5. Rugby League Live 3 Career Mode

Main Career Playthrough

As mentioned earlier, we will technically be doing 'two' career playthroughs. The first is to get all the achievements for scoring tries, being MVP, completing objectives etc. While with the second we will be simulating all the matches to stay with the same club for 10 years, and earning $10,000,000.

So head on into career mode and choose to 'begin new career'. The game helpfully tells you that some of the screens can be confusing, so if you're lost or confused, just press .

Here we'll set our, well, settings...

These are entirely up to you, but for ease and efficiency I recommend the following:

Half Length - 5 minutes
Half Length Auckland Nines - 5 minutes
Match Difficulty - Rookie
Coach Recruiting Difficulty - Always get your man
Injuries - None
Currency - $ (makes it easier to track the 'Money Truck' achievement)

Next we choose our league. The choice doesn't really matter, so you decide.

Then you are presented with three options; star player, rookie player, or coach. You must choose rookie player in order to unlock all of the career related achievements.

Then choose the club (team) you wish to play for. This doesn't matter, so once again, make your choice.

Here you are tasked with creating a character, this is entirely up to you. The only advice I can offer is to set your primary, secondary and tertiary roles as full back. This position makes it easier to score tries in my opinion, as the AI will almost always kick the ball directly to you at the start of each play. I would also suggest setting your representative country to Australia for ease later on, however I believe you can set it to any of the available countries without issue.

Next is the actual character design, spend as much or little time here as you like. Then we can choose a bonus to our stats, speed, tackle or place kicking. I recommend taking speed as it helps with scoring tries which we need for achievements.

Now we get to assign stat points to the player, they start with 45 in each of the following categories:

Speed
Strength
Technique
Footwork
Agility
Fitness
Strategy

This is up to you, but for ease and speed scoring the many... many tries, I recommend putting 20 in speed, footwork, agility and fitness. Then add the remaining 15 points to strategy.

If you chose what I recommended, your stats should look like:

Speed - 65
Strength - 45
Technique - 45
Footwork - 65
Agility - 65
Fitness - 65
Strategy - 60

Now we find ourselves on the main career screen, here there are only really three things to pay attention to. The first is what league you're currently playing in (you will start playing in the U20s Holden Cup).

Second is the tab labelled 'objectives'. These work exactly the same as the 'challenges' mentioned in the causal match part of the walkthrough. You need to complete 50 of these for an achievement. They also award extra career XP but once you have completed 50 of them, they can be ignored if you wish.

Finally, the tab in the top left allows you to skip to your next match, play the match and later on simulate matches if necessary.

Start by skipping to your first match, then pressing to start it. When you do, you will have the option to purchase a 'boost' (using your characters salary, no microtransactions thank god!). These raise your stats for the match. I suggest either choosing the cheapest one, or one that boosts speed or footwork.

Then play the match as normal, (pressing will call for a pass to your character) attempting to score as many tries with your character as possible.

After the match concludes, you will unlock:

Debut

Complete your first career match.

And if you used a boost:

Boosted

Purchase a boost in career player mode.

After the match, your User XP (UXP) and Career XP (CXP) will be tallied. For each win you're awarded 2,500 UXP. The amount of CXP you earn varies, up to 2,000 'performance bonus' for a win and a flat rate of 400 per match played. There is also a bonus from completing objectives (this ranges from 200-700 CXP).

Assuming you won and performed well, you will also have hopefully have completed a couple of career objectives, levelling up both in Career Level and User Level. Each time you increase your career level you're awarded five skill points, spend your skill points however you choose (I recommend focusing on the stats mentioned above) and start the next match.

Continue playing matches like this and after about six matches (or 15,000 UXP), you should unlock:

Ding X

Reach user level 10.

And for reaching 22,500 CXP:

Showing Potential

Reach level 10 in career mode after beginning your career as rookie.

Then hopefully after playing well and scoring tries in 15 matches, you will unlock:

Consistent Performer

Be Man of the Match 15 times as a career player.

If you're really pushing you might have already unlocked:

Try Hard With a Vengeance

Score more than 213 tries in a player's career after beginning your career as rookie.

But if you haven't, there's plenty of time to do it still.

After 26 matches, our season is on the way to the finals! By this point I had scored 246 tries, you may have more or less than this depending on how aggressive you are in trying to score. Also, if you're focusing on career objectives you may have already unlocked:

Objectivity

Complete 50 career mode objectives.

But if not, don't worry there's still plenty of time for it.

Towards the end of your first season (before the season finals generally), you will be offered a contract. Your options for promotion will be to any of the following:

The Intrust Super League
The First Utility Super League
The Kingstone Press Championship
The Kingstone Press League One

If you can, choose the Kingstone Press Championship. Doing so should unlock:

Made the Grade

Be selected for an NRL or Super League team after beginning your career as rookie.

It may take a few matches into the second season for the achievement to pop, on my main it popped straight away. On my second account when I was testing the walkthrough, it popped after three matches.

If you were lucky enough to be able to choose a club from a country you're from, you'll also unlock:

Patriot

Represent your country in career mode after beginning your career as rookie.

In the meantime, if you win the finals (which shouldn't be a problem with the settings we're using), you will unlock:

We are the Champions

Win a premiership or championship in career mode.

Now begins the second year of our career.

It's important that you play the whole season without taking a loss in order to unlock:

Flawless Minor Premiers

Complete an NRL or Super League regular season (no finals) in career mode without conceding a loss.

You shouldn't have a problem on Rookie difficulty, however if it does look like you're going to lose just close the game and re-launch to start the match again.

The actual matches will be much the same as the first year. Just play well and continue to score tries. Use this year to keep plugging away at the following achievements:

Consistent Performer

Be Man of the Match 15 times as a career player.

Objectivity

Complete 50 career mode objectives.

By the second match of the second year, I had unlocked:

If at First You Don't Succeed...

Score 500 tries in any mode.

You may have more or less tries than I did at this point, depending on how aggressive you are to score, so don't worry if you haven't. There's still plenty of time to unlock them. You can check your progress at any time by going back to the main menu, choosing settings then user statistics.

Towards the end of your second season, you should have earned enough CXP (127,500 to be exact) to unlock:

Professional

Reach level 25 in career mode after beginning your career as rookie.

If not, as usual don't worry about it, we still have plenty of matches to play.

If you played really well and scored lots of tries, you should be awarded Man of the Match repeatedly. Eventually you'll hopefully be awarded the Dally M or Man of Steel Award at the end of the season, unlocking:

Superman

Win the Dally M or Man of Steel award in an NRL or Super League season in career mode.

Now onto our third season. Ideally you'll be able to keep playing for the same team and work towards playing for the same club for 10 years now but if you're not able to, don't worry as we can knock that out easily in a second career playthrough (simulating all matches for speed).

Around halfway through the third season I had unlocked:

...Try Try Again

Score 1000 tries in any mode.

Now the only thing we need to do is keep playing matches to earn enough XP for Career Level 50 and User Level 60. This can be a real grind as you have to actually play the matches to earn UXP. CXP can thankfully be earned while simulating matches.

Eventually, after grinding away and earning 345,000 UXP, you'll have unlocked:

Ding XL

Reach user level 40.

Continue playing matches, and after earning the huge sum of 490,000 CXP, you will be level 50 and unlock:

Superstar

Reach level 50 in career mode after beginning your career as rookie.

Now is a good time to 'retire' this player and start a prodigy rookie. To do this, wait until the end of the season, advance as normal and then choose the second option, 'retire and prodigy'. After choosing a team and creating the character, you'll keep some of your stat points. More importantly, you'll unlock:

Prodigy

Retire your career player and start a prodigy rookie.

You could use this character for the 'second' career playthrough (see below). But more than likely you'll need to keep playing matches to earn UXP, so keep grinding away, and after a staggering 1,100,000 UXP, you will unlock:

Ding LX

Reach user level 60.

1 guide

Second Career Playthrough

Note: The earn $10,000,000 in career mode is cumulative across all careers, so if you've already been playing or followed this guide you won't need to stimulate for as long.

Head into the Fanhub and create a new player in any NRL team (I used the Brisbane Broncos as always).

Change their position to halfback, change their date of birth to 2002 (should be 13 years old) and increase their attributes to max. The rest of their details are up to you.

Start a new career as a star player and select your created player. Take a quick look here at how long your contract is (it appears to be random from one to three years).

Now scroll across to the calendar and simulate to the end of the year. Then manually proceed to the next year. Repeat this for as many years as your contract is for. When the year your contract is up has started, go to the calendar again and simulate to the start of June (the contract renewal date)

The reason we stop simulating a little early is because the AI will automatically accept contracts for you, which we don't really want if we're trying to stay at the same team for 10 years. If you haven't received contract offers yet, on the main screen press [cn_ Y] to simulate games until you receive contract offers. You can either accept the highest offer, or (hopefully) accept one from the same team you're currently with. Once you've accepted, it's back to simulating on the calendar until the contract is up again.

Keep repeating this until you've 'played' for the same team for 10 years, unlocking:

Club Champion

Play 10 years at the same club as a single player in career mode.

1 guide

Then you can start accepting the highest paying contract each time until you have earned $10,000,000. It took me 15 years simulating with a fresh start to earn this amount. This can be easily checked on the main screen. You may need to simulate one more game for the achievement to unlock, but when it does, you'll unlock:

Money Truck

Earn a total of $10,000,000 in career mode as a player.

1 guide

Congratulations on finally completing the career mode!