It’s all about Career Mode today as the EA Sports PGA Tour team provided a new trailer and deep dive blog going over the details. Career Mode offers golf enthusiasts the opportunity to participate in the sport’s most prominent tournaments using their own custom-designed golfer and a flexible progression system that adapts to their performance. With a comprehensive skill development process that involves refining shot techniques, improving attributes, and advancing skill levels, players can enhance their personalized character’s abilities with great precision and depth.
Career Mode Customization
Players will begin their journey by customizing their golfer’s appearance with a variety of visual customizations, equipment options, and swing styles. Golfer swing styles can be adjusted by shifting the swing form, swing tempo, preferred shot types and ball trajectory through Career Mode. Players can also choose iconic and new-age golf brand equipment, selecting the specific club head, shaft, grips and more. Players can also outfit their golfer with top of the line clothing and accessories authentic to the sport.
The Road to Greatness
Players will then get to pick and choose where they want to begin their journey: as an amateur in one of the top amateur events, on the Korn Ferry Tour, or the PGA TOUR. As an amateur, players will be able to play the U.S. Amateur Championship, Augusta National Women’s Amateur, Amateur Championship, Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, and Latin American Amateur Championship, culminating in Q-school where they’ll compete for a spot on the Korn Ferry Tour. An invitation to the Masters and U.S. Open will be sent once the amateur championships are conquered.
After players complete the Korn Ferry Tour, or if they choose to skip it, they’ll launch into the PGA TOUR, competing each week on golf’s biggest stages including the major championships to chase the legendary green jacket, a Grand Slam Title, race for the FedExCup, and more.
During Career Mode, players can use the “AI Pairings” setting to play shot-for-shot against an AI PGA TOUR pro, or turn it off to speed up the round and concentrate solely on the game. AI performance is based on official ShotLink data, so pros play each course and particular hole just like they would in real life.
Skill Progression and Shot Types
Career Mode utilizes an RPG-like style of progression where players can build their golfer’s skill set over time. Earning XP and Skill Points, and applying them to categories such as Power, Driving, Approach, Short Game and Putting will unlock new shot types and upgrades to assist them in succeeding as courses become more difficult.
The Season Hub is where players can regularly check their upgrades, view the entire calendar of events, track career progression and other milestones through the “Career Mastery” tab. Completed and ongoing Quests – sets of challenges categorized under either a course or a tournament – can also be viewed to develop skills and unlock new shot types. By completing different challenges, players can control the specs of their ball and club which offer customizable performance characteristics across the areas of power, accuracy, control, and recovery.
Attributes
Players will have a variety of attributes that can be influenced by completing quests throughout Career Mode:
- Power – Upgrading this attribute adds more power and influences swing speed at tee off.
- Accuracy – The higher the accuracy, the smaller the mishit and window sizes become.
- Control – The higher the player’s control, the more accurately they’ll be able to influence grip, shot shaping accuracy and ball spin.
- Recovery – Recovery decreases the impact of penalties applied when in bad lies such as rough and sand. Penalties include:
- Carry distance penalty
- The size of the range shown in the carry distance penalty window
- Natural spin penalty
- Shot shaping penalty
- Spin control penalty
- Mishit tolerance window penalty
- Penalty for off-plane swings and mishits
EA Sports PGA Tour releases for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC for $69.99 on April 7. Anyone that pre-orders will receive the following:
- THE PLAYERS Championship Gear
- The Grand Slam Gear Bundle (Gear items celebrating The Majors)
- Scotty Cameron Putter
Fans that pre-order the Deluxe Edition, which costs $84.99, will receive the game three days earlier on April 4. The Deluxe Edition includes the following:
- Exclusive Early Access to Augusta National
- THE PLAYERS Championship Gear
- The Grand Slam Gear Bundle (Gear items celebrating The Majors)
- Scotty Cameron Putter
- 1500 Premium PGA TOUR POINTS
- PGA TOUR XP Bundle
- Augusta National Amen Corner Gear
- Madden NFL 23
The EA Sports PGA Tour trial also arrives on April 4 for EA Play subscribers. EA Play Pro subscribers will get access to the full game that same day.
