Everything but what we expected from Slocap, the development team of Absolver and Sifu. Here is Rematch, a new 5-a-side football game.
We’ve had ten years of Sloclap games. This decade, the French developer has perfected the art of kicking people in the head. In Absolver, players kicked each other in the head in a connected world. The game has sold 500,000 units. Then came Sifu, a revenge story with a unique aging mechanic, where players kicked a lot of people in the head in scenes straight out of the best kung fu movies. 4 million played it.
You might think that the studio’s next game might, perhaps, feature some kicks to the head, but you’d be wrong. Sloclap is making a game about kicking a ball.
Rematch is the next project from the developer Sifu. It’s a five-a-side football game where a real person controls one player, and only one, on the pitch. It features the same clean, minimalist graphics as other Sloclap games, and you can draw a line straight from fancy head kick animations to scissors kicks into the back of the net.
Rocket League x FIFA Street —
It seems stupid to say it, but its closest comparison, besides FIFA Street, is Rocket League. As we said, each player is human controlled, meaning teamwork and positioning are key.
There’s no offside rule, there’s no corner kicks, there’s no AI taking control, and you decide exactly where the ball goes by pointing the third-person camera. The pitch is also closed at the sides, meaning you can bounce passes off the stadium wall or purposely use the edge to volley the rebound.
Where “serious” football games rely as much on the players’ statistics as on their skills on the pitch, here everyone is on an equal footing. Your skill with a controller and ability to play well with teammates decides your luck, not stats on a management screen.
Fun, but will it be enough? —
From what we saw a few days before the reveal at The Game Awards, it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. Approachable but surprisingly deep, like Sloclap’s fighting games. Smooth and elegant with 60fps gameplay. But as always, the real test will be in the game, and whether its online systems work as intended – any small amount of lag or inconsistency between players will be a fatal kick in the head.
We’re also not entirely sold on Sloclap’s idea of making it a paid title. We live in 2024, the game is coming next year, and there are endless free-to-play games to choose from, including other soccer games and Rocket League.
Seasonal content is planned, we imagine extra modes will arrive post-launch, and cosmetics seem perfect for the free-to-play model, so we’re surprised the developer is taking such a risk in a post-Concord market.
The lore of Rematch (yes) —
During the presentation, the developers talked a bit about their vision of the world of the game – yes, there is football lore. Rematch is set in a utopian future some 40 years from now, where energy is sustainable, people are happy and sport is more about play than millionaire stars. We asked if this means Sloclap won’t collaborate with celebrities and well-known brands, but it’s not something the team wants to rule out entirely. While the game’s identity is evolving, perhaps the transalpine studio can reconsider its launch model for a more sustainable future.
Written by Kirk McKeand for GLHF
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