This year’s Game Awards was a pretty big improvement over last year’s event. It finally some acknowledged the layoffs that have torn the industry apart over the last two years. Award winners were given ample time to thank their loved ones and colleagues without being rushed off stage. And perhaps most important to the more than 100 million viewers who tuned in, there were some genuine earth-shattering reveals, including Naughty Dog’s next project, The Witcher 4, and an Okami sequel (with Hideki Kamiya at the helm no less) that no one saw coming.
In a night so chockfull of highlights, however, one lower-profile reveal has remained buzzing in the back of my skull. Sloclap, the developer of the award-winning Sifu, announced that its next project isn’t a sequel or another action-packed rogue-like. Weirdly, it decided to make an arcade soccer game with stylized characters and a Rocket League-like presentation.
Sloclap’s Rematch is a 5v5 multiplayer-only soccer game. Its first trailer features stylish cross-ups that look stripped straight out of an EA Sports BIG game from the 2000s. The graphical flourishes and effects on the ball as it sails through the air make it clear simulating the real thing isn’t the team’s priority. And a third-person camera that pulls players closer to the action draws a clear line between it and the developer’s last game.
It’s a strange, strange choice. After making one of the most original and universally beloved games in the martial arts beat-em-up Sifu, making something as divisive as a non-licensed sports game was one of the night’s bigger surprises. But it is also one with big potential.
Players have talked ad nausuem about the “good ol’ days” of sports games. When there were more options for enjoying virtual real-life competition. Games like the EA Sports Street series used the rules of basketball and football as a barebones foundation for pick-up-and-play games. These were games where love for the real thing wasn’t a prerequisite.
Aside from when Mario occasionally steps onto a court, field, or golf course, these sorts of games don’t really exist anymore. Simulation series like Madden, NBA 2K, and EA FC are the only options available these days. And they’re uninviting to new players, thanks to uninteresting modes full of predatory micro-transactions, complex mechanics, and minutiae that appeal only to those who track national leagues and stats in the real work. These games aren’t bad, mind you. But they’re made with one kind of audience in mind.
Rematch seems to be filling the gap left behind by those older and simpler games. As an American, soccer may be the one sport I pay the least attention to. But the prospect of any sports game not made by a developer obligated to churn yearly full-priced updates has my undivided attention. Not being beholden to a billion-dollar organization like FIFA also means Sloclap gets to focus less on emulating how the sport presents on TV, and more on making the game as fun and as functional as possible.
That fresh perspective is already setting it apart from its contemporaries. The stale, top-down view typically featured in games like these being replaced with a more intimate view of the game makes it feel modern and new. Facing off against a defender from this perspective feels like two martial arts masters facing off in a contest of wits (and where the influences of Sifu and Slocap’s first game Absolver shine through clearly).
These standoffs aren’t the focus though. In previews, writers have emphasized that the game is less about individual player performance and more about working together as a cohesive team. Sloclap co-founder Pierre Tarno told Rock Paper Shotgun in a Friday story, “It can be more satisfying to serve the perfect assist than to actually score yourself.” Different positions on a team will have specific mechanics, making them equivalent to classes in a competitive multiplayer game.
Which brings me to my only reservation. I will admit that the “multiplayer-only” aspect of this does have me wary. A game that looks this fun to play is one I’d love to enjoy by myself on occasion. I’m not asking for something as in-depth as a Franchise Mode (where players manage the ins and outs of a team) or whatever. But some sort of single-player campaign or season would be awesome. Perhaps that could come further down the line.
I also wonder if its soccer presentation will leave it in limbo. Without real-life players attached, Rematch will likely go ignored by the most diehard footy fans purchasing EA Sports FC every year. For non-sports fans, the fact that this action-heavy game takes place on something resembling a real soccer field is enough of a turn-off to ignore it forever.
It’s a hell of a risk for Sloclap. But that’s part of what makes this game so intriguing. It's exactly the sort of odd, out-of-left-field idea that I want to see a team of creatives make. If there’s any genre that could use shake-up from some fresh minds, it’s sports games. And it’s admirable for a studio as high profile as Sloclap to take up that challenge.
