Rugby 15 Nearing Release However Reviews Suggest Best to Avoid New Series

Though it doesn’t have a following in North America there is one sports game due out this month. Rugby 15 is set to release February 24 on PS4, Xbox One, and PS3. Amazon has it listed for $50 (PS4/XB1) and $40 (PS3) but is also including a $10 promotional credit with pre-orders.

Rugby 15 comes from developer HB Studios whose most recent effort is The Golf Club – released last year and still being actively worked on. Rugby is published by Maximum Games, which it appears will also be handling the retail release of The Golf Club.

HB Studios in the past was a developer for EA Sports assigned to secondary (older or lower priority) platforms for games like Madden, NBA Live, and Tiger Woods. Those were produced for the likes of PS2, Wii, PSP, and Vita.

In terms of rugby most recently HB Studios developed the mobile game HB Rugby: Fixture Challenge in 2011. They have a richer history working with the sport on consoles however developing rugby games from 2003-07 that were published by EA Sports and Rugby World Cup 2011 under publisher 505 Games.

Rugby 15 has already released in overseas markets to extremely poor reviews. IGN has given it 2/10 and Games Radar 1/5. The PC version through Steam currently has 39 user reviews with an average score of 5/10.

So it’s probably not a game anyone should consider but it’s interesting to follow anyway. One of the most popular sports worldwide doesn’t really have a video game presence, with Rugby 15 the first attempt at one on the new generation of consoles. The developers have essentially positioned this game as a starting point for the series they’ll be working on for years to come.