Tennis World Tour (Primavera 2018)

Tennis World Tour comes out this spring (PS4, Xbox One, PC & Switch), and we grilled producer Romain Ginocchio and creative director Etienne Jacquemain for all the details we could get our hands on regarding the title.

CAREER MODE

You start with a created character at the bottom of the rankings, aiming for the top. You can't use an existing, licensed pro (the game ships with 30 of them).
Character customization features include your face, serve animation, attitude (how you visually respond to events during matches), handedness, and even your "groan." The creation suite isn't designed towards replicating existing players. Sorry. You can create multiple players.
Players set up their schedule by the week, and you have to balance scheduling training sessions, tournaments, preparing for tournaments, vacations, sponsorship meetings, and more with making sure you get rest. The tradeoff is earning money, XP, and loot equipment, with the possibility of running down your player and increasing the chance of getting them hurt.
The developers worked with a coach from the French tennis federation to study players' schedules.
Players can get jet lagged if they travel too much.
Training sessions (like volley training) can be chosen for a bonus in your next match.
Players can be lightly injured and still play a tournament, suffering debuffs to your speed and power, and risking a long-term injury.
Vacations help you recuperate, but when you're not playing tournaments you risk lowering your ranking.
There is no simming past tournaments to get a result.
You can sign/change coaches, agents, and equipment manufacturers for bonuses and equipment. These come with requirements for your player such as being a certain level or ranking, or attending a certain event.
There are 100 pieces of non-licensed equipment (racket, grips, shirts, dampeners, socks) that unlock as you progress, but there are no microtransactions in the game. Equipment – which has rarity levels – is also awarded randomly for winning matches, and a rare sponsorship, for example, gives you rare-level equipment.

SKILLS & ATTRIBUTES

There are over 100 skills in the game, and before matches you can equip up to five of them. Some are passive, while others activate at specific times, like getting a power boost at the start of a point that decreases with each shot. There are no skills related to specific court types.
You can see which skills are active during a point via an onscreen indicator. You can also see the skills your opponent is tapping into.
Skills level up through three tiers.
You earn attribute points during your career and these are applied to three player archetypes: Attack, Defense, and Serve/Volley. Putting points into any of these three categories then changes specific character attributes (like control, power, etc.) and your strokes. So, you don't put points specifically into your forehand, for example, but that will grow at a variable rate depending on which archetype you invest points in. Characters level up to 30.

GAMEPLAY
Last week colleague Brian Shea and I talked about some of our gameplay impressions of an early version of the title (see below), and here are a few other tidbits:

In terms of the game's assistance that Shea and I reference in the video, the developer says there will be some level of assistance to, "keep a realistic and playable animation system," but any movement assist "will be less noticeable [in the final game] and leave more freedom to the player than in the alpha builds." If I had to guess, it felt like the build we played had a relatively high level of movement assist.
The wind may affect the ball.

Tennis World Tour Impressions

ONLINE PLAY

The game features quick match, ranked, tournament, and create-a-match online modes.
Create-A-Match allows for custom time of day/weather.
Tournaments feature seeding.
Ranked matches require your character is at level 25, with randomized time of day/weather. Ranked matches also have a league system where you're matchmade with players within your league.

PRESENTATION, DLC & MORE!

Tennis legend John McEnroe is the game's English-language announcer. Retired pro Guy Forget handles the French track.
Other classic players will be announced at a later time, and there are players which are being added after release.
There are no official tournaments or stadiums, but the studio is in talks with some licensors.
Doubles play – including mixed doubles – will be free DLC after launch. The developer isn't sure yet if doubles will be available during your career or just in exhibition mode.
There are stat overlays during matches for things like fast serves and long rallies.
The game will have 4K support for Xbox One X and PlayStation Pro.
There is a Tennis Academy tutorial section with different levels of training.