EA Sports PGA Tour release date & gameplay revealed, with 30 courses

The biggest feature seems only to exist in it. EA Sports PGA Tour, The ones which fans have enjoyed for a decade, and that will launch March 24, are those which will also be launched. Augusta National Golf Course and all four of the men’s major championships are in; even things like boosted drives with “big-hit moment” camera changes are making a return.

It would not be fair to focus on Augusta National or other courses’ return to the Masters Tournament. Namely, a career mode that is even more RPG-like than before, offers more ways to customize and mold your created golfer’s playing style, and looks like it will swallow just as many of my evenings as the old Tiger Woods games did.

EA Sports PGA TourIt looks like the game will have more professionals than ever on its roster, but the developers realize that users are the true stars.

“Even when we had Tiger, over 97% of people play as a created player,” producer Ben Ramsour told Polygon in an interview after the presentation. “So we know that’s a core motivation. However, we’ve done a lot to build these relationships with these pros, and we want to tell their stories in the game.”

Granted, I couldn’t pull much from a single glimpse of the detailed golfer progression screen we were shown. As they earn skill points, players can rank up to 10 different skills each (10 ranks). Lead producer David Baker even intimated that at advanced levels, players will be able to unlock packages of traits that will make their golfer’s abilities resemble the playing styles of the PGA’s and LPGA’s biggest stars.

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This leads into new gameplay which offers broad-based shot shaping features. It differentiates these even further by offering 20 shot types. These shot types can also be ranked higher, it appears.

“I think a big thing is experimentation,” Ramsour said, noting that players can again create multiple avatars and progress them individually. He also said, “We want users to see, Hey, Tony Finau’s game really matches well to Augusta, but it’s terrible for Harbour Town.”

Course Fit is a clever little menu I discovered that connects me to the golfer that I have created. The Course Selection screen shows the Course Fit. It gives players an idea of how their skill levels compare to what the course expects of them. Five attributes — Power, Driving, Approach, Short Game, and Putting — all have bars; the closer a player’s bar is to the course’s, the more they’ll be able to take advantage of that characteristic.

It’s not an attribute boost; it’s just visual information that will give me a sense of just how risky my ideas are on the second shot of, say, one of East Lake Golf Club’s par-5 holes, or how important it’s going to be to stick this approach at Pebble Beach, where there’s a demanding putting game waiting for me.

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“So for me, I want to win the major championships,” Ramsour said. “So in my primary created player, I am leveling up the shot types to win the four majors. But eventually, I’m going to want to win every single tournament on the hardest mode. So I know I’m going to have to be less of a bomber and more precise to win at Harbour Town.”

While players can have several created golfers at one time, many choose to stick with the same player for their Career. Most likely, they will see the same differences Ramsour described in Challenges. This is a distinct mode that can have a secondary effect on Career.

Challenges, to me, resembled the kind of bite-sized moments available in Madden Ultimate Team’s single-player offering. Indeed, they’ll be live-service content, driven by real-world occurrences, and like MUT, they’ll use different players in addition to the created pro. Baker said that the challenges are designed to play like between-rounds practices, meaning they’ll be shorter experiences focused on a particular skill or a particular moment.

They will receive skill points that can be used in creating-player progress, and clubs and cosmetic items. These clubs, clothing, and gear do not change player attributes like they did in the past. Here, golfers will find a season-based system that is different from other online games.

Grid View

All of these modes, players, and courses — 30 at launch, the most ever for the standard edition of an EA Sports golf title — mean little if the core gameplay isn’t tight, informative, and understandable. While the event last week was not hands-on, the developers focused on the swing mechanism and the 20 shot types supporting it in a one-hole demonstration at Augusta’s No. 13.

Best example: a “stinger,” which is a lower but safer shot from the tee. Craig Penner, gameplay designer, used the stinger for a 266-yard drive that Jordan Spieth took. It still hugged No. 13’s famous left-hand sweep — it just used the downhill fairway to get its distance. Spieth gave up about 10 yards in order to take a more secure shot. This was something I’d often attempt to duplicate. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14, but the lowest trajectory that game offered didn’t come close to what I saw last week.

Electronic Arts. Photo

Ramsour, playing as 2022 Masters winner Scottie Scheffler, used a boost-assisted power drive — impressive, and successful, but still a dangerous shot that is a blind approach, and which could clip the treetops if not executed perfectly. Scheffler lies further off the green than Spieth so Spieth and Ramsour were both playing according to plan.

It was interesting, too, to hear bits of commentary from the game during the demonstration. It was as if the broadcast crew was actually listening to what was happening. Lead commentator Rich Lerner returns from 2015’s Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, and on Penner’s shot with Spieth, I heard him discussing the use of the fairway’s width and slope to get the desired result.

Frank Nobilo as broadcast partner (and Notah Begay, III and Iona Stephen as course reporters) provided context-appropriate colour, an improvement in comparison to past games which primarily offered repetitive repetition.

“We have tech that delivers detailed analysis on how putts will break,” Baker said in last week’s presentation. “There’s also a system that connects the field reporter analysis of the current situation, and also highlights landmarks from our great list of courses, to tell historical stories from those exact spots on the course.”

EA Sports PGA Tour launches March 24 — two weeks before the 2023 Masters — on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. It will be available in a standard edition as well as a digital deluxe version, which offers three-day early access, plus some content that includes an XP boost and virtual currency for the in-game pro shop’s items.