[quote=@Inkarnate] Not the first time a story mode was put in a sports game and [i]worked[/i]. Shame that the Spike Lee direction was bad and short-sighted with bad integration with gameplay. People liked 2k17's story mode a lot more, and nobody ever has an issue with when Fight Night did it like ten years ago. Story within the framework of a sports game is not bad; depth is not bad. It's all in the execution and integration. [/quote] Fight Night Champion was six years ago I'll have you know. And the WWE games have been doing story for longer still - with branching paths and everything. But those games are garbage. MLB The Show has its Road to the Show thing and that's barely a story but they try for it. FNC also came out and elevated the gameplay to the point where the generic but effective story was just the cherry on top of the icing that was its entire cake. Considering that FIFA's whole The Journey thing was not nearly as positive but the improvements thanks to the use of a new engine showed a marked improvement over the last year's model which was noteworthy only because it included women's teams. By many accounts Madden's story mode is more in line with FIFA's and doesn't even have a lot of football in it anyway. And considering the creative director of EA Sports had Madden Longshot being pegged as a a 'playable movie' it paints comparisons to Livin Da Dream over Champion Mode because Champion Mode at least incorporated different boxing styles and techniques and gameplay elements in the fights. Sports games wanting to have story modes are fine but if you're playing like five minutes of basketball only to have fifteen minutes of your douchebag asshole friend read you his last will and testament after he dies then maybe try again. That's probably why no one had issue with Fight Night Champion. Because it was done relatively okay.