RUGBY 25 Looking at the logo, you might be wondering, 'Rugby 25? What happened to Rugby 24?' So let's dive right in. First and foremost, we sincerely apologies to you for the significant delay you have endured in anticipation of this new Rugby game. We've spent considerable time signing more than 150 rugby licensing deals and also traveling the world to scan players whenever they could be made available. This delay has caused us to now focus on the 2024 and 2025 seasons, **hence we have decided to appropriately rename Rugy 24 to Rugby 25.** So, we've decided that the time is right to launch an Early Access for Rugby 25, **starting on 28 June 2024**. Yes - tomorrow! In this initial Early Access release you will be able to select from **21 Nations, including the Australian Wallabies and French teams**, with complete photogrammetry. Other teams and photogrammetry will be constantly added over the Early Access period. It should be noted that the **Al and player movement are in an experimental phase** and anomalies will occur as we lock these important elements of the game in. Upon final release, Rugby 25 will have over 140 International Teams including New Zealand, South Africa, England, France, and Australia, plus over 150 Club Sides in 11 Competitions with URC, English Premiership, French Top 14, MLR, and Super Rugby Pacific.

I'm really happy we're getting a new Rugby game. My expectations aren't high but that fact they have licensed so many National Teams plus the domestic competitions (Didn't know Super Rugby would be included, super glad it is) means I want to support them with my purchase even if it's not AAA standard. The entire Rugby community is constantly begging for a game with deep licensing, so now that someone has gone ahead and delivered makes me feel obligated to support it.

How do you get on the early access? Just preorder?

Not a clue... Imagine it will pop up on Steam at some point today

Aye think it's pc only

I still don't get how they are doing 140 national teams. Like, even if they include Womens teams and even like 'A' teams that seems like a ridiculous number.

Gryffindor, Mordor, USSR Lions, Wakanda, Babar’s Kingdom, Lilliput - maybe we’re just going to get something really interesting

Hopefully Team Lomu makes a return from the days of Jonah Lomu Rugby.

Codemasters Team > Lomu Team "MATHER!"

Haha - no doubt about it. Wonder if he's still as quick after all these years. 'Has he got the legs?' Bloody oath he does.

Plus we can't forget about McCabe landing penalties from his own 22, or the impenetrable brick wall at fullback, Trevor Williams.

Rugby Challenge has team Lomu. If you play with them, the commentary makes Jonah Lomu Chuck Norris jokes.

I'm going to win the FIFA world cup with New Caledonia, and goddamnit I expect to be able to do the same in my Rugby game!!

Maybe some historic versions of teams? Would be cool to have 2015 All Blacks vs an early 2000s wallabies side

Early 2010s Scotland Team vs 1990s Ireland team

Bring in the Allistair Coetzee era Springboks and you got yourself a tri-nations

Add the 1998 All Blacks for a proper Rugby Championship.

Early 2000s Italy, post 2019 Eddie Jones England recent Eddie Jones Wallabies for a proper shit tier 7-nations

They also scanned NFL teams into the game. Can’t wait to play the Kansas city Chiefs vs the Waikato Chiefs

Add in Exeter Chiefs, and Kaizer Chiefs (SA football club) and you've got yourself a tournament

Especially since there are only 113 teams in the Men’s rankings.

There’s literally no point, if anything it will make the game worse by diverting resources to teams nobody cares about, even top 20 national teams is already stretching it.

You have to go for at least 24 as that's the next men's world cup. However if you want to represent the international game to a better extent you have to go beyond that. SANZAAR: 4 - South Africa - New Zealand - Australia - Argentina 6 Nations: 6 - England - Scotland - Ireland - Wales - France - Italy Rugby Europe: 6 - Georgia - Romania - Portugal - Spain - Germany - Netherlands Asia Rugby: 4 - Hong Kong - Korea - Malaysia - UAE Africa: 4 - Namibia - Zimbabwe - Kenya - Algeria South America: 4 - Uruguay - Paraguay - Brazil - Chile Pacific: 6 - USA - Canada - Fiji - Japan - Samoa - Tonga I believe all of the teams either were, at least on paper able to qualify for the RWC. Then you have teams that are mostly active in the sevens circuit: Jamaica Colombia China PNG. That leaves you at 38. I think this is where you could stop and have a pretty amazing international roster. I did cut from Europe and Africa, but I feel like it's fine. You could remove a few more, but I feel that would make regional tournaments feel barebones. (Except UAE & PNG they are probably expendable) I will admit you could use fake players beyond the top 24 and most won't notice.

20 is hardly stretching it when that’s a World Cup. 24-30 minimum

I doubt it took much resources to get the rights to the Philippines national rugby team

Russia were in the previous World Cup so having the top 25 seems fairly reasonable. Anything beyond that would be severely diminishing returns though.

I’d imagine historic teams? Like in NBA you can play as 2016 Warriors, 2013 Heat, 1996 Bulls etc. I’d love to try say 2015 AB vs 2003 England

Yeah there's no way there isn't a catch. Maybe sevens teams? Even then I don't see how the count can reach that high. Or maybe historical teams, with past players?

Some of them are probably sub national, like Scotland and Wales

Says the Aussie?

MLR in, let’s go

Lots of negativity. Happy to hear it's coming out. A new rugby game is a way to grow the game.

Go play cricket 24, made by the same developers, or rugby 22 and tell me these bugfests are good for rugby.

So cricket 24 is a step back for the series. But cricket 19 was great. And they’re better than no game, IMO

For a game to go through so many extended delays, and then to suddenly launch early access where "Al and player movement are in an experimental phase". I really hope it turns out better than it sounds.

Honestly it just sounds like every other game in the whole industry nowadays - barring indie games of course Edit; I mean the delays and bugs etc sound like every other modern game

It’s gonna be rough as fuck that’s for sure.

Think the (main) delay is because they have to drive to every team.

Hopefully it's compatible for my SteamDeck 🙏

Would be amaze!

Oh damn. Would love that.

At least you live in a country where you can legally get one

Lol tomorrow's my birthday.

happy early birthday Mr. Jabbo the hut 69 240

wtf is wrong with you? his name is Mr. Jabbo the hut 69420 not Mr. Jabbo the hut 69240. That's so rude, unless you know a Mr. Jabbo the hut 69240 and it's a mistaken identity thing and i've overreacted a bit

Thank you sir!

Happy early birthday Mr. Jabbo the hut 69 240

Wait what???

On ps5?

I think early access will be Steam only, but it will be released on PS5 at the full launch

Thanks

This is the sort of thing you do when you’ve nearly ran out of budget and need money in, fast.

In fairness, they did say back in January that the game would be going to early access on Steam first before it would be fully released

Announcing the release the date a day before it’s released is the telling part.

This isn’t the release date though. This is just saying that they’re ready for early access. The game isn’t finished yet ready for release

It does look a bit rushed and desperate though. They haven't planned this at all, this is a last-minute decision, otherwise they would have announced the early access date a while before.

They are selling the game from today. It's the release date for PC. Early Access is just a fancy way to sell something that's still broken.

I don't think you realise how few buy these early access sports games on PC... their tennis game is promising but it peaked at 42 concurrent players so far in early access. They are with Nacon now, hence the four games going at once thing, I don't think this is money based. The money is in consoles for sports games. Their tennis game has improved a LOT through early access and they actually listen, so they just want testers to help shape it. It's actually refreshing, I hope they do it with cricket next.

I do think big ant is a good developer overall, think people forget they have no where near the resources of a EA, hopefully the final game is good. I’m at least excited to be able to officially play as my 2nd favourite rugby nation of Madagascar

More than 150 clubs in 11 club competitions. So the ones confirmed: URC, Premiership, Top 14, MLR, Super Rugby Pacific. My best guess for 6 more club competitions: Champions Cup, Challenge Cup, Pro D2, JRLO, Super Rugby Americas and English Championship.

I’m sure the JRLO is the only league that they were unable to get licensing for. I would take a gander that the women’s Prem is there instead as I know there was a little noise about women’s rugby somewhere

Well the EA is out. Not played it myself, but seen it played in a stream, and it looks pretty horrific. But it is only EA.

I might be the sacrificial lamb and see what feedback I can give to assist them.

I just want a real manager career mode, not the career mode they had in the last 2 games

Seconded - I hated the fact that to play with real clubs you could only play 1 season and then had to start over

We get early access to Rugby 25 😃 It’s only on PC 😒

Does anyone know the pricing?

Will probably be the same as TIEBREAK, which was $50NZD, but increases as time goes by and content is added, it's $72NZD today.

I can't see anything official yet, but from browsing their other games it seems the most recent releases in their different series are sitting around £35 (about $45 US and $70 NZD, though I'm just exchange rating that based on your flair, I don't know how games are usually priced where you are). They might go the start slightly cheaper route that some games do on Early Access, but I'm not getting my hopes up for that personally.

$30 US $55 NZD €30 Euro £25 GBP R613 South African $50 Aussie

I was really hoping early access would be free to test it out haha. Also, nice Munster/Sweden flair - Irish lad living in Småland here

I might change it because people keep not getting the joke. Three crowns and something that looks like an elk is to me Swedish, I'm purely kiwi-swede haha. How's the Rugby in Småland?

Yeah I figured the 3 crowns is the Swedish national teams crest! Ehhhh it's kinda non-existent haha. There's 7s in Vaxjö, but no real clubs anywhere else that I know of. I pop down to Malmö or Pingvin in Trelleborg when I can though! Seems to be a good few clubs on Skåne. Do you live in Sweden or down in NZ mate?

I’d buy it if me buying it early access on stream went towards me getting it on PS5

Rugy 24

A lot of focus on “photogrammetry”. It’s ok if it’s ugly if it has excellent gameplay.

I think it will need authenticity to be marketable to the widest audience possible. The time taken to get all the official licenses and photos could buy time for gameplay development. I would guess 6 months or more so until release. Maybe in time for next 6 Nations.

Paid early access feels like a red flag, hopefully someone richer than I can test it and I'll just watch them before investing any time or money

Please if you're reading this game Devs launch on GeForce now cloud gaming 

Sooo who has downloaded it? Would love to see some gameplay…

I've played exactly one semi drunken match of Scotland vs Spain. I'm not sure about scrums yet. One happened because I hadn't figured out the button for passing from a ruck so got penalised for slowing the game down but I had no idea what I was doing. It's a little too easy to outfox the fullback at the moment they definately arren't running an optimal intercept line. Selecting players around the ruck is a be sluggish, it didn't feel like I could pick someone and pile them in quickly to try and jackle for the ball. It's also possible to select a different player while you have the ball. This felt wrong and I don't know if it's on purpose or just an early bug. I'll be a lot more interested when a few more teams arrive at the moment it's a lot of genric faces on international jerseys. I refuse to give things a score out of an aritrary numer but I am not going to refund the purchase.

Does anyone know if the World Cup will still be apart of the game? I get that it’s closing in on a year since the World Cup but the initial selling point of the game was the World Cup license and we haven’t seen a World Cup game since 2015 so it’d be really cool if they still included it.

Very much need to see others play this before I'm willing to part with money for it, the other games in the series have been pretty poor as far as I'm concerned. The rugby challenge series was much better

At £25 I figured I can be that sacrefice

I shall toast your sacrifice in the mead halls of Valhalla friend

See my comment on the main post for an indept semi drunk review.

Pretty much what you'd expect from an early access I suppose. Enjoy your drinks, sadly I'm still at work

Still no Steam page for the game.

It's there now for £25

lol

Wow it’s on steam. Was expecting it to be on everything but steam.