A new blog from the folks at EA Sports outlines the “Road to Glory” mode, in which you take a player from high school all the way through their college career. A lot of the details we already knew, or assumed would be in the game like signing playing your way from recruit to starter, or inking NIL deals — but there’s some wild elements we never saw coming.
In addition to the obvious importance of managing health, grades, and relationship with coaches comes a whole system of “dilemmas” you have to navigate — and this includes deciding whether you or not you should channel your inner Kevin Durant and make a burner account to defend yourself against online criticism.
“There might also be situations where you are playing poorly and the fans are just letting you have it. You’ll have to make a decision on how you want to respond. Do you want to take the high road? Criticize them? Make a burner and be your biggest hype man?”
The appears to be a three-tier system of response, each with their own pros and cons. Obviously brushing it off wouldn’t cause any criticism, but bottling up your feelings could have other consequences — while going so far as to create a burner could lead to you getting caught and your rep taking a hit as a result.
We’ve seen pretend social media integration in sports games a lot over the years, but traditionally this is limited to trade news or broad mentions of your character. This takes it to a whole other level.
Another dilemma that EA discussed in their blog was balancing your player’s image with their academics.
“Some dilemmas will present actual conflicts, such as being asked to attend an off-campus party. Attending the party could increase your brand by boosting your social presence, but it may also require you to skip your night class. There is a risk associated with this decision; getting caught skipping class could negatively impact your GPA, which might affect your academic standing and eligibility.”
This is the exact kind of thing people wanted to see out of the game, and it could lead to some utterly incredible screenshots and moments, assuming there are enough random encounters that everyone’s playthrough is different.
We’ll know more when the game is released next week.