Former EA devs are making a 3v3 basketball game without all the 'GM modes and micromanagement and opening packs' of modern pro sports games

Each year's slate of new pro sports games comes with a goofy set of new proper nouns to describe their cutting-edge animation and physics systems: Madden introduced «FieldSENSE» a few years ago, for instance, and now Madden NFL 25 promises «FieldSENSE powered by BOOM Tech.» You can't make this stuff up, unless you're EA of course, in which case you literally have.

A group of former EA developers have left that technical arms race behind to make a different kind of sports game, one they think has been missing from the scene. Announced today, The Run: Got Next is a 3v3 arcade basketball game with quick matches for our hopelessly corroded attention spans (and no BOOM Tech). And unlike certain other sports games—EA's new college football game comes to mind—it's getting a PC release as a priority.

The NBA Street series is the most obvious point of comparison, and The Run's creative director, Mike Young, worked on all of those games. He was also the Madden NFL creative director for 10 years.

The technical focus that makes modern pro sports games look like TV broadcasts has its place, but has required trade-offs, Young said in a recent interview with PC Gamer. One consequence of procedural animation systems is that they limit the responsiveness of the controls: You can't let players cancel dunks into passes at the last second if every action is motion captured and simulated. Young also says that The Run's defensive play will distinguish it from simulation-focused games, where it's «often just skipped, or it's too complicated, or you don't feel powerful, or it's too realistic.» Rather than realism, The Run aims to offer distinctive characters and to generate tension with back-and-forth play—expect loads of blocks.

The big idea here, however, is that EA and 2K's pro sports games have left a void to fill for a social, easy-to-pick-up multiplayer sports game. Young recalls his teenage son playing games like Rocket League and Fortnite while FaceTiming with friends at the start