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EA Sports has apologized to fans for the disappointing state of NBA Live 14, promising updates to improve player experience are on the way.
The resurrection of EA’s long-dormant basketball series was roundly panned by both players and critics when it launched last week on PS4 and Xbox One.
"I’m not going to lie; it’s been a rough week. As you can imagine, this isn’t exactly the NBA LIVE comeback story we were hoping for this year," executive producer Sean O’Brien said in an open letter.
"We hear loud and clear that some of you are disappointed in various aspects of NBA LIVE 14, and I’m sorry if the game doesn’t live up to your expectations."
O’Brien specifically outlined upcoming plans to implement a more intuitive tutorial, as well as better visuals to the game.
"We felt authentic gameplay, control and the connected experience would provide the best foundation for the future. As a result, game visuals and animation polish suffered."
Improvements on these fronts are also in development now for NBA LIVE 14. You will notice in the coming weeks and months that the game’s visuals and animation will improve significantly.
"You’ve told us that the game is too hard to learn. As a result, we are working on improving the way the game teaches the controls and on-boards new users.
The executive producer concluded that there’s much to be done to turn things around both for the current release, and next year’s NBA Live 15 – which has already been confirmed by EA.
"We’ve got a lot of work to do; I’ve got a lot of work to do. It started 12 months ago, and continues until we build this franchise bigger and better than it ever was,” O’Brien said.
This is just the first chapter in the NBA LIVE comeback story."
