Sunday Rivals Update Focuses on Presentation and Gameday Experience

Sunday Rivals is back with another update and this is a big one focusing on the presentation and gameday experience. This includes adding referees, player of the game interviews, staring lineup screens, halftime scenes showing top performers and much more. It even includes a few things that aren’t even mentioned in the patch notes.

Sunday Rivals was our 2022 Best Alternative Sports Game of the Year for good reason and it’s currently on sale for $17.99 on Steam through March 23. The game is also coming to console but specific details haven’t been revealed yet.

• Added pregame team matchup cinematics
• Added lineups cinematic
• Added Gameday Rivals cinematic
• Added coin toss cinematic
• Added impact players cinematic
• Added halftime and post game social media feed
• Added post game cinematics
• Added Player of the Game interview
• Added contextual shutter screens for quarters, downs, and kickoffs
• Added new background and title art for player highlight cinematics
• Added special colors to denote Gameday Rivals in the HUD and UI
• Added HUD callouts for top offensive and defensive players during play preview
• Defensive HUD displays stats of last tackler
• Defensive HUD defaults to top defensive player in coaching mode
• Added positions to player stats screen, moved LB4 next to other LBs
• Added intro and post game music

• Added referees
• Added Veronika Kay
• Added cameramen and camera flashes
• Improved cubemap coverage across entire field
• Added banners for team slogan and the stadium’s name
• Added environment art for championship game
• Added a colored stripe at the 50 yard line
• Added mustaches to some chain gang members
• Improved shadow resolution during cutscenes

• Gameday Rivals get a single game, scaled OVR boost based on their position
• Gameday Rivals have an increased chance of making an impact play
• Touchbacks are whistled immediately once a kicked ball hits a wall
• Before the snap, players can cycle backwards through defenders again

• Rebalanced wins and losses to have a larger impact than point differential when determining ranking
• GM conversations now recognize the playoffs and the end of the season
• Title screen after advancing to the championship shows the name of the championship game
• Title screen after winning the championship recognizes the win
• Rebalanced player of the game recognition in sim games to match played games

• Fixed a bug where the game and stadium clock weren’t displaying the same time
• Fixed a bug where the Player of the Week summary wouldn’t display the name of the next playoff round correctly
• Fixed a bug where the defensive awards weren’t being calculated correctly
• Fixed a bug where a linebacker’s scouting report would display incorrectly
• Fixed multiple spelling errors in scouting reports