The Novel Control Scheme NBA Elite 11 Detailed

David Littman, the series producer for NBA Elite 11, detailed the control scheme that was supposed to revolutionize the way basketball games were handled. He promised that a standard set of controls would be available for those who did not want to move on, but continued to say that players would not want to use the old scheme when they would see the freedom the new one provided.

He went on to explain in an interview with Gamespot the way this new control scheme worked. Simply put, the analog left stick controls the basketball player's legs, while the right analog stick controls their hands. This new way allows sports gamers to defend better, something basketball titles have not been able to do well up until now or, as Littman puts it best, “You can track an opponent from behind and do a LeBron-like block off the backboard.”

Shooting is very intuitive in this future installment of EA Sports' basketball game. Moving the right stick up prepares the shot and letting the stick go releases the shot. The direction of the shot depends on the degree of inclination of the stick. Also, every player will have a kind of sweet spot at the top of the stick that will determine the accuracy of the shot. The better the player is at shooting, the wider the sweet spot is.

After explaining this new control scheme, he went on to say that this reboot of EA Sport's NBA franchise was similar to what happened when the developer transformed the mediocre Triple Play baseball series in what was known at that moment to be the successful MVP Baseball. Asked about the open rivalry with 2K Sports' NBA 2K series, Littman said that it would end that time around and that, “We are in this business to make great games, not to get involved in public bickering. It might be one of the reasons that basketball games have been left behind in this generation. Metacritic numbers are lower than other sports. The gamers and the reviewers have spoken with their words and their wallets. That ends this year with NBA Elite 11. The first thing I said when I came onto NBA was that we are fighting the wrong battle.”