As someone who has spent an inordinate amount of time playing football games, including FIFA, EA FC, PES, Championship Manager, Football Manager, and even the cult classic Red Card Football, I generally know what to expect from them. Enter Rematch, the new multiplayer football title from Sifu developer Sloclap, which looks to introduce a different way to play the beautiful game. This is a football game that does away with the pesky rules and demands patience and skill from the player.
In Rematch you will only control your own player across all match modes. You can customise them by unlocking different cosmetic items including tops, shorts, and hats, but there are no skill points or attributes to assign. In other words, your player is only as good as you are at the game. That means if you can master the controls of the game, then your player will shine like some of the best players in the world. If you struggle with the controls of Rematch then you will be more like Ali Dia than Lionel Messi. Before you dive in, you should know the default controls do not have a lock on option for the ball. This can be changed in the settings, where there is an alternative control set up that does have a ball lock on mode, which is very helpful when starting out.
In terms of match modes there is 3v3, 4v4, and 5v5 which are all playable in quick match, and each of these lets you familiarise yourself with different aspects of Rematch, including positioning and ball control. There are also tutorials to complete that will give you more depth and insight for the game’s various systems. After you reach rank 5 you will unlock the ranked match mode, which is purely 5v5. Once you have a few matches within ranked mode under your belt, you will be given your rank, which will fluctuate depending on your future performances. I was initially placed in Silver One, just missing out on Gold Three.
There are two major elements that count towards whether you are going to have a good time with Rematch. The first is the gameplay itself and the second are your teammates. The controls can be fiddly and the action a little bit too chaotic at times. Let’s take attacking as an example. When you are going for goal you need to manually aim towards the net, but if you are facing the goal you’re not likely to see the ball coming in from a cross. If you are looking at a player who may cross it and the ball does reach you, you then need to turn and line up the shot towards the goal and take it. That gives the defence time to close in and get into position to stop your scoring. There is nothing like auto assist or auto aim in Rematch as, like I said, every move is dependent on your own skill. If you do not have the ball in view there is an on screen indicator that tells you where it is and you can kind of work with that, but it is always better to be watching the ball than not.
Passing also requires precision as you need to be aiming right where you want the ball to go, whether it be directly to a player or into space. A little like Rocket League, the ball cannot go out of play in Rematch so you can also use the stadium walls to bounce the ball off to make passes into tight spaces.
As much as every school kid wants to be playing up front, banging in goals and getting all the glory, defending and keeping are just as important – you don’t want the other side scoring, after all! Rematch rotates players through different roles after each goal is scored, assigning someone to play in goal each time. You can shirk your duties and run off to be an outfield player, but I actually liked being the keeper as you can pull off some great saves and get involved in attacks by creating assists. If you’re lucky you may even score from kicking the ball out, like I somehow managed to do one time. Locking onto the ball as the keeper is a necessity as you can then position yourself better to either run and get the ball off an attack player or dive in the right direction to stop the ball finding the back of the net. Interestingly, crossing the goal line while saving the ball means that the shot won’t count as a goal. How do you feel about that, Mr. VAR?
If you’re playing in a defensive role you have the options to do a light tackle, a sliding tackle if you’re sprinting, or trying to intercept the ball with your positioning or heading it away. The tackling is not as smooth as it could be with tackles that look like they should make contact missing the ball or opposing player completely. All players have the ability to sprint, but it is limited by everyone having the same amount of stamina, so you can’t just whizz around the pitch hoping to run from end to the other and getting a shot off.
Overall the gameplay is okay. It’s definitely an interesting take on playing a football game, but it needs some improvement, especially when it comes to attacking.
Hell can be the other people you play with, and this is where Rematch’s success or failure will truly lie. Football is a team game but in the hours I have played it there have been a number of examples of selfish players that will ball hog in an attempt to go for glory, but almost always messing up and costing the team. When you find a group of players that acts like a team, you see the elements of Rematch which really work as each individual understands there task to defend or attack, calling for passes at the right moments, and linking up well together. It is these teams and players that usually go on to win matches.
Rematch is not without other issues either. For example, after a match if you want to view your performance you can switch to a tab to do so but sometimes it automatically toggles to your progression screen instead. Also post match, the game takes you back to the main screen instead of just matchmaking and putting you into a new match. There should be the option to just keep matchmaking unless you choose to opt out of it. I did have a couple of crashes on PC, but this seems to have been ironed out in a new patch. The graphics are serviceable, but there’s some fun stadium themes that include tropical jungles and outer space, and I quite liked the music too.
Sloclap has addressed some of these issues and areas of improvement in a blog post for today’s launch. Initially stability will be the immediate priority, but they also plan to add cross-play down the line, and are looking at feedback on slide tackling, keeping, wall collisions and more.