EA Sports has a look at Rory McIlroy PGA Tour‘s Quick Rounds feature in the form of a seven minute clip of raw gameplay. In short, it lets you fit a four-round tournament into the space of a single round, making up for the difference with multipliers.
The course line-up was confirmed this week as well. We’d seen it previously but weren’t sure if it was a final listing.
- Bay Hill Club and Lodge (Orlando, Florida)
- Chambers Bay (University Place, Washington)
- Royal Troon (Troon, Scotland, U.K.)
- St Andrews (St Andrews, Scotland, U.K.)
- TPC Boston (Boston, Massachusetts)
- TPC Sawgrass (Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida)
- Whistling Straits (Kohler, Wisconsin)
- Wolf Creek (Mesquite, Nevada)
Pre-orders will pull in a ninth course, TPC Scottsdale, and four fantasy courses, including one based on Battlefield map Paracel Storm, will also show up.
This number is sure to be a disappointment to fans of the series, as the most recent game, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14, featured 20 courses. This is something we often see with first appearances of series on new console generations – Forza Motorsport 5 had a significantly shorter car list and course list thanks to the increase in detail affecting workflow, and many other games like these have seen the same kind of hit.
While the number is very likely a real limitation of time thanks to the much more detailed courses, fans typically don’t really care and want to see a bigger number, rather than a smaller one, with that higher level of detail included.
There are a few silver linings to these clouds, though.
The courses load completely at the beginning, ensuring no load time during play and allowing the player to play the ball no matter where it lies, meaning there is no out of bounds, even if it lands on the fairway of another hole. Additionally, EA Sports confirmed to Polygon that the game will see “free content updates post-launch,” in response to a note about the limited course list.
With so few courses, EA has a lot to make up for this time around, and how many courses they release and how fast will determine fan reception. Free tracks like Nurburgring and Long Beach extended the life of Forza Motorsport 5 and helped somewhat alleviate the disappointing number of tracks, and a good line-up from EA could do the same for PGA Tour.
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