EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ Pure Strike Gameplay Deep Dive

EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ brings all four major championships - The Masters, PGA Championship, the U.S. Open Championship and The Open as well as the race to the FedExCup - to your home. Along with these prestigious competitions come a variety of gameplay innovations powered by Pure Strike. Check out the gameplay deep dive video below to hear more about the gameplay innovations for EA SPORTS PGA TOUR.

Design Philosophy with Pure Strike

When making EA SPORTS PGA TOUR, our ultimate goal is for you to feel like a major championship golfer every time you pick up the controller. This philosophy has informed every aspect of the game's design. From the distance and control of shots to courses with true-to-life physics and shot types sculpted for the pros, EA SPORTS PGA TOUR provides an experience like that of an in-real-life pro-golfer. Our Design Philosophy continues to inform all the gameplay innovations including the newest advancement in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR gameplay with Pure Strike.

Pure Strike gives you all the tools you need to realistically attack every hole on every course the same way the pros do. Featuring ShotLink® powered by CDW and data from TrackMan, Pure Strike helps ensure that each professional golfer’s unique swing and attributes will be accurately reflected in the game. Pure Strike incorporates the three parts of every golf shot: fluid swing mechanics that are highly accurate to a player’s backswing length and speed of follow through, innovative ball behavior allowing every bounce and roll to behave more accurately across a variety of terrain and course conditions, and lifelike course dynamics that play true to their real life course counterparts.

Ball Behavior and Course Dynamics bring real-life experiences to every round of golf

Thanks to the Frostbite engine, EA SPORTS PGA TOUR brings you stunning visual fidelity for thirty courses at launch, but the experience of playing on one of these prestigious courses is only complete with course dynamics that have the ball behave just like it would on the course in real-life.

Whether it's facing 20 mph winds over the rock-hard terrain at the Old Course at St Andrews, to the suffocating rough at Bay Hill every one of the world-renowned courses in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR has been designed to challenge you the same way it would a professional golfer.

Your ball is tracked in-game by measuring power, swing, apex, and carry which is visible on screen after you hit your shot.

There are a variety of factors that impact the bounce and roll of the ball after you’ve taken your swing that also vary based on where the ball has met the different terrains on a course. The firmness of the ground, the speed of the ball’s roll, the ball’s spin, and the terrain the shot was hit from all impact the way the ball behaves once your shot lands.

But it’s not just the bounce and roll of the ball that’s unique. Each course also has its own flight physics based on elevation, wind, and other factors. So if you’re playing at one of the higher elevation in-game courses like Banff Springs in the Rockies, the ball will fly farther than when you’re playing at a low elevation course like Pebble Beach, which sits at sea level.

No two courses are identical, so shots on every course will behave differently based on the speed and firmness of the fairway, fringe and green, as well as the firmness and length of the first cut and second cut. On every golf course in the game, you can set speed and firmness of the terrain to either slow, average, fast, or tournament. Other courses will have terrains where you’ll be able to control length and firmness with three options: short, medium, and long.

We built each course with state of the art LIDAR data captured by helicopter or drone, mapping all of the vegetation, slopes, and terrain into the engine. From there, we designed a custom physics profile for each course using a combination of archival video footage, data from ShotLink® powered by CDW, and in-depth interviews from course superintendents. All this data made for a powerfully accurate depiction of courses that appear in-game.

As a result of course dynamics, at each course you’ll need to develop unique strategies to take successful shots in a variety of conditions so that from The Masters to The FedExCup you feel like you’re playing the course in real life.

Adjust strategy with Shot Types for more authentic golf

EA SPORTS PGA TOUR provides you with an authentic pro-golfer experience, and the 20 shot types in the game allow you to expand your experience with a variety of shots that professional golfers execute on the course.

There are 20 total shot types in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR under the categories driving, approach, shot game, and putting that are represented with gold, silver, and bronze shot types. To learn more about shot types and read a breakdown of each shot, visit our blog on shot types.

Fluid Swing Mechanics provide more realistic shot results

There are a variety of decisions a player can make to impact their swing and shot, so from the swings themselves to specific golfer skills, Pure Strike’s gameplay mechanics are made to feel like you’re truly playing as a professional golfer. We even captured swings from professional golfers to ensure that their unique swings make it into the game for a true-to-life experience..

Take the swing mechanic, for example, when you swing with your swing stick, three components will impact the resulting shot.

• Backswing length: How far your golfer takes the club back as you pull down on your swing stick.
• Forward swing speed: How fast your golfer swings forward or how fast you push up with your swing stick.
• Swing plane: Maps the path your swing takes and matches to the path your swing stick moves.

In addition to the swing itself, your golfer’s Swing Meter is directly tied to your golfer’s animation. You can time shots exactly how you would in real life since there’s no artificial meter you have to hit in order to carry out the perfect swing, the visuals say it all.

Both backswing length and forward swing speed will impact the power of your shot. So if your backswing is too long you’ll overswing but if it’s too short, you’ll underswing. If your forward swing is too fast or slow, your shot won’t go the intended distance. So getting the perfect shot will rely on your ability to time and carry out these actions accurately, just like a real golfer would. And you’ll receive on-screen feedback after every shot, so you’ll know if you over-or-under swung.

The swing plane impacts the curve on the shot and the initial direction of the launch. If the swing plane is inaccurate, the curve and direction of the ball will shift for the backswing and forward swing respectively.

When putting, the goal is to backswing perfectly which dynamically updates as you adjust your aim on the green.

Golfer Skills Make Each Shot and Golfer Unique

Golfer skills also impact your ability to swing on the course. Each golfer has their own set of skills which you can unlock and develop the more you play. And you’ll be able to build your own golfer in Career mode to match your style of play. Each golfer skill set impacts gameplay differently but all of them combine to create a unique golfer with strengths and weaknesses that you’ll have to strategize around.

There are four key skills that impact your golfer: power, accuracy, control, and recovery.

• Power controls the distance your shots can go, impacting all shot types in the same way.
• Accuracy is unique for different skill areas of your game: driving, approach and short game. So when you achieve a higher accuracy skill, your shots will be easier to execute.
• Control impacts the shape and spin control the golfer has over the shot which, similar to accuracy, is unique for each skill area. With higher control attributes, your shot will have more natural spin and you’ll be able to shape your shot more as well as add more spin while your shot is in the air.
• Recovery affects how negatively your shot is impacted when not on the tee, which influences approach and short game shots. For example, if you are in a bad lie, your power wouldn’t be affected as much despite an unfavorable position with high recovery attributes. This is similar for natural spin out of bad lies and golfer-controlled spin from unfavorable lies. A higher recovery attribute provides more natural spin to help stop the ball quicker and more Spin Control while the ball is in flight.

Customize Your Experience with a Variety of Gameplay Styles

Gameplay styles can control and impact all aspects of the game with your selection of four styles: Arcade, Pro, Tour, and Simulation. Arcade provides you with exciting, larger-than-life mechanics like Power Boost and Spin Control while Pro gives you challenging gameplay paired with the aids and exaggerated mechanics of arcade.

In contrast, Tour style has you playing like a top-tier professional golfer with more challenges and no aids. And Simulation, the most challenging game style gives you the most difficult set of game mechanics.

These gameplay styles control all of the settings under gameplay including zoom levels, swing difficulty, putting difficulty, putt read, power boost, wind display, and more, but if you’d like to take full control of your gameplay experience, you can toggle these to create your own Custom Gameplay Style for a unique gameplay experience. The full details for settings to customize your gameplay with gameplay styles are detailed below.

With EA SPORTS PGA TOUR, Pure Strike’s unique course dynamics and new ball behavior make each course experience unique and true-to-life, shot types impact your strategy, and more. If you’d like to learn more about gameplay in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR, read about shot types here and watch the full gameplay deep dive here.