This Online 5v5 Soccer Game Had Me Sweating From The Pressure

Having made its name with martial arts-based action games Absolver and Sifu, few might have expected Sloclap's next game would be Rematch, an online five-a-side soccer game. After all, while the beautiful game is a beloved pastime and global phenomenon, its representation in video games has long been dominated by the EA FC series (formerly known as FIFA), to the extent that it becomes difficult to consider an alternative.But Rematch has one very key difference that I learned during my visit to the studio's Paris office. Where many soccer sims have you in control of a whole team, changing to players closest to where the ball is, Rematch can be better described as a "soccer-player sim" where, in its third-person perspective, the camera is down at pitch level behind your player for the duration of the six-minute match. That also meant that for this hands-on, I was playing with other journalists as my teammates, just like a real game of soccer.Rematch is a cooperative game that encourages you to work together.In explaining the concept, creative director Pierre Tarno speaks of Rematch less in terms of soccer but rather with reference to other genres, such as a third-person action game or even a third-person shooter, since shooting the ball also involves aiming a crosshair with the right stick and squeezing the right trigger. Yet while it's set 40 years in a much more optimistic future, where AR technology can transform the "cages" you play into different environments--from stadiums to rainforests, underwater, or even outer space--the gameplay remains fundamentally real soccer rather than soccer with over-the-top abilities you might expect from Mario Strikers.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Apr 10, 2025 - 19:02

This Online 5v5 Soccer Game Had Me Sweating From The Pressure

Having made its name with martial arts-based action games Absolver and Sifu, few might have expected Sloclap's next game would be Rematch, an online five-a-side soccer game. After all, while the beautiful game is a beloved pastime and global phenomenon, its representation in video games has long been dominated by the EA FC series (formerly known as FIFA), to the extent that it becomes difficult to consider an alternative.

But Rematch has one very key difference that I learned during my visit to the studio's Paris office. Where many soccer sims have you in control of a whole team, changing to players closest to where the ball is, Rematch can be better described as a "soccer-player sim" where, in its third-person perspective, the camera is down at pitch level behind your player for the duration of the six-minute match. That also meant that for this hands-on, I was playing with other journalists as my teammates, just like a real game of soccer.

Rematch is a cooperative game that encourages you to work together.

In explaining the concept, creative director Pierre Tarno speaks of Rematch less in terms of soccer but rather with reference to other genres, such as a third-person action game or even a third-person shooter, since shooting the ball also involves aiming a crosshair with the right stick and squeezing the right trigger. Yet while it's set 40 years in a much more optimistic future, where AR technology can transform the "cages" you play into different environments--from stadiums to rainforests, underwater, or even outer space--the gameplay remains fundamentally real soccer rather than soccer with over-the-top abilities you might expect from Mario Strikers.Continue Reading at GameSpot