Early Access 3 (EA3) Launch

[ViCe_ZA]

Number 9 needs fixing, still too slow to the breakdown to distribute the ball. Also should not join the ruck and hold back to pass the ball, as others have said.

Support player positioning also needs work next. Maybe fix the support player to the ball or the ball carrier, either running on the shoulder for an offload, or slightly further for a normal pass. We don’t need set plays, we just need a fluid game with dynamic positioning, dynamic running and good passing. Support player can dynamically sut back inside for the inside offload. Must happen on the fly and the support runners determine the move you will do next by presenting randomised opportunities, like real life.

Would like to see dynamic cameras as an option, as well as broadcast camera, fixed to the 50m line, with low, medium and high options, fixed to the stadium you create and play. With dynamic camera, it zooms in when a scrum or ruck and tactics are set to “close” where the focus is on running forward pods close to the ruck with short offloads for the forwards to take contact. When in open play, or kicking, or tactics set to wide play, camera is more zoomed out.

If player positioning is fixed, would like to see tactics introduced, as previously outlined, using the D-pad.

Introduce more cut scenes in between plays, like after scoring a try, or before forming a lineout and scrum, etc.

Would like to see knock-ons and penalties or infringements with the next update, so we can start playing real rugby. More communication from the ref (hardly hear him) and blowing the whistle when there is a stopage in play, as well as points scored (there is cutrently not always a whistle)

My biggest question - could you confirm which Licensed competitions will make up the 13 that were confirmed, because with team and player creater tools, we can start creating the teams and players for the unlicensed competitions we want to play?

[edsup]

concerning passes:
I think that the way sometimes players pass backard with no look is a bit weird, specally when it’s pass that goes 2 to 3 metters behind them. It’s feels like the players are out of place with their actions.

[Rugbygamer40]

Hi Team,

Some feedback

The player creator is really good. Some points on this.

Is it possible to get Leg Strapping added in the future as an accessory to a player. Normally a lot of Locks and backrowers wear the strapping around the thighs. Also head strapping around the forehead if possible as another accessory alternative to head gear.

• With the player creator I made my own version of Seattle Seawolves Flyhalf Mack Mason. I wanted to swap my version with the current version in the game. I noticed at the moment we can’t add any created players to licensed teams in the game. It would be good if we got full squads in the future with reserve players so I can add or swap players into a squad.

-Could we please consider adding the surname Sua’ali’i commentary name to Rugby 25. I created my own Joseph Sua’ali’i to add into the NSW Waratahs once Super Rugby Pacific is added to Rugby 25 at a future date.

-As for MLR it looks great. Love seeing all the teams and stadiums. MLR logos at stadiums looks good. Some great engaging Crowd atmosphere at Snap Dragon Stadium. Really enjoyed playing some matches. I found the Ai to be competitive, especially when they get behind on the score board, they actually try to look for various ways to open up your defence and score. They push up their intensity with passes, running , offloads. I had one Ai Prop shoulder charge into one of my props , knock him flying and score a try ! Brilliant.
This was on hard and medium Difficulty. With kicking I managed to do a few Grubber kicks , a bomb or two and kicking for field position from fullback. Stamina is also good if running a very long distance as a sprint and eventually getting slower if sprinting too long.

-One Bug Miami Sharks referred to as Toronto Arrows by commentators. Will try to add this to a ticket I raised over a few things.

-I think for the near future it would be great to actually have full squads to do team management in a competition , replace players on the field with those off the bench - Stamina player management, injuries , yellow or red cards occurring.

Plan to create more players on Fanhub just trying to work out the ones you might not have scanned for some clubs. Also hope we can get the online community server to share and download creations soon.

Thanks guys. A really positive major update to the game. It’s definitely getting more fun and addictive.

[Tdrcv63]

Really need to work on the offensive animation when you break a tackle or hand off or bump a players they always stay up and straight but in like 99% of the time the defender is suppose to fall on the ground not staying up + it could open more breaking line and offense situation

[Paradox]

Rugby Academy shows what a good job they’ve done with the graphics, but there’s something about the lighting during matches that makes everything look strange.

[Valhalla_Vagabond]

Hi JNT and BA,

Below is my patch specific feedback and some general observations. I won’t chat about everything that isn’t in the game as you are likely already on with that in the background.

Update: Added Player Creator

The Player Creator has been added, allowing you to create male and female rugby players and edit their appearance and skills.

Feedback: It’s great to see Big Ant’s signature creation tools included in the game. However, the current parameters feel too narrow to fully recreate yourself or others accurately. Expanding these options will be crucial for allowing more detailed and personalized player creation. This is a solid foundation, and I’m eager to see it develop further.

Update: Added Team Creator

The Team Creator has been added to the Rugby Academy, allowing for the creation of teams, adding custom players to their rosters, and editing kits.

Feedback: This is a nice addition, but the current toolset feels limited across the board. The ability to create a unique and authentic team identity is somewhat constrained, which is particularly noticeable given the game’s otherwise strong emphasis on authenticity. I’m looking forward to seeing expanded options, especially around kit and accessory customization, which will help teams feel more integrated and believable within the game’s licensed environment.

Update: Added Major League Rugby

Major League Rugby (MLR) has been added to Rugby 25, with the 12 MLR teams available in Play Now and the new MLR Competition mode, featuring the full 2024 competition format and unique presentation.

Feedback: The MLR presentation is fantastic. Everything from the UI to the in-game try highlight music and stadium signage contributes to an authentic feel. This is a significant upgrade compared to playing in stadiums still awaiting full signage. Enhancing the crowd experience with home and away team kits and team signage would further elevate the atmosphere.

Update: Added MLR Stadiums

Five fully licensed stadiums from Major League Rugby have been added: AutoNation Sports Field, Gold Mine on Airline, Snapdragon Stadium, Starfire Sports Stadium, and Maryland SoccerPlex.

Feedback: These stadiums significantly enhance the competition’s feel, with AutoNation Sports Field being a standout addition. Great work here - I’m excited to see even more stadiums added in the future!

Update: Added Match Statistics Screens

A summary of match statistics is now available when pausing matches, along with selected popups during gameplay.

Feedback: This is a nice addition. It’s great to have in-depth match analysis available both during and after games. However, some of the UI gets cut off during conversions, which needs addressing. Including top player stats at halftime and full-time could also be a valuable addition.

Update: Improved Gameplay

Further gameplay improvements have been made, including wider passing timing windows, increased offload chances, improved player movement, and corrections to a few rules errors.

Feedback: There are some excellent improvements here, particularly with offloads and passing closer to contact. However, the passing speed and trajectory have taken a hit—passes are currently too fast with little to no arc, regardless of length. This is a challenging area to balance but introducing a pass speed slider could allow users to tailor the experience to their preference. Additionally, a pass distance limit would be beneficial; long passes should carry a risk-reward dynamic, with longer hang times and higher arcs to mirror real-life gameplay.

Update: Improved Stability

Further work has been done to ensure more matches can be completed, particularly addressing issues with set pieces not finishing. Ongoing reports via the support team are appreciated.

Feedback: This issue is occurring less frequently, but it still happens occasionally.

Observations:

Fine-Tuning Menu Controls/options

Please adjust the control scheme so that the D-Pad left and right only increase or decrease values by 1. The left stick (LS) should adjust values at a faster speed, and similar to the player creation settings for skills, the LT and RT triggers should increase or decrease a value by 10. This adjustment should apply across the board—from navigating future fixture rounds in a competition to adjusting general audio settings or player skills. Currently, it’s challenging to select specific values accurately.

The filters in Squad Management are great, but it would be extremely helpful if the primary position of each player was indicated next to their name with a quick sort by option at the top. This would make it much easier to fill the required positions without needing to rely on filters. Additionally, it would be useful to tab through other player details, such as skills or stats, using the LB button. This would save time by eliminating the need to go into each player’s profile individually.

Momentum and Gain Line Dynamics

Runners still lack the necessary momentum when receiving the ball. The gain line and collision areas are critical in rugby union for gaining momentum and advantage, but this isn’t well represented in the game at the moment. I hope that when tactics, set plays, and running lines are integrated, this area will see improvement. If not, it definitely needs more attention. Players should be making runs with the intent to hit passes at speed, aiming to advance past the gain line and win collisions.

Support Play and Depth

Support play has seen some improvements, but the support runners are still too deep in many attacking situations. This not only looks unrealistic but also negates any advantage gained once the defensive line is broken. Passing backward at the current depths causes any momentum to be lost, and many scoring opportunities are missed as a result.

AI Passing Behavior

While it’s great that the AI now passes more frequently, the current implementation can feel excessive, with the AI often making over 10 - 15 passes in a single phase. While this is a step up from the previous state, the AI’s tendency to pass repeatedly without a clear purpose makes it resemble a game of “hot potato” rather than rugby. Ideally, AI passes should have a specific purpose, such as getting on the outside shoulder of an opponent, passing into space, or creating 2v1 situations. If these strategic elements aren’t feasible, there should at least be a limit on the number of passes the AI can make before committing to a run at a gap and taking contact—except in scenarios where the AI team is trailing in the closing stages of a match.

Overall update impressions

While player movement and passing speed still need some tweaking to match the true pace of a rugby match, this update is a huge step in the right direction. The game is showing a remarkable level of detail, and it’s clear the direction is spot on. If the game continues to progress like this, we’re looking at the potential GOAT of rugby games. Fantastic work - keep it up!

P.S: Once you have finished a facet of gameplay, add sliders for absolutely everything and every user will all get their own perfect version

Thank you for your time!

[ViCe_ZA]

Agree with Valhalla. The AI need to make better decisions. Besides making hot potato passes, they would make a clear break through the defensive line, make 10+ meters in gain, and then pass 20 meters backwards once they are about to get tackled. The same thing when they are within 10 meters of the try line, they would pass it 10 meters backwards. In those instances, when they made clear progress, or are close to the try line, they need to hold on to the ball if there is no teammate near them. Please fix their decision making and perhaps the radius of possible passes, for user and AI, with the next interim patch, so we can actually have AI that score points when they made good ground and already got through the defensive line.

[Lionmaul]

Game continues to crash, mostly when you press macros, but really at any point, cannot even get through a 5-minute halves game. Even difficult to test because when you finally get into rhythm game crashes. The passing and offload much improved had some awesome offloads, but these tight offloads seem to be triggering crashes.
Rucks would be nice to have the intended system explained. While isolating an offensive player the defending player should be able to get up and contest. The type of tackle and player rucking stat should determine how quickly he can do this. And this is where strategy would come in. No dumb down rucks please. Allow us to control whether to send 1 or 5 into a ruck. This is part of Rugby fun and strategy.
We should be able to control if we want to send the forwards or backs into the ruck as well. These choices on the fly add to the strategy of the game.

[Rugbygamer40]

Just looking at the screenshot of the “team roster breakdown” that Valhalla has posted in his feedback.
I will just show it here again.

Should the word “Second Row” be replaced with “Locks” only.

Adding in “Backrow” for Blindside and openside flankers , Number 8
or either “Flankers/N8”
or both seperate roster breakdowns “Flankers” , “N8” looks like these position classifications need to be added to the Team Roster breakdown.

Also Five Eighth and Halfback should be replaced with the correct rugby terminology of “Fly Half” and “Scrum Half”.

I made some Locks Canham and Roets and these had a second row classification instead of “Locks” when you view the players on the player menu. This is fine but it’s confusing if both words Secondrow and Lock are both listed in the team roster breakdown summary. It should be one to list the number of players. Thanks team.

[Beudy10_yaya]

The only thing I ask is that the scrumhalf opens all the rucks and when he is tackled, another player opens close

[Sammay919]

Not really gameplay feedback, but more for immersion;

It would be nice if there are mid game cutscenes. Instead of when the ball is kicked out it immediately goes to the lineout, it could have a short cutscene of the players getting into position. Same for scrums and other stoppages. When there is a stoppage and other players are moving to position, it also gives an opportunity to show player stats, for example:

Player kicks ball into touch: Cutscene shows fly half who kicked it out, cuts to players walking/jogging to the lineout. On screen display of a player showing: Carries, Tackles, Metres made, and other stats.

Scrum:

1. Pack weights (stat)
2. How many scrums won (stat)
3. players jogging to the scrum

Lineouts:

1. How many lineouts won/stolen (stat)
2. players jogging to the lineout
3. player stats (carries, tackles, tries, kicks, whatever high denominator of stat they have)

Penalties:

1. Shows ref speaking to opposition players after multiple warnings
2. ref giving cards, players in the sin bin
3. If opposition team has the ball, show them giving the ball to the opposing kicker/placing it on the ground
4. show the player who was infringed on the field

Goal kicking:

1. Probability of the kick (depending on the kick rating and length/width of kick)
2. a mini field displaying where the kicks have gone in
   
   (something like this)
3. how many career kicks have been taken

Tries

1. I think rather than age, show how many caps that player has. (if these stats are hard to gather for every player, slim it down to when you are playing in a competition. as in show how many caps they have played in the competition)
2. show how many tries that player has on record. (again if these stats are too hard to collect to align with the irl stats, align it with the competition)

During play:

1. Show the possession and territory at any point of the game on screen
2. Show specific player stats. (for example N.15 has 7 carries, 3 tackles, 1 kick, 2 line breaks, 73m made)
3. more replays, showing the knock on, show the forward pass, show the kick into touch.
4. Show the crowd. Would be nice to see them point to the camera, or point to the tv when they are on screen. Would add so much realism.

Before match:

1. National anthems. If even just the intrsumental of the anthems were played would be awesome
2. Show the lineup before match
3. History between the sides (if stats are too hard to get, show the player stats against the two teams, for example every match played with SA and NZL on the player account; shows SA with 3 wins to Nzl 2)
4. show match officials and others on the pitch also, not just players running on.
5. similar to the rugby challenge system where before games you can run on the training pitch, would be nice if you could, but instead of a random pitch, youd be training on the field before the match, with the ability to skip it after 30s or so.
6. Show the referee names and officials
7. show the commentator names
8. Show crowd attendance (could also be shown during gameplay

Very happy to see where the game is going at the moment. Alot of this I talked about would be a very big ask, and not a need, but I think it would definitely add that realism and get you totally immersed. Making it feel like you are really in that stadium, or watching the saturday game on the tv.
even just a few of these would nail the immersion and bring it to a whole new level.
Excited to see what the next few updates bring, cheers.

[Reds1121]

I feel that the appropriate try stats should be trys in current match, tries for the season and total carrer tries.

[Tdrcv63]

Loved and agree with everything you bring

[Rugbygamer40]

Hi Team,

Some more feedback on the Player Creator.

I am finding it challenging to create African or Asian players with the current creation tools. I can’t seem to find a tool for “Nose Depth” to make it more flatter or not protrude as much. Basically to make it more sunken.

Here are some screenshots from Rugby Challenge 4 and the player I am trying to create on Rugby 25 as an example. (He is currently a Free agent and not with DHL Stormers now). It was much easier to achieve a flat nose because it could be sunken. On the current Rugby 25 creation options I can’t seem to achieve this.

Also can we possibly consider a darker skin colour option for players with an African cultural background. I feel we should have one that’s similar to this from these screen shot examples on Rugby Challenge 4.
I am going to try and create a female player or two soon to see how that whole process is on Rugby 25 and give feedback if anything comes up.

Thanks for considering my feedback.

Another example for nose depth.

[xenagos5]

Will there be multiplayer ?

[Scottland]

Is there a list of all the licensed teams in the game so far?

Two points about the camera.

for the end on camera, can we get a freeze when turnovers or catches occur like in Madden because it flips the directions and controls half way through the catch/ turnover.

For the lineouts and (scrums too I think) the camera angle switches when the lineout catcher gets the ball, not when the hooker throws it or the 9 feeds the ball into scrum.

[tgz710]

I know the update literally came out last weekend but any idea on next update for game stability?

[sheppayyboi]

few things i noticed

punts dont seem to get much height or distance. it would be nice to eventually be able to have more than one punt option e.g. normal punts, low driven punt, and a spiral option. im not a massive fan of the punt mechanics, having to wait for a bar to fill and then empty. its a bit weird and slow. i do like the slow motion kicking from rugby champions it takes the skill out of it but it works well

i find that trying to chip doesnt work or is quite slow like you have to do it quite early and obviously chipping to early means you wont have any success doing it lol
and whenever i do a grubber my player never wants to pick up the ball, i think grubbers could do with having a bit more distance on them aswell same with chips

passing is better but you still get floaty passes, inside passes rarely work or go to the right player, and whenever a pass goes to ground you cant switch players to go and pick the ball up

the fends and bump offs never seem to work for me its like they dont even do anything at the moment, and hopefully there will be some better animations coming in for them aswell instead of the same old ones over and over.

the stepping is goofy aswell. it looks like someone trying to unstick there nuts from there leg. it is very awkward looking when u try to step someone and u are forced into another step animation when u get closer to the defender. it would be better if it wasnt based on animations and more like rugby champions or madden 14-16 for example.
same goes for dummies, it doesnt feel like the dummy does anything, it just forces you into a step animation when u get close to a defender

tackling is still a bit sucky, i think tackles would be better off physics based then animation based. it would also mean steps, fends, bumps, dummys wouldnt rely on animations and actually have some skill involved.
player movement is also a bit weird still. its swervey and like you dont have much control over your player, i think if the game was slowed down a bit and had a heavier feel would probly help, i think rugby champions got player movement pretty good. its very smooth and its been the closest to making you feel like your actually playing rugby

[jsquared]

With the comments suggesting that progress is heading in the correct direction, I purchased the game the weekend and did a test run.

Main issue. Crashes galore. Playing 10 minute games, it took me close to an hour play time to get one completed game. I played with the Houston Sabercats and tried various opponents (South Africa, Ugunda etc). I could not complete one game at the Windhoek stadium. I changed the stadium and could complete a game.

Reading the comments I feel most things have been touched on already so I will summarise my experience.

If you want to keep the music in the menu screens, please add an option to import our own playlists. The playlist during the menu is terrible. I muted and kept it muted.

A tutorial or free play is needed to practice. I am not 100% sure if I am doing something wrong and would like to test it in a free play mode.

In game commentary needs alot of work. There is a lack of any excitement or variation. I am getting the same line of “… receives the ball…” about 3-4 out 5 times. Get a variation or do something different. I am still opting for an option to mod this or at least import a language I do not understand. I did that with Rugby 22. I have the commentary on French because I do not understand it so it is less annoying.

Player control. It feels like driving a truck. The players run at angles contrary to my stick direction and doesn’t not correct. It doesn’t feel natural at all.

Kicking. I get this weird thing happening I do a bomb kick from behind the ruck then the indicator will bounce back behind the ruck and then move forward. The ball needs better height/carry for up and unders. Kicking at goals doesn’t feel natural, maybe a free play training session will help.

Defensive and attacking position of players are not where they should be. Attacking running lines are not realistic. Support players in attacks receive the ball static or way out of positions. Passes sometimes skip across the length of the field to go out.

Needs setup for defensive and attacking strategy setup.

Try scoring animation is not realistic rugby union. The dive over with hand in ball outreached will result in lost ball over the try line.

Selecting players doesn’t work well. I select player closest to the ball then a player that is bound in a ruck is selected. It will be fine if the player could be broken free from the ruck.

Side-step/hand-off etc appears to do nothing.

Camera changes when changing attacking team causes the controls to change and result in players running in the wrong direction.

This could end up a very good game, but I do not understand all the praise for the improvements because this is nowhere near playable. I would have expected the game to be a better state even though it is early access.

[MaD_Dragon_Rugby]

Hey guys, wanted to bring something to attention Ive never noticed before. I had a defensive lineout on my own 5m line. And all of my players not in the line out, were not waiting on the try line, instead they were stood so far back they were actually in the crowd. And ran on to the pitch once the maul began. If the AI didnt go for the maul, I assume they could just pass the ball and run it over to score a try unchallenged.

Conditions for the game - Seattle Sea Wolves vs Cardiff | Hardest Difficulty | Northampton Stadium.