While developer Electronic Arts still has a stranglehold on simulation football with its Madden series, other companies have been dipping their toes into the arcade side of America’s favorite sport over the last few years. Earlier this year, 2K dropped NFL 2K Playmakers, a mobile game more focused on collecting cards than anything else. However, there’s still space for a new football game to hit the market and take the fanbase by storm. Ubisoft aims to do just that with its newly announced NFL game, though not in the way many might be hoping. NFL Primetime Fantasy aims to re-invent how fans play fantasy football later this year.
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Ubisoft calls NFL Primetime Fantasy “live fantasy sports action” and says players will “experience the rush of making real-time decisions during live NFL games that directly affect your fantasy points.” Essentially, it looks like you’ll be able to activate various boosts in the middle of real-world games to give your player a high score. For example, if the Philadephia Eagles are in the red zone, you might activate a touchdown boost on quarterback Jalen Hurts. If he can score, you’ll get a boost to your final score that week.
It’s an intriguing take on fantasy football. Outside of drafting and setting your lineup, there’s not much for fans to do week-to-week in classic fantasy football. Ubisoft is trying to gamify things by adding real-time decision-making, which could be a big draw for some fantasy football players. However, it is worth noting that Ubisoft is keeping players locked behind packs, meaning you can pay to gain an advantage. The team is trying to minimize that by imposing a salary cap for each event, but it’s still a disappointing carry-over from modes like Ultimate Team.
NFL Primetime Fantasy doesn’t have a firm release date yet, but it’s fair to say that it’ll likely be out around the time the NFL season kicks off. That said, players can pre-register on either the Google Play or Apple App Store to have a chance to join the beta phase. Plus, if you pre-register, you’ll get an early access bundle that includes a card pack and currency used to activate modifiers during live games. NFL Primetime Fantasy will launch on mobile devices later this year and try to inject more excitement into fantasy football.
