A New NFL VR Game Can Put You in Dak Prescott's Shoes on Game Day in AT&T Stadium

If a season doesn't go the way you hoped it would, you can always pick up a controller and rewrite it with the latest Madden NFL game. That feels like it's been an inevitable redundancy for Dallas Cowboys fans for the last 10 seasons.

Now there's an enhanced virtual reality experience that can put you in the helmet of your team's starting quarterback and lets you run offensive plays by passing, running and handing off the ball with your own body. So, if your team loses, at least this time you can actually say "We lost" with a degree of accuracy and acceptance of blame.

StatusPRO's NFL Pro Era II is a VR game for the Meta Quest 2, PlayStation VR2 and PC VR headsets that's licensed by the National Football League. The game includes all 32 NFL franchises with virtual re-creations of their home stadiums, including the Dallas Cowboys and AT&T Stadium.

"[The NFL] defends their brand fiercely and we're making a video game so they give us some concessions, but they want it to look like their brand as much as possible," says Derrick Levy, StudioPRO's tech director and the game's director of artificial intelligence and gameplay. 
This is the second VR game StatusPRO has released with the NFL's branding. The company had to step up its game to meet the NFL's standards and improve on the foundation it built with the first game.

"We had to build it from scratch," Levy says. "This year, we wanted to push certain features more. Luckily we didn't have to redo all the stadiums except for Gillette Stadium because they did a big renovation. We're trying to be as realistic as possible, and we're licensed so we have to present the current state of the stadium."

AT&T Stadium presented a few challenging elements for the game's build team because of its size and signature features, such as the 11,520-square-foot high-definition screen that hangs over the field. They say everything's bigger in Texas for a reason, and Levy says he and his team can vouch for that.

"The challenge of the scoreboard was in the gameplay," Levy says. "It's hard for plays to see the score clock. So we had to implement clocks in the end zone and because of the size of it, we show a replay of certain highlights of the game actually. We had to scale it up to the size of that scoreboard. The challenging thing was getting it to look good because it's so big. It was a challenge to it to look good while rendering the video."

NFL Pro Era II puts players behind their team's offensive line as they run plays into their opponent's end zone either in exhibition matches, practice drills or a full football season. The studio's second NFL simulator also offers new features like a one-on-one multiplayer mode where players can challenge friends or strangers to a game online. A dynamic team relationship system tracks decisions that players make throughout the season and applies effects on their dynamic with their fellow players and even the team's coach like being able to call audibles or call new players.

"As you win games, you gain the coach's confidence and unlock new features," Levy says. "If you throw interceptions or fumble the ball, you lose the coach's confidence and you lose the ability to do certain things."

The previous game only let players compete in a single season on one team, but the new game lets players run up to 25 seasons at one time. The seasons don't happen in a vacuum. Players can get traded or swapped out between seasons. The augmented career code and even multiplayer matches can affect the course of a player's progression.
"The idea is to go from a raw rookie to a superstar, Hall of Fame quarterback where you have full control over the offense," Levy says.

The environments are a breathtaking sight in themselves. There's a great deal of detail, from the architectural structure of the stadium to the placement of seats and fans in the stands. NFL Pro Era II even lets you trot out of the runway as you and your team take the field for the start of each game.

"Environments are huge, especially for people who've never played VR before," Levy says. "It's entertaining if you're at the Cowboys' stadium or the [Los Angeles] Chargers' new stadium because they've never seen that perspective. As a user, it's likely they've never been down on the field and looked up at the scoreboard. That's usually the first thing they do. That's the intent. It gives you a perspective that unless you're a football player, you'd never get."

Levy says he dedicated a lot of time and maintained a steady eye for detail to every stadium, particularly with AT&T Stadium because he's one of two Cowboys fans who work for StatusPRO. He says he became a Cowboys fan when he was a student at the University of Florida and a budding running back named Emmitt Smith started grabbing the spotlight on gameday. When the Cowboys picked up Smith in 1990, Levy had to become a Cowboys fan.

"I'm trying to replicate the success of the '90s," Levy says. "I want back to back Super Bowls. That's my goal."

So do we, Levy. So do we.