Hello golf fans!

I'm happy to say that the new Super Video Golf update is available - bringing with it the anticipated Career Mode! That's not all it brings however and, while I've outlined some of the other new features in a previous post, I'll be covering those in detail further down. But first:

Career Mode

So how does it work? Career mode builds on the existing league system, introduced in 1.14. Currently the 'Club League', as it is known, takes your scores from a free play round, converts them using the Stableford scoring system and uses the results to calculate your league standing.

Other players in the league are purely 'hypothetical' - that is they are created from a set of pseudo random stats, generated at the beginning of the season, which are then used to generate a fantasy football style league. A league lasts one season, the length of which depends on which league you are currently playing. The Club League, for example, lasts 24 rounds. The goal is to finish as high as possible in the league after completing the final round.

Career mode, then, builds on this league system, creating a progression across 6 leagues, each of which have a season lasting for 6 rounds. These rounds are split across all 12 courses available in Super Video Golf - with two rounds on the front 9, two rounds on the back 9 and two rounds of 18 holes, played over two different courses per league. If that's a bit wordy, here's a full breakdown of all 6 leagues:

• The Country Club Tour 
• - Front 9 Sunny Cove 
• - Front 9 Westington Links 
• - Back 9 Sunny Cove 
• - Back 9 Westington Links 
• - All 18 Sunny Cove 
• - All 18 Westington Links

• The Badlands Cup 
• - Front 9 Fairland Rock 
• - Front 9 Terdiman Cliffs 
• - Back 9 Fairland Rock 
• - Back 9 Terdiman Cliffs 
• - All 18 Fairland Rock
• - All 18 Terdiman Cliffs

• Links Challenge 
• - Front 9 Moulin Plage
• - Front 9 Roving Sands
• - Back 9 Moulin Plage
• - Back 9 Roving Sands
• - All 18 Moulin Plage
• - All 18 Roving Sands

• Hill and Hole Valley Run
• - Front 9 Nguyen Valley
• - Front 9 Grove Bank
• - Back 9 Nguyen Valley
• - Back 9 Grove Bank
• - All 18 Nguyen Valley
• - All 18 Grove Bank

• Chippers Pitch 'n' Putt
• - Front 9 Old Stemmer's Lane
• - Front 9 Purcitop Pitch 'n' Putt
• - Back 9 Old Stemmer's Lane
• - Back 9 Purcitop Pitch 'n' Putt
• - All 18 Old Stemmer's Lane
• - All 18 Purcitop Pitch 'n' Putt

• The Woodland League
• - Front 9 Dackel's Run
• - Front 9 Hertog Regis
• - Back 9 Dackel's Run
• - Back 9 Hertog Regis
• - All 18 Dackel's Run
• - All 18 Hertog Regis

To start with only the first league is unlocked. You must play the entire season and finish in the top 3 to progress to the next league. Finishing a league also rewards you with unlocked cosmetics - a new ball for 3rd place or better, a new piece of headwear for 2nd place or better, and finishing first will unlock a new player avatar. All of these items, once unlocked, will also be available in free play, including online matches - so you can wear your new cosmetics as a badge of honour! 😅

And if you don't finish with gold first time? Don't worry! You can go back and play any league that's been unlocked again at any time. You can even have multiple leagues in progress because...

Save Games

A much asked for feature, save games are now available in Career Mode. They *haven't* yet made it into free play mode, however while working your way through the career you can drop out of a round at any time. Resuming the league will continue from the last hole you were playing on the currently active course. And it'll also even remember the weather!

This makes it much easier to play, particularly when golfing on-the-go with the Steam Deck, an experience which has also been enhanced with offline progression stats. Previously, not having an internet connection would prevent your profile XP increasing (which, admittedly, was an oversight on my part 😳) - but now you can continue your career wherever you go, all progression is saved! Only leaderboards are unavailable offline, and that's because it's a technical limitation of Steam.

So what else is new?

While working on the new menus for the Career mode, I've taken the opportunity to improve the profile editor, specifically when browsing for cosmetics. Previously all installed balls (either the default, unlocked, or installed from the Workshop) were clumped in to one very large fly-out menu - which often didn't even fit on screen.

I've completely overhauled this so that balls are now collected into a series of pages, and organised by where they originate - eg are they custom balls, or ones included in the game. I've also extended this to the headwear items, which can now be browsed in the same way.

Also in the menus it now possible to open the stats for all the golf clubs directly from the status window, both in Career and Free Play modes. I've removed the slightly precarious Profile Reset button from the main menu, and placed it in the Options menu, next to a new option to reset the current career progress.

Here's the full change list since 1.15

• Updated avatar materials now have reflection and self illumination properties
• Updated league browser now includes new league tables
• Updated camera drone position is now dictated by host in multiplayer games
• Updated player profile editor with new browsers for ball and hair models
• Moved Profile Reset button to Stats page of Options menu
• Added Career Reset button to Stats page of Options menu
• Added option to adjust crowd density
• Added ability to choose active club set from roster menu
• Added ability to open stats menu from roster menu
• Added Career Mode
• Added new set of unlockable balls
• Added new set of unlockable headwear
• Added new set of unlockable avatars
• XP Rewards have been buffed
• Fixed hair colour when playing in night mode
• Fixed rotation of ball models in preview window
• Fixed Greens in Regulation being triggered if the player forfeits all holes in a round
• New Achievement: Semi-retired
• New Achievement: All Time Champion
• New Achievement: Vandal

That's it for this update! Thanks as always to the wonderful community, especially to those who have helped test the public beta, and everyone who plays on Super Video Sundays. Don't forget that if you want to get involved by leaving feedback or join in on a Sunday game, you can always join the group chat here, and join the Super Video Clubhouse where community members come together to play online. And, of course, you can always post on the discussions board.

For now, however, happy golfing! 🏌️‍♀️⛳🏌️‍♂️