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Rematch Sloclap

Sloclap’s next game is Rematch, a five-a-side soccer game that’s more Rocket League than FIFA

Originally posted on Video Games on SI | Last updated Dec 12, 2024 7:58 PM ET

We’ve had ten years of Sloclap games. In that decade, the French developer has perfected the art of kicking people in the head. In Absolver, players kicked each other in the head across a connected world. The game sold 500,000 units. Next came Sifu, a revenge story with a unique aging mechanic, where players kicked loads of people in the head in scenes ripped straight from the best kung fu movies. Four million people played that one.

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You’d be forgiven for thinking the studio’s next game might, just maybe, feature some head-kicking, but you’d be wrong. Sloclap is making a game about kicking a ball.

Rematch is the next project from the Sifu developer. It is a five-a-side soccer game where a real person controls each player on the pitch. It features that same minimalist, crisp art of other Sloclap games and you can trace a line directly from the fancy head-kicking animations to scissor-kicking a screamer right into the back of the net.

It feels silly to say, but its closest point of comparison – beyond FIFA Street – is Rocket League. As I said, every player is human-controlled, which means teamwork and positioning are key.

Sloclap

There’s no offside rule, corner kicks, no AI taking over control, and you decide exactly where the ball goes by aiming the third-person camera. There are also hard edges to the pitch, meaning you can rebound passes off the stadium wall or purposely chip over the goal to catch a volley on the rebound.

Where “serious” football games are as much about player stats as they are about your skills on the pitch, here everyone’s equal. Your skill on the sticks and ability to play nice with teammates decides your fortune, not statistics on a management screen.

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From what I saw, it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun. Approachable but surprisingly deep, like Sloclap’s action games. Smooth and stylish with locked 60fps gameplay. But as always, the real proof will be in the play, and whether its online systems function as intended – any small amount of lag or inconsistency between players will be a fatal head kick.

Sloclap

I’m also not entirely sold on Sloclap’s idea to make this a premium game. 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.

There’s seasonal content planned, I’d guess extra modes will come post-launch, and the cosmetics seem perfect for the free-to-play model, so I’m surprised the developer is taking such a risk in a post-Concord market.

During the presentation, the developers spoke a little about their vision for the game’s world – yep, soccer lore. Rematch is set in a utopian future around 40 years from now, where energy is sustainable, people are happy, and sports have become more about the game than the stars. I asked if this meant the developers wouldn’t partner up with celebrities and brands, but that’s not something they’re willing to rule out entirely. While the game’s identity is in flux, perhaps Sloclap can reconsider its release model for a more sustainable future.

This article first appeared on Video Games on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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