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Tennis World Tour 2: Complete Edition Review — A Mid-Level Contender

Big Ant Studios found their audience with niche sporting simulators this last decade. Between Ashes Cricket and Rugby League Live , recent years have seen a greater focus on tennis, with the team offering the enjoyable AO Tennis 2 early last year.

In September 2020, they were back at it, this time launching Tennis World Tour 2 in collaboration with Nacon. Releasing to mixed reviews , Tour 2’s found a second lease on life with a next-gen “Complete Edition” for PS5 and Xbox Series X, which makes for a vast improvement over the original release, even if that improvement is relative.

Tennis World Tour 2: Complete Edition Review — A Mid-Level Contender

If you’re simply after a quick tennis fix, Exhibition Mode is your go-to here, letting you play with up to three other players locally in singles and doubles matches. In this mode, there are 48 different Tennis players to choose from, including Grand Slam winners Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Maria Sharapova. Sadly, a few notable icons, like the Williams sisters and Novak Djokovic, are missing, but the line-up remains impressive despite their absences.

Online multiplayer is also available, as are several pre-set and player-hosted tournaments. There’s also Tennis School, a training area filled with tests to keep your skills sharp.

However, the real focus lies in Career Mode, creating an original character in your journey to win a Grand Slam. You complete different events – including exhibition matches and tournaments. Those come with an entry fee, and higher fees mean higher winnings, should you succeed.

Gradually, you increase your career level, building up a reputation and signing with new agents, who offer performance buffs like greater strength or increased XP. Just be careful of your fatigue meter, which builds up after taking on events and impacts performance. Taking timely breaks to keep yourself in peak condition is a must.

Once you’re on the court, you have two shot options: precision and power. Providing you’re near the ball, racket swings occur automatically, but a good precision shot requires tapping a button as the ball gets closer. For power, you must hold that button down, releasing at the right moment for a devastating volley.

It sounds straightforward, but Tour 2 gets surprisingly challenging, and that difficulty can spike between matches. Even if you force your opponent into errors, moving them to the other side of the court, misjudging your shot timing can undo your hard work. Those seconds are key to taking a point or landing out of bounds.

That’s not to understate the surprisingly technical level of gameplay depth here, a depth that forces you to consider your strategy seriously. It’s not as arcade-like as more notable games like Mario Tennis – and it replicates real tennis to a decent extent.

Of course, that precise, realistic approach won’t sit well with everyone. To help you out, Tour 2 also includes a Cards system, allowing you to boost your own skills during matches – improving endurance, power, precision, and agility, for example – or reduce an opponent’s. You can hold five cards at once and save preset decks, buying them from a Card Shop for coins earned in career mode. Cards can even be sold for extra currency.

Since they’re best used in a pinch, they add a good layer of strategy to the gameplay.

Tennis World Tour 2: Complete Edition — The Bottom Line

• Captures the feeling of tennis well.
• Plenty of players and courts to choose from.
• Smooth performance.
• Numerous upgrades over the previous edition.
• Difficulty level is uneven.
• Some character models need improvements.
• Gameplay is quite technical.

As for next-gen improvements, Nacon has done an impressive job, and owners of last-gen’s Ace Edition can upgrade to the Complete Edition for free. Running at 60 frames-per-second in 4K, the Complete Edition also benefits from faster loading times, ray tracing, and enhanced particle effects.

It looks great, and that presentation’s only let down by a few off-base character models, which could’ve used some extra detail. Otherwise, all previous DLC is included with six new characters (including Murray and Sharapova), four additional stadiums, new cosmetics, and additional animations, too.

If you weren’t sold on Tennis World Tour 2 previously, Nacon’s next-gen upgrade won’t change your mind, but there’s an enjoyable simulator here and the Complete Edition is the best way to play. If you’re a serious tennis fan, this one comes recommended.

[Note: Nacon provided the copy of Tennis World Tour 2 used for this review.]

Tennis World Tour 2 — Grand Slam or Double Fault ?

Master the basics as an amateur player and work your way up throughout an action packed career to play against some of the circuits most well known faces as a pro and the chance for a shot at the number one spot in Big Ant Studios racquet sport simulator — Tennis World Tour 2 .

Tennis World Tour 2 looks to reclaim that past glory with fully realised player physics, super high resolution textures and a complete set of licenses for both players and equipment manufacturers. If that wasn’t enough, Tennis World Tour 2 introduces an interesting card mechanic designed to spice up the gameplay further by allowing players to deploy hands from their deck mid-match to gain the advantage.

Starting out at tennis school, Tennis World Tour 2 walks players through a few training drills in order to instill in you the difference between accuracy and power and how failing to time correctly can seriously debilitate your swing giving your opponent the advantage. With that down it’s time to dive into a number of other modes but the most interesting is easily the career mode.

Career mode in Tennis World Tour 2 allows you to create a very detailed avatar through which to take on the world. The number of customization options is impressive and although you can take a preset model into your career,  it feels much more satisfying to create a digital likeness or adversely an absolute monster onto the court.

Career offers different match types and certain matches can’t be replayed so if you do lose, there’s no going back to fix a previous mistake, you just have to deal with it and bounce back. Playing (and hopefully winning) earns your character experience which as you progress will gain you a level up in addition to points to distribute in RPG-like fashion to four statistics which improve your abilities. 

Rather than throw you into the deep end most of the starting matches are single game or single set affairs with either singles or doubles play offered but as you progress the matches are substantially longer. Given how long a full match can last, it’s appreciated that Tennis World Tour 2 offers a mid match save option to allow players to take a break and come back swinging when the time suits them.

Although in many sports games gameplay is paramount it’s also great to see licenses used well and to full effect. Everything in Tennis World Tour 2 is as you would expect when you sit down to watch Wimbledon, with the players and their likeness spot on, all the logos and sponsors you would associate with tennis are here and branding makes the difference between a technically accurate sim and something you can connect with.

Earning currency from the careen mode can be utilised to purchase new equipment should you wish but its key use is to supplement your player with skill cards. Carrying up to five of these into a match, each player can choose to deploy one or more cards at any time to offer them an advantage in terms of stats or to disadvantage their opponent. 

Each card is ranked in terms of overall power and carries a number of uses. Cards are split across the key areas of endurance, power, precision and agility and may affect that statistic only. Increasing Stamina costs for a single game or decreasing forehand power for a number of games allows players to build a deck and hand to assist them in particular matches or challenges.

Playing the cards at the right time can be the difference between closing out a match or suffering a humiliating comeback by an opponent who was previously on the ropes so the card mechanics add a strategically important meta to an already great simulation.

Tennis is not easy to master though and Tennis World Tour 2 shows you this at every opportunity. Jumping into an exhibition with the top two stars – Rafael Nadal & Roger Federer — I struggled to score a few points, never mind a full game or set and it took some time working through the ranks in my career before I dared to try again. Opponents sometimes seem to have super human response times, especially in doubles matches, whilst my character just watches the ball sail by without raising a hand.

Looking beautiful, sounding great and with an authentic feel to it, Tennis World Tour 2 is an excellent take on the Tennis circuit whilst the addition of the card mechanic offers further strategy to a mainly action based game. Sometimes let down by its difficulty early on but definitely rewarding players who spend time mastering its mechanics it’s definitely worthy of your time if you enjoy Tennis.

Tennis World Tour 2 is available now on Xbox Series X and PS5 .

From unboxing his Spectrum through to starting to introduce his kids to the latest gaming platforms, Alex has always had a passion for video gaming with a particular focus on RPG's, Metroidvania platforming and One on One Fighters.

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Tennis World Tour 2 Hands-On Preview: Gameplay Trails Impressive Visual Upgrades

Tennis World Tour 2 is in an interesting spot right now. In a way, it’s that mysterious player you see from afar on the tennis court. It looks great with sweatbands and fresh new athletic gear. It moves gracefully around the court, and it just looks like an athlete. As you get closer, you see it wind up with great form and rip a shot with high velocity — only that shot is nowhere close to being in. You appreciate the guts of what’s here, but this is still clearly a work in progress.

The original game was released in a barely-finished state back in 2018 and, despite some patches to try and save it from its messy origins, it remained barely playable online and was a disappointment for a community desperate for someone to make the next great tennis video game .

Now, over two years later, we will get a sequel to that title in September on PS4, Xbox One and PC, and then a month later on Nintendo Switch. The first thing worth mentioning is that it’s been made by Big Ant Studios, the very same developer that worked on what has to be considered Tennis World Tour 2 ‘s biggest direct competition, AO Tennis 2 .

So how does Tennis World Tour 2 differentiate itself while having that same company working on it? I recently had the chance to attend a brief virtual event with Clement Nicolin from publisher Nacon (formerly BigBen Interactive SA) and spend some time with a PC preview build of the game. Here are some of my thoughts on where the game shows potential and where it could really use some improvement.

Tennis World Tour 2 does have an in-game tutorial, it just wasn’t made available for people like myself to use in this preview build. This made it harder to evaluate the game at times because a lot of time was spent trying to figure out how certain things worked through trial and error.

Suffice to say, I found the game to be difficult and frustrating a times. After getting beat soundly on normal difficulty several times without my opponent so much as breaking a sweat, I decided to turn the difficulty setting all the way down to very easy — the lowest setting — and still found my opponent regularly crushing winners that I had no way to reach. This is the part where I say that I’m by no means the greatest gamer in the world or anything, and consider myself to be in fact almost perfectly average, but I do recall having no problems beating the CPU in Tennis World Tour on the default difficulty.

But even on the lowest difficulty, where you’d expect the new timing mechanic would be at its most forgiving and that the majority of shots would result in either “Good” or “Perfect” feedback no matter what, hitting accurate shots did not feel all that much easier. The same goes for your opponent, who you’d think would be more likely to make unforced errors or have trouble getting to balls on such a low difficulty, but instead they were still able to unleash almost as many of those brilliant returns down the line as they are on harder difficulties.

In fact, at one point I cobbled enough points together to finally win a game and thought I might be ready to try a slightly harder difficulty — only to realize that I was already at normal difficulty unbeknownst to me. So there’s clearly not enough of a delineation between these current difficulties to even so much as tell them apart.

That being said, obviously if the tutorials and such had been accessible this most likely would have been smoothed out, so the end consumer should not have as many growing pains as I did. At the same time, it does seem like some folks will have to train themselves up, which may actually excite some of them.

Hitting The Ball

Switching over to a more timing-based mechanism for your ground strokes — with Top Spin 4 (the crown jewel of last generation’s tennis simulations) mentioned by Clement Nicolin as a point of reference for Tennis World Tour 2—the expectation would be that there would be more skill and consistency required to keep your opponent on their heels. However, this system definitely needs some more refinement if it’s going to result in healthy competition and long-term fun.

There seems to be far too much variance and randomness in the results of your shots, and the feedback that’s provided doesn’t really do much to let you know exactly what you’ve done wrong. The feedback employs a scale that runs from “Too Soon” to “Good” to “Perfect” to “Too Late,” which are all easy enough to understand as words but they don’t tell you whether you’ve pushed the button to swing your racket too soon or too late, or whether it’s the release of your shot that’s too soon or too late.

I spent a lot of time trying out different things to see how to get the best results from this feedback, and what I eventually settled on was that there really doesn’t seem to be that much rhyme or reason to any of it. I tried pushing the button very early and would sometimes get “Perfect” feedback, and I tried pushing the button very late and would sometimes get “Perfect” feedback. This was also true of “Too Soon” and “Too Late” feedback. Even after finishing quite a few games, I was just never able to figure out exactly what I was supposed to do to get optimal results on a regular basis.

This lack of consistency or logic also extended to the direction of shots as well, where I could never seem to get the ball to go where I wanted on my opponent’s side of the court. It obviously makes some sense to not be able to control where your ball is headed as much when you’re on the run and scrambling to even get to the ball and put it back over the net, but there doesn’t appear to be enough of a difference between aiming your shot from a full sprint and standing still. I was sometimes able to get a pinpoint cross-court shot while sprinting in the opposite direction, but then also struggled many times to put a point away while I was standing still and had an entire side of the court open — opting instead to annoyingly hit the ball back in the middle so my opponent could easily play it back.

The new service mechanic fares a little better, though it does take a little bit of time to figure out. You decide on the angle of your toss and the direction of your serve in the first part before applying power in the second. If you don’t hit the correct angle on your toss, it will make it more difficult to hit the ball accurately when you add power. Again, at least this is how I think the whole thing works. All I truly know is that it did produce more dynamic results with your serve (I even got a few lets), though it does also seem to have a bit of randomness baked in as well. Even when I was able to execute everything perfectly to the best of my knowledge and hit some nice serves on the lines with maximum power, I was still never able to ace my opponent.

Graphics & Presentation

The game has clearly improved quite a bit in the visuals department, both in how the players move and react on the court, and in the way a match is presented.

Claiming to have doubled the number of animations in the game, players do feel more fluid in their movements and transitions for the most part thanks to a new in-house game engine. There are still instances where the game feels like it’s on rails a little bit, especially when your player gallops across the court to lunge for a ball in spite of minimal input on your part, but this is perhaps a direct reaction to how the original’s gameplay was almost “too realistic” according to Nicolin in how hard it was for players to change directions. At the very least, animations should now at least match the types of shots, which Nicolin admitted was an issue in the last game.

The presentation has taken a step forward as well, with a nice selection of close-ups that highlight how much the players resemble their real-life counterparts (though we only had access to four pros from the roster). While getting dominated by Garbine Muguruza over and over again, I became increasingly enraged by the shots of her grinning after I hit the ball way out for the umpteenth time and that’s a testament to how lifelike she felt across the court from me.

The ability to challenge calls is a welcomed addition, with the exciting flyover overhead camera showing you whether a shot managed to catch the line or not. I saw a nice mix of in and out calls from the CPU’s challenges in the matches I played, so it’s clear they aren’t correct every time they issue a challenge.

The sounds of the ball and the crowd are serviceable if not spectacular, and the intonations of the chair umpire’s announcements of the score add some immersion. The opportunity to pull a McEnroe and engage in some spirited arguments with the umpire would have been nice considering how terribly things were going for me on the court, but that’s probably too much to expect from a game.

MyPlayer & Card System

Though we didn’t get access to the MyPlayer creator or the game’s career mode, we were told that the creation suite has been expanded to even include details like serve routine, which is great news considering the original game was so limited in this area that your player couldn’t help but end up looking the same as others. Once you’ve decided on what you want your player’s appearance to be, you’ll then be able to use them both in career mode and in online play.

As you play and earn in-game currency, you can purchase packs of cards that can be used to either boost your player’s skills or lower your opponent’s abilities during a match. Though Nicolin claimed that this was meant to replicate times in a real match when a player is “feeling better,” it’s hard not to come away thinking that’s a pretty flimsy justification for including a rather arcade element. Nevertheless, there’s at least some strategy to the whole system. Separated into four categories (endurance, speed, precision and agility), selecting when to use these boosts, and which boosts to even include in your hand before any given match, allows you to help play to your strengths or perhaps expose an opponent’s weaknesses.

These cards not only provide boosts for certain attributes, but they also come with a duration and a set number of times that the card can be played. This creates further strategy where you’re forced to decide whether you’d rather have a card in your hand that will provide a slight boost for a full match, or a card that will give you a more substantial boost for just a point but you can play it maybe 10 times during a match.

Quick Hitters

• The game has added doubles play both locally and online, though you can only play online if you have two players locally on one system, so there’s no way of matching up with and finding the new doubles partner of your dreams.
• Nicolin says that having more stable online play has been a huge focus for T ennis World Tour 2 , recognizing that the original’s lack of online functionality drove many people away.
• There will be 36 players and 2 legends in the game at launch, many of which have already been announced at this point. It’s best to follow the game’s official Twitter for all further announcements on these. You can also play on all the surfaces of real tennis (from clay to grass) and choose what time of day and kind of climate you want for an exhibition match.
• Official tournaments that haven’t been announced yet will be in the game.
• You can now stop a match in the middle of it and then pick it up again later, for those interested in playing longer matches but might not have the time to do it in one shot.
• New game mode Tiebreak Tens will allow people to play quicker matches.

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Tennis World Tour 2 Preview: Serving Up Something Better

With a metacritic score of just 45 on ps4 , i thinks it’s safe to say that 2018’s tennis world tour was a major letdown..

Developed by Breakpoint Studio and published by Bigben Interactive, now known as Nacon, things were marginally improved with 2019’s Roland-Garros Edition . But it was fundamentally the same game, and so even with additional content and the odd tweak here and there, it still didn’t satisfy tennis fans in the way that it should.

Nacon is hoping to make amends for the disappointing first game with Tennis World Tour 2 . It’s got a new developer on board, Big Ant Studios, who also developed the ill-received AO Tennis and its improved sequel , and it’s utilising a new game engine that allows for more fluid animation and more realistic physics. Overall, it hopes that games will be more dynamic, require more skilful play, and ultimately, simply be more fun to play.

Tennis World Tour 2 is set to feature a whole host of other improvements, too. Doubles is in, allowing players to team up with a computer controlled teammate or get a friend or family member in on the act. And yes, doubles can be played online, with Nacon stating that much work has gone into making online multiplayer more stable. Tennis aficionados will also be happy to hear that the court surface will have an effect on play now. When playing on grass, for example, the ball won’t bounce as high. It’s something to take into account as you head into each match.

Going hands-on with a preview build of Tennis World Tour 2 , I can confirm that it does indeed look a lot nicer, and animations are noticeably improved. More importantly, it feels a lot better to play; it’s more dynamic and natural. You notice that rallies are shorter compared to the endless to-ing and fro-ing of the first game. Though to master Tennis World Tour 2 you really need to get the timing of shots down.

A new timing-based gameplay system means that if you release the button to swing a little too early or late, the ball won’t go exactly where you want it to. Totally mistime your release and it may even go out or hit the net. On the other hand, if your timing is good or, even better, perfect, you can put your opponent out on a limb. It’s trickier than it sounds, perhaps trickier than it should be, in fact; you don’t always feel like you have time, plus there are no indicators to help you along the way.

While Tennis World Tour 2 does seemingly provide a good game of tennis, there are some things aside from its timing demands that are also less than stellar. Take its new card system, for example, which effectively replaces the skills found in the original game. It introduces an element of strategy, as you’re able to assign consumable cards to your deck before each match and then call them into action by using the d-pad.

They have such effects as boosting the strength of certain shots for one set, or improving your stamina for a whole match. They can also hinder your opponent’s abilities. Unfortunately, the system seems fiddly to manage while playing, and using your cards effectively often feels like pot-luck unless you have a deep understanding of the player you’re up against. Simply gaining bonuses from having them equipped would have been better.

And then there’s the AI of the computer-controlled opponents, which seems a bit iffy. Sometimes the AI is as dumb as a bag of bricks, making multiple double faults or not even attempting to return the ball. Other times they’re godlike, even on the very easy setting. For some reason, they seem particularly good when you’re serving. It could just be that I’m a rubbish player, but not having access to tutorials in the preview build to master the game’s mechanics, it’s a hard one to judge.

Still, Tennis World Tour 2 does already appear to be a vast improvement on the first game. Especially when you consider some of these issues won’t apply when facing real human opponents. There’s still some work to be done to get Tennis World Tour 2 at the top of its game, though, and a lot will hinge on how good its career mode is and if its online offerings are in fact more reliable. With what little competition there is, however, it’ll probably turn out to be the best of what’s available regardless.

When it launches this September on PS4, Xbox One and PC, Tennis World Tour 2 will feature 36 players, with an additional two up for grabs if you preorder. It has two new courts, too, as well as a new Hawk-Eye system so you can challenge decisions if you think they were made in error. A Switch version of the game will also follow in October.

Tennis World Tour 2 launches 22nd September on PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Preorder Tennis World Tour 2 on Amazon

Co-owner and editor-in-chief

An avid gamer since discovering the wonders of the Acorn Electron in the '80s, Rich has nearly played more games than he's had hot dinners. Not one to put all his eggs in one basket, Rich is happy to play games of all genres, but he particularly enjoys racing games and anything that's full of non-stop action, especially if it includes a good dose of humour, horror or crudeness!

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Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition Xbox Series X|S Review

Many moons ago, I used to be an avid amateur tennis player and loved nothing more than tuning into Wimbledon to watch the Brits disappoint on the world stage. Ahh, memories. However, as with most sports last year the pandemic put a stop to that, instead leaving a void that was partially filled by the release of Tennis World Tour 2 . Now, just six months later, it’s back with some improvements.

Enter Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition . This version of the game comes with all the content available for the original, as well as graphical enhancements. This means it has 4K enabled visuals which run at 60fps along with ray tracing and faster loading times versus the original. As a result, it’s only playable on the Xbox Series X|S consoles. 

As soon as you boot the game up, you’re taken on a brief tour of your own, whether you like it or not. This takes you through the menus, explaining what’s on offer in the game. Before starting properly, you can swing by the Tennis School to practice the basics, but why stop there? There are also advanced moves to master before you head out into the competitive world. You can also return later to take on challenges that you unlock as you play the game.

Controls are the bedrock of a game such as this, and in Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition it’s all about timing. The better this is, the more likely that you’ll place the ball where you want it to go. 

Returning shots is pretty straightforward, as is serving. However, directing the ball feels a little out of your control at times, whilst at others it’ll land exactly where you planned. It’s hit and miss, but the inconsistent nature is highlighted when you are trying to nail the target boxes at the Tennis School. In matches it soon becomes clear that if you want your first serve to land legally, you’re best not to try to put any direction on it at all, because it’ll nearly always end up being a fault.

It’s difficult, borderline impossible, to figure out how to read your opponent so you stand a chance of reaching their return shots to get a rally going. However, if you go the wrong way, even for a split second, you’ve had it. This is because you need to sprint right up to the ball to return it; your player won’t reach out to try and take the shot even when close by. To make matters worse, in doubles you’ll see your partner make these shots with seemingly inhumanly quick reactions that you will never manage to match. Even on the normal difficulty, your opponents are no pushovers. However, seemingly more so in exhibition matches, they could barely string two shots together before hitting the ball out of bounds. It was a rare pleasure to get a decent rally going. Even when playing on the same difficulty across several matches, my experience was wildly inconsistent. Overall, this combination results in a stunted, off-pace experience.

As you’d expect, you can make use of your full moveset to beat the toughest opponents. This means slicing, lobbing, pulling off drop shots and more to take the match.

Any tennis game worth its salt is built around a solid career mode and Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition offers a mixed experience at best. You can choose from several options which determine how close to the real thing your career will feel, in terms of match length and the ability to replay events. However, you can alter the difficulty of the game from the pause menu at any time.

Creating your own player to take on the career mode is realised with a fairly basic, but effective design menu. There are a fair few preset choices from facial features to build type for you to select. In a nice touch, you can also choose signature traits for your avatar from the world’s greats, such as serve styles and receive stances. Some look very similar, but there is enough variety to make it worth having a look through.

Of course, you can also unlock new clothing and equipment to buy as you progress through your career. There are many licensed options alongside generic ones, which always adds a good touch of realism to a sports game.

Once you have created your player, you will be ready to start whacking some tennis balls around. You can choose which events to participate in alongside viewing your calendar to build a schedule for your player. You can participate in exhibition matches, tournaments, charity matches and take time out to train if you wish. You will occasionally need to rest depending on how fatigued your player is.

Matches run at various lengths as indicated by how many stars are attached to the event. These vary pretty widely, however short encounters lack the tension of longer matches. All are played in front of an audible crowd, but still lack atmosphere as there is no commentary or score announcements by the umpire. There is, however, a Hawkeye-style system in place meaning each player has the usual three challenges to dispute any close calls on the line. 

Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition also attempts to introduce a twist on the age old game of tennis. You can purchase card packs from the in-game store to give your player an advantage or adversely affect your opponent. You can buy more with coins earned from playing the game and I’m happy to say there are no microtransactions here.

You equip your hands pre-match and can save preset templates for tougher matches, using your most powerful cards. They will affect one of four areas of yours or your opponents game – these being endurance, power, precision and agility – and only last for a certain amount of time.

Your D-Pad buttons allow you to use cards in match; each is assigned to a different direction. Pressing one of these once allows you to view the card, and hitting them twice in quick succession sees you use it. However, the cards will only pop up for a second so you’ll need to be a fast reader when deciding which one to use.

The attributes that the cards influence link to your player profile, whose stats you can track throughout your career. It’s these elements that make Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition more of an arcade sports game, as opposed to a realistic sim. In this way, it’s akin to a toned-down version of Mario Tennis but without the moustached plumbers and fire-breathing lizard creatures.

If I’m honest, I appreciated this attempt to deepen the game’s tactics, but it didn’t really come off for me. My experience in the game wasn’t noticeably affected by any of the cards when used. The controls aren’t fine-tuned enough to notice a 6% accuracy reduction, for example. Instead, what looks like a thoroughly tactical gameplay mechanic on the surface, ends up being mostly superficial.

There are a generous amount of game options in Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition. You can play offline exhibition matches, which essentially work in the same way as a free play mode. Here you can choose the match conditions. As well as this, you can play official tournaments, such as the Roland Garros, or make your own. You can “simulate” matches in each round if you don’t want to play them, which speeds things up a bit.

Online play is available in Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition and comes packed with a fair few options. You can choose from custom leagues and quick matches as well as organised eSports events – at least when these become available. This is an exciting sign of things to come, but sadly I struggled to matchmake online after several attempts across all modes, failing to find any opponents. It’s a shame, as Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition looks to be aiming high with a meaty, progressive online mode but it can’t happen without a thriving player community.

Despite offering many ways to play, the gameplay limitations make it feel like you are playing the same match several times over, albeit in a different skin. Considering we’re talking £49.99 for the game, there isn’t enough here to make you feel as if you’re getting value for money.

Considering Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition has been optimised, the textures and environments still lack detail. This is especially apparent on the artificial surfaces – they look hideous. Apart from a few subtle changes, the courts look very similar no matter where in the world you are playing. The players are also oddly shiny, their hair looking like that of a LEGO man. That’s before mentioning some of the faces they pull, which are quite terrifying.

In summary, Tennis World Tour 2 – Complete Edition on Xbox Series X is fun for a time, but falls short of the line. Even if you’re a fan of the sport, there’s not enough here to justify the price tag.

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Tennis World Tour 2 : un gameplay plaisant malgré des défauts évidents

Tennis World Tour 2 sera-t-il meilleur que son prédécesseur ? C’est la question que se posent de nombreux amateurs de jeux de tennis, toujours à la recherche du digne successeur de Top Spin 4 sur consoles de salon. Désormais entre les mains du studio Big Ant, déjà à l’origine du sympathique AO Tennis 2, le deuxième opus de Tennis World Tour s’est donc donné les moyens de faire bien mieux qu’un premier épisode décevant. Et le résultat est plutôt encourageant.

Avant d’évoquer plus en profondeur la prise en main du titre, il convient d’en évoquer le modèle économique. S’il est vendu de façon classique, seule l’édition Ace permet d’avoir accès aux versions sous licence de trois tournois (Roland-Garros, Halle et Madrid), tandis que l’accès aux deux légendes (Marat Safin et Gustavo Kuerten) est réservé aux joueuses et joueurs ayant précommandé une version de Tennis World Tour 2. Depuis le lancement, ces deux contenus sont également proposés à l'achat en tant que DLC. Un choix regrettable pour ceux privilégiant une version classique et qui n’auront donc pas droit à ces tournois sous licence dans leur carrière... À moins de repasser à la caisse.

Peu d’erreurs de casting

En dehors de ce point, Tennis World Tour 2 a toutefois la bonne idée de se passer de microtransactions malgré la présence d’un système de cartes . Ces dernières, sur lesquelles nous reviendrons un peu plus tard, peuvent être acquises par le biais de boosters à acheter contre la monnaie du jeu, uniquement récupérable en enchaînant les matches… et les victoires. Ce nouvel épisode a aussi eu la bonne idée de muscler son jeu en terme de contenu, offrant un mode multijoueur - partie rapide ou personnalisée, ligues en ligne - ainsi que des matches de double, sans oublier la classique “académie de tennis” donnant accès à une série de tutoriels et quelques défis.

Le casting s’avère lui dans la veine du premier opus en penchant nettement du côté masculin avec 25 hommes contre seulement 11 femmes . Il faut en revanche saluer la diversité du casting en terme d’âge, de styles de jeux et de nationalité : Federer et Nadal font office de têtes d’affiche, mais ils sont bien entourés par des Thiem, Zverev, Medvedev ou Monfils. À part Djokovic, Berrettini ou éventuellement un Andy Murray, une majorité des joueurs intéressants du top 30-40 est représentée. On ne peut en dire autant de leur homologues féminines : malgré la présence de Barty, Svitolina, Andreescu, voire Mladenovic et Garcia du côté français, on ne peut que déplorer l’absence d’Osaka, Halep ou Serena Williams, figures incontournables du circuit féminin actuel. Notez tout de même que si la plupart des joueuses et joueurs sont reconnaissables, quelques uns à l’image de Zverev, Coric, Tsitsipas, Svitolina ou même Kuerten bénéficient d’une modélisation moins réussie.

Casting masculin

• Alex De Minaur
• Daniil Medvedev
• Grigor Dimitrov
• Marat Safin (bonus de précommande)
• Alexander Zverev
• David Goffin
• Gustavo Kuerten (bonus de précommande)
• Nick Kyrgios
• Stefanos Tsitsipas
• Casper Ruud
• Gaël Monfils
• Kyle Edmund
• Fabio Fognini
• Kei Nishikori
• Roger Federer
• Borna Coric
• Felix Auger-Aliassime
• Stanislas Wawrinka
• Denis Shapovalov
• Jannik Sinner
• Dominic Thiem
• Francis Tiafoe
• Rafael Nadal
• Benoit Paire
• Karen Khachanov
• Roberto Bautista Agut

Casting féminin

• Bianca Andreescu
• Elina Svitolina
• Kiki Bertens
• Petra Kvitova
• Belinda Bencic
• Caroline Garcia
• Kristina Mladenovic
• Garbine Muguruza
• Madison Keys
• Ashleigh Barty

Une carrière à l’évolution timide

Comme dans toute bonne simulation de tennis, c’est évidemment le mode carrière qui cristallise les attentions. Celui de Tennis World Tour 2 reprend les codes du premier en permettant de choisir votre planning entre différentes options (tournoi, exhibition, entraînement, repos, embauche d’un agent ou d’un entraîneur, action sponsorisée...), mais a eu la bonne idée de l’améliorer sur quelques points de détail. Dans la création de joueur tout d’abord, qui offre quelques options de personnalisation de chacun des visages prédéfinis et permet donc de customiser davantage son avatar, dans la difficulté ensuite, qui peut cette fois être changée à tout moment, mais aussi dans le classement, un peu plus dense avec un démarrage au 500e rang. Ceci étant dit, le mode peine tout de même à évoluer et nous n’aurions pas été contre quelques nouveautés significatives et un peu de polish : le système de progression qui consiste à améliorer une des trois branches à chaque niveau franchi manque de personnalisation et ne rend pas la progression très engageante, quelques informations pratiques sont introuvables (comme le détail des points qu’il est possible d’engranger dans chaque tournoi), tandis que la difficulté doit forcément être changée en plein match ou par le biais du menu général, pas de celui de la carrière.

Enfin, les fans de simu regretteront qu’il soit impossible d’équiper des tenues officielles - exception faite de quelques modèles de raquettes - à son joueur, les seules disponibles étant des créations basées sur des marques fictives. Des détails, certes, mais qui montrent que malgré des qualités susceptibles d’occuper les amateurs du genre pendant de longues heures, le mode mériterait encore un peu plus d’attention pour gonfler sa proposition, d’autant plus que son concurrent AO Tennis 2 (développé par le même studio, pour rappel) propose un outil de création et de partage de ces dernières offrant une carrière customisée d’une richesse potentiellement infinie.

Une simulation en nette progression

Malgré des sensations plutôt tièdes en terme de nouveautés sur les premiers points évoqués, Tennis World Tour 2 a fait le bon choix en se concentrant sur le principal défaut de son prédécesseur : son gameplay . Afin de l’améliorer, il a tout d’abord opté pour des mécanismes éprouvés directement repris du souvent cité Top Spin 4. Les frappes puissantes (déclenchées en restant appuyé sur la touche) apportent d’un côté des coups plus rapides et puissants (et oui) mais susceptibles de sortir plus facilement en cas de timing imparfait, tandis que les frappes précises (déclenchées en appuyant brièvement sur la touche) sont un moyen idéal d’atteindre des zones plus difficiles d’accès, mais s’avèrent évidemment moins puissantes. Tout comme dans Top Spin 4, vous devrez donc gérer à la fois le timing de vos frappes, l’effet appliqué, le style de coup, mais aussi l’endurance de votre avatar pour construire vos échanges.

Le résultat est d’autant plus satisfaisant qu’il n’est jamais gâché par les petites téléportations ou animations non appropriées qui polluaient vos sessions de jeux sur le premier opus . Quelques stigmates de l’épisode original sont toujours visibles dans les animations pas toujours parfaitement fluides ou la propension du jeu à forcer certains déplacements du joueur, mais la sensation de contrôle reste bien présente et la frustration reste heureusement rare. On apprécie également que le jeu à la volée soit pour une fois accessible, ce qui est rare dans les jeux de tennis, et que les balles fautes restent régulières, ce qui vous pousse à réellement maîtriser le système de timing pour éviter d’en faire les frais. Il faudrait évidemment bien plus que quelques dizaines d’heure pour l’affirmer, mais la difficulté semble elle aussi bien dosée en offrant suffisamment de marge de progression aux joueurs. Notez par ailleurs que le système d’arbitrage vidéo et de “challenge” est aussi présent, tout en restant intégré avec parcimonie.

À cela, il faut ajouter l’une des rares bonnes idées de l’épisode original avec la gestion des cartes qui fait ici son retour. Avant chaque match, vous pouvez équiper jusqu’à 5 cartes à vos joueurs, l’une offrant une compétence passive, les 4 autres étant à activer en cours de match . Il en existe des dizaines, apportant toutes des bonus différents affectant votre adversaire ou vous en offrant plus de précision, de puissance, d’endurance, sur un ou plusieurs coups, voire pendant un jeu entier. Celles-ci apportent un soupçon de gestion sur les temps forts et faibles des matches et parviennent quelque part à refléter mécaniquement le système de mental des joueuses et joueurs, le tout sans s’avérer abusives dans leurs modifications du gameplay. Tennis World Tour parvient enfin, avec ce deuxième épisode, à se montrer comme une simulation convaincante dans son approche qui a certes encore une marge de progression, mais de solides bases sur lesquelles construire tout cela.

Points forts

• Casting complet et varié, malgré quelques grands absents
• Des ajouts qui changent tout (timing, coup précis/puissant)
• Gameplay intuitif et équilibré
• Le côté “gestion” du système de cartes

Points faibles

• L’évolution timide du mode carrière
• Pas de tenues de marques officielles pour nos joueurs
• Encore perfectible sur ses animations et sa fluidité
• Le système de service, trop facile

Nous pourrions blâmer son mode carrière encore loin d’être abouti ou ses imperfections de gameplay, mais Tennis World Tour 2 s’avère bien plus satisfaisant manette en main que ne l’était son prédécesseur. À défaut d’être inventif puisqu’il base une grande partie de ses mécaniques sur des idées tirées de Top Spin 4, il parvient à offrir une expérience de jeu intuitive, plaisante et équilibrée. Quelques imprécisions demeurent et montrent qu’il faudrait encore un peu d’huile dans les rouages, tandis que son contenu semble un peu léger, surtout en face du système de création et de partage d’éléments (terrains, joueurs…) de son concurrent direct AO Tennis 2. Mais Tennis World Tour 2 place la série sur de bons rails en nous offrant tout de même le gameplay le plus abouti du genre sur consoles. Une belle surprise qui n’en fait pas un must-have, mais un titre qui vaut quand même le coup d’oeil pour peu que vous soyez en manque de petites balles jaunes sur vos consoles.

Note de la rédaction

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