Play Now, as well as in the new MLR Competition mode, which features the full 2024 competition format and unique presentation.
  • Added MLR Stadiums
    • Five fully licensed stadiums from Major League Rugby are added in this update, AutoNation Sports Field, Gold Mine on Airline, Snapdragon Stadium, Starfire Sports Stadium and Maryland SoccerPlex.
  • Added Match Statistics Screens
    • When pausing matches, we will now have a summary of match statistics on screen, as well as selected popups during gameplay.
  • Improved Gameplay
    • Further gameplay improvements have been introduced, including wider passing timing windows and increased offload chances, improved player movement and correcting a few rules errors.
  • Improved Stability
    • Further work has gone into ensuring more matches can be completed due to set pieces not completing, we continue to appreciate reports to our support team to help us identify the remaining ones, via https://early.bigant.com/


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340870/Rugby_25/

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Early Access 2 – Interim Update 2

Hi everyone! Today we have a further interim update to the Early Access 2 release to share. After this, our next planned update will be the full launch of Early Access 3 late next week!



Build notes for this update are as follows,
Tuned Passing
Passing remains an area heavily in development, in this update the AI will be more willing to make passes in gameplay, however it is a known issue that these occasionally result in some poor passes being made, on balance however we believe this is a better gameplay outcome than how the passing was in the previous update.

In addition, this update includes further work to improve passing responsiveness for user-controlled players, as well as resolving cases where the ball wouldn’t be passed to the player indicated by the button prompts.

Updated Animations
Several changes to animations have been implemented, including:
  • Changes to avoid high tackle animations being played when the tackle didn’t meet the conditions to be an illegal tackle
  • Reduced delays in the in-play kicking animations
  • Improved general player positioning animations
  • Various supporting changes for improving tackles, passing, rucks and mauls


Improved Stability
Numerous updates have been made to address reported issues in completing matches, thanks to everyone who has sent in support tickets to help us identify them, the various videos and helpful reproduction steps we received helped track a number of them down.


Early Access 2 – Interim Update 1

Hi Everyone,

We thank the community for their patience while we worked through gameplay issues identified since the last major update, we were hoping to get an update to everyone sooner but wanted to ensure that we were making a clear step forward with this new build.



  • Adjusted Passing
    • Work on passing in this updated included adjusting pass timing windows to improve the ability to pass when about to be tackled, as well as continuing to work on pass trajectories and animations. Additionally, resolved some cases of the player target indicators not being visible.

      All elements of passing remain an area of focus with future updates, this is a core part of the game and we will continue to work on it to get the balance and feel right.
  • Added Maul Control Prompts
    • More feedback during mauls for inputs has been added to assist in learning the maul controls.
  • Improved Cameras
    • A few issues with certain stadiums having camera clips during lineouts and other set pieces have been addressed.
  • Improved Stability
    • Several issues with set pieces resulting in non-progression in the game have been identified and resolved.


Thanks again to everyone for your feedback!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340870/Rugby_25/

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Early Access 2 - Major Update



Hi Rugby fans!

Welcome to the first major update in the Rugby 25 Early Access. Firstly, thanks for your support, patience, understanding, and, most of all, your generous feedback about the journey so far - it's been really helpful. Together we are building a great game!

Below you will find the notes for this release - we look forward to discussing the game and hearing what you think at forum.bigant.com

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  • Added Mauls
    • The initial maul mechanic has been added to the game, future updates will improve several of the animations around mauls to make them more visually fluid.
  • Improved Tackles
    • A significant number of new tackle animations have been integrated, as well as adjustments to the underlying calculations for selecting which tackles to play. The Dive Tackle control has been shifted to the Y button.
  • Added Club Teams
    • A number of Gallagher Premiership and URC teams featuring initial photogrammetry based player visuals have been added. Over 100 players from the Ospreys, Dragons, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Connacht, Bath and Northampton Saints are now playable.
  • Added Stadiums
    • The officially licensed Allianz Stadium in Sydney has been added to the list of available stadiums, in addition to stadiums for Northampton, Parma, and Toulon.
  • Improved Passing
    • The targeting of passes has been improved, with adjustments to the calculation for target selection and pass quality.
  • Rebalanced rucks
    • The ruck system has been adjusted, improving the speeds of rucks and making them more of a contest, along with an alert for when a steal is available.
  • Tuned Player Movement
    • Initial work on balancing player run and sprint speeds has been done, the attributes and build of the player will have more impact on the speed they can run and the amount of boost that using the sprint button makes
  • Improved UI
    • Several UI screens have been given visual polish, notably the pre-match settings. A few in game elements, such as the player markers have also been polished.
  • Improved Stability
    • A number of reported stability issues have been resolved, with work continuing to ensure all of those reported are found. Please continue to send them through.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340870/Rugby_25/

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Early Access 1 - Interim Update 3



Hi Everybody!

We're now well on the way towards the first Rugby 25 Major Update, which will release towards the end of July and will include improved rucks, mauls, tackling and more. In the meantime we have a few changes that we wanted to share early, in a third interim update released today.

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  • Improved Passing
    • A first pass of ongoing work to improve passing has been made, this will improve the targeting of passes to better intersect players on a run, maintaining forward momentum better and reducing, but not eliminating wildly missed passes. Further refinement of passing remains a high priority of ours in upcoming updates.
  • Resolved Incorrect Ruck Scoots
    • This update should reduce cases where the half would run forward through the ruck before being able to use the ball.
  • Adjusted Kicking and Player Switch Controls
    • Based on feedback from the previous update, we have made a few changes to the controls scheme. The "Up and Under" and Punt kicks have been switched, so that Punt is now on the A button. Switching to the Full Back has been shifted from Y to LB+RB to avoid a common conflict with the Tackler Contest input in the ruck.
  • Improved Camera
    • Adjustments have been made to the camera switching into gameplay after the conclusion of lineouts.
  • Resolve Graphical Corruption
    • Ghosting effects present while playing with screen aspect ratios requiring letterboxing, such as a number of common handheld devices including the Steam Deck with a 16:10 aspect screen, have been resolved.

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We look forward to receiving your feedback on this update at forum.bigant.com!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340870/Rugby_25/

[h2]Social Channels[/h2] Rugby 25 Twitter Rugby 25 Facebook Rugby 25 Instagram Rugby 25 Subreddit
Big Ant EA Support Big Ant Twitter Big Ant Forums Big Ant website