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Joe Montana Hints At Unreal Engine Powering Joe Montana Football 16
Though we still don't have an official announcement, legendary NFL quarterback Joe Montana has continued to tease an upcoming game on Twitter alongside the hashtag "#joemontanafootball16." Montana's latest tweet, which simply says "it just got unreal" and shows off a screenshot with the Unreal Engine 4 logo, indicates that the still unannounced game will run on the Unreal Engine 4.
Montana began tweeting hints with the same hashtag in July 2014. The first tweet says, "#youvewaitedlongenough," and includes a stylized render of Montana in a generic jersey. The screenshot tweeted today also appears to feature generic jerseys, with logos of non-NFL teams out of focus in the background.
During his career, Joe Montana was the figurehead of multiple games, including EA Sports' Joe Montana Football on Genesis in 1991, which did not feature any real teams or players outside of Joe Montana due to a lack of the NFL license. Following the release of Joe Montana Football, EA Sports abandoned the Montana name to focus on its NFL licensed football franchise, John Madden Football. Developer BlueSky Software continued developing games for Joe Montana through late 1994, but after Montana's contract ended with Sega, the franchise was moved to a new developer and rebranded for Deion Sanders.
Ever since EA Sports struck an exclusivity deal following the battle between Madden NFL 2005 and NFL 2K5, no other publisher has released an NFL licensed game. Midway Games released two Blitz games using fictional and retired players prior to EA Sports' acquisition of the Blitz brand, and 2K Sports put out All-Pro Football 2K8 featuring fantasy rosters of retired players, but neither franchise stuck without the NFLPA license.
[Source: Twitter]
Our Take
With EA still holding the exclusive NFL license, this will likely end up being another game that features retired or fictional players. From what I can tell, the player models in the screenshot tweeted by Montana resemble what was most recently seen in All-Pro Football 2K8, so it will be interesting to see if 2K Sports is behind the upcoming revival of this classic football franchise. We still have no idea what platform Joe Montana Football 16 will be on, when (or if) it will release, or if it will be anything worth getting excited about. Montana can continue hinting, but until we hear something from a publisher or developer, we'll be proceeding with caution.
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