When the buzz started for NaturalMotion’s Backbreaker, I was immediately struck by some of the early screenshots. They are something completely different in the genre, with clean lines and a completely new aesthetic. The game is promising to twist the entire sports genre. Those moves are something that can only be expected from the animation experts at NaturalMotion.

However, there are concerns related to the game. For starters, Backbreaker is a football game without an NFL license. This means a majority of fans will be stuck without favorite players and teams. It goes up against the giant of other popular football series. Finally, its development team is also — dare I say — predominately British. As you can imagine, American fans are a little worried.

To them, I say, “Fear not!” I recently had an opportunity to participate in an interview with Rob Donald, associate producer of Backbreaker. Indeed he put my mind at ease, discussing some of the highlights and concerns surrounding this game’s release.

GamersInfo.net: What are some of the difficulties you faced in capturing American football?

Rob Donald: The guys that play this sport are unbelievable athletes. I don’t think there is any doubt about that whatsoever. It’s an incredible spectacle. It’s one of those things ... You have to go a long, long way to really, truly, 100 percent capture the energy, the dedication, the commitment, the power and the explosiveness of these guys. That’s something we’ll continue to build on. We’re pretty happy with the way the game runs and looks. There are always those little nuances you would love to get into the game but aren’t necessarily easy to do.

GamersInfo.net: Can you tell us about the teams, leagues, players, etc.?

Rob Donald: We are shipping with around 60 different teams, all unique. Every single team has been created using the customization kit. We can prove that because when you go to create a game yourself, you can choose to create one from scratch or edit an existing team. There’s no cheating going on here. We wouldn’t ask you guys to do anything that we weren’t prepared to do ourselves. So, we are shipping with 60 teams, but obviously the amount of teams is infinite and is only limited by people’s imagination and time.

Rob Donald: Players ... God knows there are a lot of players and a lot of teams! They are all individually named, and they all have their own attributes.

GamersInfo.net: Are there noticeable variations between offensive and defensive lines?

Rob Donald: There are multiple body types in the game. This is something that didn’t go in right at the beginning. If you went just on YouTube and randomly looked at bits of footage, there would be situations where you think everyone looked the same, and then there would be other situations where you can clearly see the differences between certain key positions. I think at this stage we were careful to not go overboard with the variety because we really wanted to make sure the simulation side of things was right.

It was much more important to us to get all the simulation stuff right rather than run the complete range of human body sizes. Again, looking into the future, this is definitely something we’re interested in developing further. At the moment, it was a lot more important to get the gameplay right first of all. I think if you’ve got lousy gameplay but everybody looks fantastic, that’s going to turn into quite a shallow title.

GamersInfo.net: Given EA’s hold on the NFL license, are there any worries of people not picking up the game because it lacks those known teams and players?

Rob Donald: I think I would be lying if I said I don’t believe that there are people who will think like that. I think there are a lot of people out there who will look at the box and say, “Hey, I don’t recognize that guy. I’m not going to buy that game.” However, I think there are a very significant portion of people who are football fans and not necessarily NFL fans. They might like the NFL, and they might support an NFL team, but in their heart, they love the sport; they love the game.

GamersInfo.net: How are the basic rules compared to the NFL?

Rob Donald: Everything as much as possible are the rules you would expect to find.

GamersInfo.net: We’re curious to know why you didn’t shop your Euphoria engine to EA Tiburon for the Madden series?

Rob Donald: Anybody is entitled to inquire after Euphoria. We’re always happy to talk to anyone. It takes a lot of custom integration. We work very hard to build Euphoria. We work very, very closely hand-in-hand with developers who use the engine. We take a lot of pride to make sure it works very well in games.

It’s not something that you can simply drop into a game. You really have to design a game to benefit from the Euphoria engine.