Australia based developer Big Ant Studios, in collaboration with the Australian Open, is releasing AO Tennis a game that lets players hit the tennis court with their favorite athletes. It has been too long since we’ve seen a proper tennis game in the current generation of consoles. AO Tennis will be the first official game that is licensed by the Australian Open. 

The game will be a first of its kind as it will be using statistics from actual play data to be incorporated in the game. AO Tennis will use historical data of famous tennis players and will infuse their famous moves and play techniques in the game’s AI. Big Ant Studios mentioned in their announcement that: 

“With previous tennis games, the world #1 would be challenging to beat, because his or her in-game attributes would be set to merely make fewer errors,” explained Big Ant CEO Ross Symons in the announcement. “That worked well at the time, but we’ve taken things to the next level.”

The game will also feature a 3D scanned likeness of the athletes included in the game to match their physical likeness and play style.  Professional tennis players were also motion captured to bring an authentic tennis experience.  AO Tennis will also allow players to create their own unique characters that they can train to become a world-class professional tennis player. The game also claims that Rafael Nadal, the world’s number 1 tennis player, will be the most difficult to beat in-game. 

Players can also choose between a hard court, clay, or grass to match their preference that will also offer different challenges. There will also be an online play mode so players can challenge anyone in the world on their road on becoming the next tennis superstar. You can check out more details of the game here. 

As a fan of the sport, I am very excited to see how this game will turn out. As for now, the game will be released initially on the PS4 and Xbox One. I was a bit disappointed that a Switch version was not announced as the motion controlled joy cons will definitely add to a more interactive type of play. AO Tennis will be released initially in Australia and New Zealand just in time for the actual Australian Open in Jan 16, 2018. It will then be released worldwide during the first half of 2018, but we are still waiting on release dates on specific territories. 

Personally, I can't wait to beat Djokovic in this game. Which tennis superstar will you go up against?