Aussie Rules Footy is our game, home grown and made, and over 1.3 million Aussies sign up as members to cheer, boo, laugh and cry at it every year, it’s part of who we are. It gives us highs, and it can take us to our lows as we live through our team week on week. Gaining some relief knowing that one day your bottom of the table side will finally be able to win an elusive premiership. That’s where AFL 26 comes in.
Footy video games have long been a punching bag for everyday Aussies, often made under budget, with outdated tech and the understanding that it’s simply not up to expectations. With Big Ant Studio’s AFL 23 recovering after a disaster of a launch period, this latest iteration does it’s best to steady the ship to get our great game back on track. It’s also worth noting that this is the first time Big Ant has developed successive AFL titles, so there is something to be said about continuity.
Held back by still running on the legacy consoles PS4/XB1, AFL 26 still delivers updated visuals, animations and performance enhancements, while maintaining much of the look of its predecessor. Providing updated UI both through the menu’s and in-game HUD for a slightly fresher feel.
In terms of the core mechanics, marking has had some visual improvements to help new players into the game, as well as making more advanced marks like speccies a bit more complex (I think I average about 1 every 10 games). Set shot goalkicking has also taken a change that has increased its overall difficulty, forcing you to take higher percentage shots at goal for maximum points. I’m not sure it’s a better system than what we saw in AFL 23, but at least the good news is that there is a suite of tutorials to help you through this, and for new players, it’s almost a must before jumping into a game.
Updates to the tactics now allow you to tag a player on the opposition, as well as position a spare player wherever you want around the ground. You can use this defensively for an extra behind the ball or go all in with someone spare in your forward line, which does make for some high risk, high reward tactics. The rest are much the same as seen in AFL 23, each with their own positives and shortcomings. It’s a bit of a trial and error to work out what’s best for your game style.
Given the complexity of AFL as a sport, it makes AFL 26 a tough game for new players to jump into, but at least the easier difficulties are more forgiving when it comes to opposition tackling pressure and decision making, so you can ease your way into things. I still think there are issues with the difficulty scale which can make it a frustrating jump for new players learning the game. Even as a seasoned pro of these games, I found as if the ‘easiest’ difficulty is almost too smart for that name, there are times where I am struggling to win back the ball, and I would almost expect to be facing witches’ hats for that name. Regardless I have worked my way up to the ‘hardest’ and am finding a pretty even split of wins and losses.
As for how it simulates the modern game, most of the core mechanics work well. However, AFL 26 does still have its shortcomings. There are times when your non-controlled players can still run into some perplexing positions, regardless of tactics, making it more difficult to come up with consistent plans for how you should play. Often teammates who run alongside you can do more harm than good, drawing you into a contest rather than supporting you to get out of one. There’s also this lingering feeling that whatever you can do as a user, the AI can do better and more predictably, that they’re almost cheating to stop you from making sensible decisions. And there’s just something about tackling that still needs a bit of tweaking. Regardless, these aren’t game breaking problems, and despite the frustration, it can almost lead to a greater sense of satisfaction when you are able to execute a great play.
There are still a host of positive changes, collision in mark contests is much improved giving most contests a fresh feel. The manual kicking options provides players with even greater control to find players in space. In a new addition players get more fatigued as the game wears on, changing how you play as the game wears on, which is a nice touch. Overall, I found myself enjoying the majority of the gameplay, which is a big enough improvement on AFL 23.
I’ve been playing on PS5 and haven’t experienced too many crashes or major issues, but we will note at the time of review that Xbox users are yet to get a day one patch and are experiencing some frustrating problems. As Big Ant look to patch out early issues, they have also introduced other bugs, so it could be a bit of a yo-yo effect early with how the game plays.
Alongside the updated gameplay, Big Ant have spent some time improving the management career mode, as well as introducing a single player career. The management career now has much more variety and now involves actual management elements. With players able to choose which teams within your club you want to control just the AFL side, the state league team, or even the AFLW & it’s seconds team as well. Meaning you can manage up to four sides within a club to get the most out of it.
You’re now in charge of managing the finances, membership options, training schedules and even interstate travel plans, personally I’d be booking my star players first class. This can be quite full on to do on a week to week basis, but if you’re not that interested, there are automated systems so you don’t have to worry about them and just focus on the games. You’ll also be hit with prompts from the club board, injury updates & more in your email inbox to keep up to date with the latest information. With the options to automate or do it yourself, it’s a significant improvement over AFL 23’s Career mode, and makes it a fully fleshed out management mode that will keep players invested both on and off the field.
As for the single player career mode, it borrows much of the same processes as the management mode, with just more focus around you. You can choose to play as a star player of the AFL/AFLW or build yourself and find your way into the competition through under-18 championships and the draft. You’ve got your own objectives to help boost your player ratings, but it’s really your performance on the field that will dictate your draft position as well as when you can work your way into the AFL side.
Given it’s 18v18 on the field, it’s a bit more difficult for you to make such a big impact as an individual, so this mode won’t be for everyone if you’re not a fan of standing around the forward line waiting for your team to win the ball, but if you really wanted to force your player to have an impact, you can just play as the full squad and keep kicking it to yourself. It’s definitely a tough mode to really get behind given the lack of control over much of the game outcome, but for those die-hard’s who really want a one man carry, you’ll find plenty for you here. There’s probably still some mode-balancing required in the single player career while both Big Ant and the player base work out what they’re looking for in this mode, but it’s a good starting point.
AFL 26 also brings back Big Ant’s card collecting online mode Pro Team. A feature that wasn’t included until over a year into AFL23’s life cycle. The Ultimate Team alternative provides players with the chance to build their fantasy lineups with players from today and yesteryear. At the time of review, it’s unclear which legends will be involved in the AFL26 lineup, so it might not be as appealing to players just yet as Big Ant continue to roll out the roster of players.
It does come with the obvious microtransactions these types of modes have come to be known for, which does give AFL 26 an M rating for the gambling mechanics of it. Given these legends are locked in behind a paywall, it would’ve be nice to be able to use those legends in some of the other offline modes much like the NBA2K games utilising all the past championship teams in their games, but hopefully it may be something we see in the future.
