Woah: A Lacrosse Video Game for Xbox and Playstation is REALLY, REALLY Close to Happening

Last October I wrote about a Kickstarter campaign promising a lacrosse video game for Xbox, Playstation, and Steam. The lacrosse community has begged EA Sports and other video game manufacturers to create a lacrosse game. The probably is that the sport just isn’t popular enough to justify producing and distribution from a massive, publicly-traded gaming company.

Online crowd-funding amongst lax fans, however, is the perfect solution. Spearheaded by Crosse Studios in Pittsburgh, a new campaign for Lacrosse 15 promises to be one of the first major lacrosse video games to ever hit the market. According to Lacrosse Playground, fans who pledge at Lacrosse15.com in the next couple of days will be awarded a custom player and two copies of the game. Additionally, backers who pledge support can join as beta testers and even lock up entire team rosters.

Here’s a gameplay breakdown, via the campaign page:

Lacrosse 15 combines the player movement and passing of basketball with the stick control, shooting, and hitting of hockey to create a high scoring, action-packed lacrosse video game.

• High Scoring: Say goodbye to that “I can’t score” feeling of standard sports video games. Lacrosse averages 20+ goals per game. Get ready to sting corners!

• Big Hits: Line up the ball carrier for huge hits by perfectly timing up your attack. Imagine a football linebacker with a titanium shaft. Lay him down!

• Dynamic Stick Protection: Enjoy 360-degree live stick control to protect your stick as you dodge your way past multiple defenders. Dangles for days!

• Combination Stick Checks: Strip the ball away from the offense with various sword-like stick checks. Slice and dice!

• Evasive Dodging: Execute combination dodge moves to work your way past the defense. Lacrosse players are pure athletes. First you break their ankles, and then you break their heart.

• Quick Stick Passing: Perform amazingly accurate and fast passing to exploit your opponents. Tic-tac-toe anyone?

• Face-offs: Control every movement of your players stick in first person face-offs. Clamp, pinch and pop, laser? Its in your hands!

• Groundballs: Decide if you are going to pick up the ball with two hands, one hand, or go for the quick Indian pickup. The team who wins the GB battles, wins the war!

• Transition Offense: The team who knows how to create numbers is the team who knows how to score goals! Find the 2v1s!

• Transition Defense: Its on you to decide when to stop ball, when to scrape, and when to rotate. Transition defense will make or break you!

• Settled Offense: There are times to push transition and there are times to settle the ball down. Do you know the difference? Championship teams do…

• Settled Defense: How far do you want to close out to play the ball? Are you going to pack it in and play zone? Slide from the crease or adjacent? Want to lock off their two best players? If you can’t play defense, you are going to be in a world of hurt…

• Goalie Play: Are you okay facing twelve yard 100mph bombs? Then send your slide early and be ready to react. Looking for low angle shots on GLE? Call for hard top-side angles and force them underneath… You are the General. Command the defense.

Here’s what the creators told Lacrosse Playground:

“We are thrilled to be the first to the market. As a lacrosse player and video gamer, I know that there is feverish demand for a high quality lacrosse video game,” Sunseri said. “The excitement is contagious and it is our hope that these user generated teams and characters will add growth to the sport by getting more people involved and excited about being featured in a video game.”Lacrosse ‘15 is nearing the end of its $75,000 fundraising campaign on IndieGoGo. There are only five days left to support the game.“We’ve had a great response so far from the lacrosse community! With the support of over 560 people, we have raised $60,571 to help build Lacrosse 15,” said Carlo Sunseri. “We’ve been working on a mobile game over the past year and plan on leveraging that code base as well as the funds raised from the campaign to build a game that captures the sport of lacrosse like never before.”

Is this thing going to be legit? I’m a little suspicious since this new campaign is from the same people as the October 2013 campaign, which looks like it didn’t pan out. Regardless, if you trust them and thing a lax video game could be/should be a reality, you can preorder your copy on Indiegogo today at www.Lacrosse15.com
Brandon Wenerd is BroBible's publisher, writing on this site since 2009. He writes about sports, music, men's fashion, outdoor gear, traveling, skiing, and epic adventures. Based in Los Angeles, he also enjoys interviewing athletes and entertainers. Proud Penn State alum, former New Yorker. Email: brandon@brobible.com