WellPlayed: One of the biggest criticisms surrounding the game’s development is the perceived lack of communication and gameplay footage. Is this something you’re aware of and hopefully looking to address? Or is the lack of updates due to contractual restrictions?

Adrian Harrison: We wish we could do more in this area. We do have contractual restrictions in this regard, so please understand that it can be just as frustrating for us as it is for fans when we can’t answer questions or provide insight into the development process. Released images or footage have to go through an approval process with both the AFL and our publisher. We provide requested images or footage but ultimately we don’t handle the day-to-day marketing of the game. We do actively lookout for feedback, so even when we aren’t speaking we are listening closely.

All that said, regarding early release of footage and features, this is always a tricky balance. We can certainly understand trying to be careful not to talk about things that might end up being significantly different or even cut from the final product due to time or technical reasons as this can be interpreted as a ‘promise’ being broken to fans. In the past when we’ve publicly shown content that’s in-development we’ve also had backlash from fans over it being unfinished and in-progress. While this is a fair criticism, it leads to concerns over the perceived quality of the final game. This is particularly true when it comes to gameplay footage as it changes significantly over the course of development, so from that standpoint we can understand wanting the final product to be judged on its most polished state.

WP: What influenced the decision to change engines midway through development and what benefits does Unreal Engine 4 provide?

AH: One of the key influences for switching to Unreal Engine 4 is thinking about the future of AFL titles. We’re hopeful that as the next generation of consoles is released we’ll be ready for them. We can take full advantage of the power of the Unreal Engine to have a real step-up in graphical quality from our previous game. Additionally, Unreal’s art pipeline allows us to speed up our development time. It also enables us to free up resources to concentrate on areas that fans care about.

WP: How much involvement does the AFL have in the game’s development, whether it’s marketing, producing or design decisions? What is it like working with such a huge organisation?

AH: The AFL has been a great partner to work with. They lend marketing support, handle approval of content, approval of team line-ups and player ratings, and they’ve been very involved in testing the gameplay and offering suggestions and recommendations to make sure the game is both true to the real game and fun to play.

WP: Delaying the game to the end of 2019, well after the season finished, didn’t make sense to a lot of fans. Was the decision to further postpone the game’s launch to 2020 simply to align it with the 2020 season or did the game’s scope widen with the new engine?

AH: Both of these reasons. Fans clearly wanted the game during the 2020 season rather than at the end of 2019, and it also gave us additional time to polish the end product. There were also 2 additional ‘features’ that were added during this time period that otherwise would not have been included.