PBA Pro Bowling, the first officially licensed video game designed for gaming consoles and Windows PCs in more than 30 years, made its official debut, the Professional Bowlers Association and FarSight Studios have announced.
The new PBA Pro Bowling game for Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Steam (Windows) allows gamers to interactively “bowl” against more than 15 PBA stars, including Jason Belmonte, Jakob Butturff, EJ Tackett, Norm Duke and others, with commentary provided by PBA announcers Rob Stone and Randy Pedersen.
“It’s been our dream to create an official PBA video game with the real pros since a lot of us watched the PBA Tour growing up,” FarSight Studios Vice President Bobby King said. “We’re proud of the game that we’ve created and can’t wait for people to check out just how easy and fun it is to play for casual bowlers, while still being difficult to master in Simulation Mode.”
The extensive career mode includes more than 100 virtual tournaments and dozens of venues. PBA players are depicted in accurate motion-captured animations, featuring the best bowling physics ever incorporated into a video game. The action is further enhanced by the use of authentic PBA lane oiling patterns and approved bowling equipment from 10 PBA product registered companies.
Among the additional features are quickplay and local multi-player modes, online leaderboards, E-Sports style online tournaments, and optional power-ups and special balls.
The easy-to-use “Arcade” controls are patterned after the hugely popular PBA Bowling Challenge for mobile devices from Concrete Software which has been downloaded more than 27.6 million times, including almost 2.5 million times in 2019 alone.
In addition to the current roster of PBA stars, FarSight anticipates adding “Simulation” controls, additional PBA stars, venues, bowling equipment and other challenges in the near future.