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On a global scale, Aussie rules is a niche sport. While it’s played in winter, at both grassroots and professional levels, it doesn’t even achieve total saturation in its own home country of 27 million people; instead, it shares the demographic with rugby league on a state-to-state basis.
For a sport that’s as relatively small as it is, it’s kind of incredible that it has been adapted to video games as much as it has. Despite the best efforts of publishers such as EA, SIE, THQ, Acclaim, Nacon, and Tru Blu, the “great game” has eluded perfect emulation, due to both shoestring budgets and how complicated the sport is. While it doesn’t help that the league changes the rules whenever it suits them, show a match to any uninitiated viewer and there will be questions.
While I’ve got some nostalgia for the AFL Live games of the mid-noughties, I do think there’s a lot of reverence for Mattel’s Aussie Rules Footy, which launched for the original Nintendo back in the early 90s. It was during an era where the game was a little scrappier, it’d frequently devolve into a biff, and players would crack a tin on the boundary line before the final siren.
Because the developer, Beam, didn’t overcomplicate the sport and boiled it down to just kicking barrels through the big sticks, Aussie Rules Footy stands the test of time as one of the most fun titles in the sport’s history.
Enter Pro Jank Footy, a homegrown throwback to this golden age of over-the-top arcade goodness. Because of the sport’s obscurity on a grander scale, the team has basically exploited that by chucking in a few roguelike systems that give the player the power to alter the rules and flip the script more often than the league’s bosses in the off-season. But speaking of pure fundamentals, the game feels like a simple, easy-to-pick-up, and pared-down version of the game we love. It’s full of gut-running, deft handballs, bone-crunching tackles, and kicks both small and Rocca-like from the arc.
Once a player has a goal kicked on them, though, everything changes. This is where the game’s roguelike sensibilities and sense of humour burst into the fray. For a game that I watched a lot at PAX and got to play briefly, I was constantly caught off guard by its escalating absurdity, which gets crazier the deeper into a match you get and have power-ups stacking on one another. At times, it broke both the game and reality, which certainly justifies the “jank” in the game’s title.
They’ve packed a staggering amount of Australiana into the gills of this game, as well as cultural touchstones that reach far beyond our borders, including a power-up that replicates the iconic DVD logo bouncing around the screen, oh-so tantalisingly close to the corners. Pretty much every power-up card serves to create chaos and break the game, whether that means turning every player into a seagull, having portals appear at random on the field, switching the goal and point values, or recruiting Dad’s Car. This superpowered sedan runs players over without prejudice.
The game also includes commentary from Aunty Donna’s Broden Kelly, who also appears periodically as a recruitable star card. Like Gary Ablett, complete with a clean dome and all, he storms the field with an electric aura and tears games to shreds with a few accelerated stats.
As you can tell, it’s just a downright silly game that capitalises on the irreverent and dry sense of humour that Australians have worn as a badge of honour for centuries, which also delivers a nostalgic, self-depricating, and more importantly, fun, version of Australian rules footy that could, once it’s all said and done, be the greatest example of the sport in video gaming ever.
Pro Jank Footy is expected to release in 2026, by which time the AFL will have no doubt changed its rules irreparably once again.
For more updates on Pro Jank Footy, click here to wishlist the game on Steam.
