December 1, 2004 is a date that will live on in infamy in the world of sports gamers — the day when EA Sports was given the exclusive NFL licensing for sim-based football games.
Earlier that year, Madden NFL 2005 was made rather uncomfortable by its foremost competitor in ESPN NFL 2K5. Not only was NFL 2K5 the superior game in virtually every way imaginable, but was sold at a cool $19.99 on release, undercutting the standard $49.99 retail price for video games at the time. So not only were you buying one of the best sports games on the market, you were getting it for a fraction of what Madden cost. It even forced EA Sports to drop Madden‘s price to $29.99 in order to compete.
Madden did eventually win the battle, but this kind of action meant war for EA, and one that they could lose (akin to how NBA Live were later be trounced by NBA 2K). Thus, the company negotiated an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL later that year, effectively killing Sega’s hit NFL 2K franchise.
In the years that followed, many other developers and publishers tried to navigate the world of pro football games without having access to the NFL license. Midway was the first publisher to attempt a mainstream non-NFL football game with Blitz: The League in 2005, itself a successor to the NFL Blitz franchise. Highlighting a more brutal and vulgar form of football, The League had moderate success and even spawned a sequel in 2008. Unfortunately, the series never saw another release beyond that.
In between both Blitz games, 2K attempted to get back into football with the cult hit All-Pro Football 2K8 in 2007. The game retained the NFL 2K series’ trademark gameplay and feel, but lacked key components such as a Franchise mode, part of what made its predecessor so great. And since then, 2K Football has all but disappeared outside of the arcade games it was recently allowed to develop.
But there was another title that attempted to fill the 2K-sized void in the hearts of football gamers. And its name was Backbreaker.
Developed by British company NaturalMotion and published by 505 Games, the concept behind Backbreaker was a football game that didn’t have the canned, motion-captured physics of contemporaries such as Madden and instead relied upon the Euphoria game engine to calculate animations on the fly. This would ensure that no hit was the same as the previous one.
It’s hard to recall how I found out about Backbreaker, but I remember my brother and I being stoked over it. One of the screenshots released by 505 was even the wallpaper on the family PC for a spell. For years, we routinely checked in for updates on the game. And even though we knew it wouldn’t have an NFL license, it didn’t matter. And even if we desired to add NFL teams into the game, the comprehensive logo creator would help make that a possibility.
When it finally released in 2010, I found Backbreaker to be both fun, and a touch disappointing. In all honesty, I really enjoyed the gameplay. Even though the control scheme and camera angle were different from anything I had played up until that point, I appreciated Backbreaker‘s willingness to be different and go against the grain.
Needless to say, I also loved the physics! Even though they could occasionally be pretty wonky and funny, the lack of canned animations made for a unique experience every time.
I also thoroughly enjoyed Tackle Alley. An arcade-y mode where you control a single ball carrier and evade both defenders and obstacles, Tackle Alley was played out over 100 waves that got progressively more difficult. Honestly, when I first picked up Backbreaker, I really just completed Tackle Alley in order to unlock the Anchorage Watchmen. The team wasn’t good and only had an overall rating of 57, but they had a cool logo and added another team to choose from. But in retrospect, Tackle Alley stood out as being one of the better modes in the entire game.
The disappointment came with some of the core functions of the game. For one, the passing game on release was almost non-existent. Most times, I’d elect to run the ball at least 70% of the time. That’s how broken passing was. Granted, I kinda liked how it mimicked the Vision Cone function of the old Madden games by forcing you to focus on a receiver before throwing it. But outside of that, it just didn’t seem to work. Another frustrating part of the game was the replay system. Instead of giving the player full control over replays, Backbreaker forced you to just watch plays as they happened from the default camera view.
Single-player modes such as Season or the English football-inspired Road to Backbreaker also lacked depth and injuries.
Of course, Backbreaker would attempt to solve a lot of these issues with the Greathouse patch. And honestly, most issues with the game were more or less fixed as a result. The passing game felt more effective, replays were given more freedom, and the AI was improved. But it seemed to be too little, too late.
By the time NaturalMotion finally fixed Backbreaker, too many players had already moved on.
Even after the positive feedback following the Greathouse patch, Backbreaker would eventually fade into obscurity — a footnote in the history of non-NFL football games. And I understand why. For many, Backbreaker was simply a glorified tech demo for the Euphoria engine and what it could do with a sports-based IP following the successes that were Grand Theft Auto 4 and The Force Unleashed
But to this day, I still think of Backbreaker often. Even though it was a wacky and imperfect game, I had a deep fondness for it. And every few years, I attempt to find a new copy so I can recapture that feeling I had when I played it for the first time. Every now and then, I’ve wondered what NaturalMotion and 505 Games could’ve done with the IP had they built upon its solid foundation and released a true sequel, rather than the Tackle Alley-focused Backbreaker: Vengeance.
Admittedly, I seem to be alone in that category. Most people I ask about Backbreaker have never even heard of it. So maybe the prospect of a Backbreaker becoming an established alternative to Madden a la Maximum Football or Axis Football. Regardless, the ambition was there, and so was the groundwork. So for me, Backbreaker remains one of the biggest what-could’ve-been’s in sports gaming history.
Published: Feb 12, 2025 5:00 PM UTC