Why can’t we have nice rugby video games?😢

I know many people have asked the question ‘Why can’t we have nice rugby video games?’ And yet, we haven’t had an answer, instead we get crap rugby games.

It’s been a while since I’ve played a half decent rugby game, the last being rugby challenge 3 and it saddens me. But I think I’ve come up with a temporary solution and I’m going to illustrate MAH GENIUS while we wait for some billion dollar gaming company to finally make one that’ll probably suck.

Why compete with Foosball?

First, football is not a real sport per se, it’s actually a marathon with 22 people or so running after a ball like a pit-bull with OCD. Also, they are very sensitive when it comes to personal space. Get close enough or brush against then and their whole nervous system shuts down. Everyone has seen players fall and roll on the ground like a marlin that’s been tossed in a boat.

BUT! Football is also a very simple and at times a beautiful game. Kids can place a couple of plastic bottles on the ground to mark the pitch and off they go. Simple. It has tactics sure, but in its core you dribble a ball and pass it around trying to net it in the opposite end. Now when you have to make a video game that incorporates this its infinitely more simple to do than with rugby.

How about nice rugby things?

Rugby has scrums, rucks, lineouts, backline attack and defensive movements that incorporates strategies as well as tackles of varying degrees of danger. From a nice clean hit below the waist using both arms to wrap the player, to lifting players, tip them above the horizontal like they’re about to plant a dumbass tree. Trying to code all that is a lot harder than it would seem. If you look at the reviews on Metacritic you’ll see more yellows and reds than on Tomás Lavanini personal record.

So what’s my solution?

By now you’re probably screaming the following at the screen.

It’s simple, stop trying to make rugby games that are as accurate as the real thing. I recently started Captain Tsubasa. It’s a football game based on the series of the same name. And if anime has taught me anything it’s that from episode 1 the realism goes out the window.

The first goal I scored looked like it was shot out of a canon. The ball was surrounded in blue flames and went in from about the halfway line. (See the video below). It’s not like the FIFA games where you’re trying to simulate real players moving the ball up the pitch like the do on TV.

Now imagine you did the same with rugby. Keep the game and mechanics simple. Scrums are scrums where you mash a button, passing is passing and running is running etc. But add that special sauce.

You can run with the ball and clatter into people that sends them flying through the air into the stands. Maybe you can tackle players so hard they leave a dirt path where they slid on the ground. Or you can kick up and unders that bounces of the bellies of airplanes. You perform drop goals from your own try line that lands like a bunker buster. The developer can go nuts with their imagination.

Arcade type games = fun 👍

Rugby in Japan is growing ever so steadily. Their team is currently ranked 13th nipping on poor Wales’s heels. And as the sport grows one can hope that interest grows as well. Hosting the World Cup certainly helped and I can only hope that someone at Bandai, Konami, Sega, etc. finds the inspiration to make an over the top unrealistic arcade rugby game. Because to be fair, there’s still a very, very long road to go when it comes to rugby video games and all we can do is wait for that or for something that’s all about zany fun.

So I ask again, Why can’t we have nice rugby?