It’s taken someone ten years to think: “Hey, we could make a Rocket League game, only with people.” I know it sounds daft, because that’s just called soccer at the end of the day, or football if you’re one of those. Other than reductively referring to Rocket League as “soccer with cars,” there’s such a clear, fun-fuelled arcade angle to it that it’s ended up as so much more than that. It’s a generational title that has been a multiplayer lynchpin for over a decade.
As such, through its years of success, Rocket League has laid on a platter, to any willing developer, the perfect roadmap for supporting a game like this. Sloclap’s rollout for Rematch, which is effectively their attempt at futsal, might seem a little light on features and modes at launch; however, I believe the blueprint they’re working off could easily see them become the next action-sports phenomenon.
Rematch is such an unexpected follow-up from the Sifu team, and yet it’s absolutely inspired. With no shortage of soccer sims out there, the most prolific of which is EA Sports FC, capturing the feisty nature of futsal, that’s indoor soccer for the uninitiated, manages to feel fresh even in a world where Rocket League has done it already—albeit on wheels.
If you’re coming to Rematch wishing for a single-player mode to rival FIFA’s The Journey, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Except for a rather strange prologue cinematic, which appears to chronicle a soccer player’s rise through the sport’s ranks, which accompanies the game’s onboarding and skill drills, there’s really no story to speak of. If nothing else, the prologue serves as a promise of adventure.
As far as capturing the non-stop, exhaustive nature of indoor soccer, which I played for about a decade during and after high school to rare success, Rematch is tremendous. It’s a breakneck take on what is an otherwise plodding spectacle, but the lack of stoppages keeps it flowing at such a pace that every six-minute match goes by in a blink.
Although not as steep as Rocket League’s, I do think Rematch has a pretty high skill ceiling. It’s simple to pick up, ball-handling is a breeze except for when you sprint boost and play the ball forward, ready for repossession. Shooting is the result of combining your left-stick aim with the right trigger; this gives you a great handle over where you’re trying to put the ball. With how good a lot of goalkeepers are already, the net isn’t often the first option for striking the ball in offense. As it’s futsal rules, rebounds are in play and, therefore, make up a big part of my attacking strategy—a well-placed strike above the net should trick the keeper into an unfortunately mistimed dive, leaving the goal open for a rebound volley.
And believe me, pulling this off mid-match never gets old.
The build-up to attack is where the magic happens, and so much of that is thanks to positioning and passing. Each of the game’s three modes—3v3, 4v4, and 5v5—need to be approached differently, but it would seem as though the small squads give you more time and space to experiment with passing mechanics, like lobs, headers, and through balls, which are all delivered through combinations of other buttons with the X button. The bigger squad face-offs are being positioned as the “premier” mode. In fact, it’s the only configuration available for ranked play, at present.
Ultimately, it’s quite different from Rocket League in that its high-level play depended on having an expert understanding of movement in the game, whereas with Rematch, mastery over the ball-handling systems, as well as an innate feel for the game, will separate top and mid-tier players.
What I do love is how Rematch rotates players through the field during each break in play after a score, especially as I expect there’d be people who’d prefer to remain in attack rather than donning the keeper gloves. You’re, of course, free to run out of goals and trade spots, if needed; in fact, this can lead to big moments if your keeper finds themselves out of position and you’re forced to dive back for a clutch save. Personally, I love keeping. There is something thrilling about being the last line of defense and bum rushing the attacker to snare the ball and send my team off on a slingshot play. I’d like to think it’s the role I was born to play, although my hunt for a clean sheet goes on.
I was a little disappointed to see that, although custom matches exist for you to party up with friends for a more casual run about the pitch, there’s no option for bots. Early in my Rocket League love affair, I’d often play with bots to mess about and do cool shit I could never manage against real people. It should be the bare minimum for a game like this, so for it to be absent at launch is a huge shame.
Before the game’s full rollout, it would take a little while to matchmake, at least on Xbox. Fortunately, since launch, there has been no shortage of games to be found. It isn’t true of all modes, it’s clear the majority of players are gravitating to 3v3 or 5v5, I fear the middle option might be a game variant that’s dead on arrival.
One area I expect Rematch will gradually improve through hotfixes is its online experience. Currently, there are plenty of bugs, daily challenges never seem to register, and ping issues that result in the ball unexpectedly transporting across the pitch. Being thrown into in-progress games can be a bother, too, although I’m not sure what could be done to fix that. More than a few times, I’ve loaded in, only to have the winner skim past my ear and put another dent in my win-loss record, which is a mild frustration, to say the least. Even worse is being thrown into a game-in-progress and being unable to move or access menus.
To say Rematch needs some tuning is an understatement.
Further to that, the lack of crossplay is near unforgivable at launch. It should be a prerequisite for a live-service game, and it seems as though it was planned before being cut from the launch feature suite, so, with any luck, it should surface somewhere down the line. Hopefully, cross-progression is a focus of the team’s, too, as someone who hops between platforms a bit, it’d be nice to take my record, as poor as it may be, with me.
Another area I’d hope to see vast improvement in is with the cosmetics on offer to further customise your player. It’s a sport where I could easily see a few brand deals come through, provided the game is successful and alluring enough, but as a starting point, I think there’s significant work to do. Ronaldinho aside, who features as the only marquee skin to buy at launch, I’d consider every other item to be generic, which isn’t a great place to be starting from. The only unlockables I’d consider worthwhile are the arenas, which can look incredible in action.
Enormous gameplay departure aside, one area I can see the Sloclap touch here is in its visual identity. It’s so like Sifu, you’d only need glance once to make the connection, it shares the same focus on stylised characters, a bold use of colour, painterly textures, and sharp, snaplock-like animation that almost gives the impression of a moving comic book. There’s one particular animation I adore, and it’s the keeper flicking his gloves off as he runs clear off the box. It’s a simple little thing, but it is so indicative of the developer’s enduring sense of style.
Despite a few online foibles, a missing mode or two, and an underwhelming cosmetics rollout, which can all be easily fixed, Rematch is great fun. It captures the frenetic, breathless runabout of indoor soccer in a spectacularly arcade way that, for me, sparked more joy than any soccer game I’ve played in years.
