What is the focus of NBA Live 15?

The NBA Live franchise from EA Sports was a series that, after four years away from the public, made a not-so-triumphant return to the spotlight with NBA Live 14 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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The game faced poor-to-mediocre reviews across the board, and was even ridiculed by fans on social media for not only playing like a title that wasn’t even good enough to be on the last generation of consoles, but looking like one too. The team at EA Sports heard all of this, and has been working hard ever since to make sure that NBA Live 15 is nothing like its predecessor.

“Here’s the reality of it,” executive producer Sean O’Brien said. “The game wasn’t good enough [when we launched].”

The team then decided to put out graphical and gameplay updates throughout the year to show fans that they are indeed working to making the series a contender in the basketball video game market.

But just what is the focus of NBA Live 15 after laying out the basic foundation with NBA Live 14? O’Brien says that this year is heavily focused on making sure the game looks, feels and plays like a true next-gen basketball experience.

“Our priorities [this year] center really around visuals, gameplay and onboarding,” O’Brien said. “We’re going to blow people away with where it was visually and what it looks like visually for 15. So, I’m extremely excited about doing that. And also our progress within gameplay.”

“Moving forward, we’ve got great plans to enhance and improve the depth modes of our game; the experiences of dynasty and rising star as well as others joining the fold.”

Of course, people also want to know how the main modes of the game will change from last year. And while O’Brien wouldn’t give too much away in terms of what changes are coming to the mode, he did state that the improvements won’t be as drastic as some might expect.

“The reality is that your rising star, your dynasty, your online or your ultimate team experience is heavily influenced by how the game plays and what it looks like,” he said. “So, for us, our focus is around creating a great playing five-on-five game, and having it look amazing.”

The team really wanted to focus on how the game looked, felt and how easy it was to learn. This, O’Brien says, was a direct result of feedback from the players.

In terms of a learning curve, O’Brien admits that NBA Live 14 shipped with a very poor effort to teach new players how to play. EA Sports expected most to be able to pick up and play immediately, and that just wasn’t the case. It took until later updates for a practice arena to finally be added to the game.

“The challenge we have with onboarding is that there are a lot of people who haven’t played live ever or in recent years,” he said. “We need to make sure people can learn how to play the game right away. What we did with 14 was we did a terrible job of actually onboarding you and teaching you how to play.”

EA Sports wanted a game that truly looked and felt like a next-gen basketball game. While not ignoring the other aspects of the game, O’Brien said that the main focus was on the aforementioned visuals, gameplay and onboarding features. However, he did leave fans with a teaser of what’s to come in the future.

“Moving forward, we’ve got great plans to enhance and improve the depth modes of our game; the experiences of dynasty and rising star as well as others joining the fold,” he said.

Sound off FanSiders! What do you think about O’Brien’s comments on what to expect with NBA Live 15? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, and be sure to look out for Part 3 of this series on Wednesday.

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