State of Origin star Kennedy Cherrington is among scores of fans left disappointed by the launch of the long-awaited Rugby League 26 video game.
The game was released on Thursday and social media immediately blew up with fans reporting bugs and errors.
Gamers noticed everything from strangely inflated player ratings — rarely selected Knights halfback Jackson Hastings is an 89 and retired forward Tom Eisenhuth tops the Dragons at 90 — to glitches within the gameplay, to stadiums being placed in the wrong cities.
Xbox users were also locked out by server errors for about 11 hours after release, while many players in the game are wearing the wrong numbers, kicking with the wrong foot, or listed at the wrong positions.
A large swathe of fans have called the game simply a re-skinned version of Rugby League Live 4, which was released in 2017 by the same studio, Big Ant.
Content creator and Penrith Panthers superfan Ryan Flaxman called on the developers to “do better”, labelling the game a “remaster” of its eight-year-old predecessor, rather than anything new.
Player position errors in Rugby League 26. (Instagram: kennedycherrington/winstonneville_)
“When I buy a $100 game, I am expecting — maybe not FIFA levels, I know I’m not expecting top quality — but I’m expecting something new,” he posted on social media.
“And yes, we’ve got Pro Team, but 90 per cent of the gameplay is a copy and paste of Rugby League Live 4.
“And I could live with that [if] the gameplay was working, but nothing was working. I could live with the re-use of animations, the shit commentary, the game itself, but the fact that it just doesn’t work, come on man.”
Parramatta and NSW State of Origin star Kennedy Cherrington was among the most prominent voices criticising the game.
“This might seem petty, but as a player that features in the new RL26 game, I’m not happy,” Cherrington wrote on social media.
“Maybe we should just be grateful that we’re in the game but overall I know the fans aren’t happy too. From the facial scans to the player ratings & even the gameplay nahhh.”
Cherrington said she couldn’t play herself at her usual position of lock, nor men’s star Mitchell Moses at halfback, and Eels teammate Tyla Amiatu was another of the players listed out of position, with the prop labelled an 89-rated fullback.
“So bad,” Cherrington wrote, adding it is “not hard to ask what position the players play”.
Cherrington posted on Instagram as she repeatedly tried and failed to sign in to the game, calling for more consultation with players.
“I reckon in the future we make sure we work together to make sure a half-finished game like this never gets released again lol,” she posted on her stories, tagging the Rugby League Players’ Association.
“Imagine using player IP but not including players and the representatives (RLPA) in the process from start to finish. DAMN.”
Melbourne-based game developer Big Ant Studios and its founder and chief executive, Ross Symons, have been doing damage control on social media since the launch.
Symons apologised to fans who “spent good miney” (sic), some as much as $125, on the game.
Big Ant worked with Microsoft to get the game up and running on Xbox, but issues persisted, and the studio said employees were working “around the clock” to fix other bugs.
“We know today has not gone as smoothly as it should have, and we will compensate all #RugbyLeague26 purchasers with some free #ProTeam credit,” Big Ant tweeted.
“There has been overwhelming demand that also may have caused service issues, and for that we cannot apologise enough.”
Symons said they sold six times more copies of Rugby League 26 than other game this year, and the “servers are not coping”.
The “Rugby League 26 Bugs and Issues Megathread” on the Big Ant website’s forum had received  137 messages in 24 hours from midday Saturday.
Some have been fixed, while frustrated players wait for others to be rectified.
