If I had to name the one thing I miss most about my school days (and to be honest, I’m going back a fairly long way here) I’d say it’s the ability to play football every day. I’m sure I could do that now if I really wanted to, but never again will I be in a position to run out onto the playground or field every breaktime and always have enough people for at least some five-a-side. It was glorious. Tennis ball, sopping wet sponge ball, tatty old mini leather ball… we’d have kicked around a bunch of rolled up paper if we had to. Having played Sloclap’s (Sifu, Absolver) Rematch for a few hours it’s already provided the closest I’ve experienced to those classic days of scuffed shoes and grass-stained trousers.
RematchPublisher: Sloclap, Kepler InteractiveDeveloper: SloclapPlatform: Played on PS5 ProAvailability: Out 19th June on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X.
This kind of five-a-side-style game of football isn’t new to video games, of course. It’s most memorable for me in FIFA 97 (the one with legend David Ginola on the European cover art), although unlike in Rematch the gameplay on the 32-Bit systems of the time is viewed from the side of the pitch, with you essentially possessing whichever player has the ball. In Rematch you control one player who is part of a three-to-five-player team. If you’ve played Be a Pro/Player Career in modern FIFA/EA FC, with the camera hovering behind your player, you’ll know what to expect. The difference here in Rematch is the level of control you have over what you do with the ball and the more arcade feel to the matches.
It’s easy to see why onlookers have somewhat hilariously labeled Rematch as football Rocket League. The visuals (futuristic and neon), the arenas, the slightly closed-off feeling as you can’t easily see what’s around you, it all has that Rocket League sauce. But ball control, as you might expect from an actual football game, is very different. Passing is angled to where you point with the left stick (when playing with a controller), shooting is precision-targeted to where the camera is pointed as if you are playing a third-person shooter, strength and loft can be decided, and you have some finer close-control that simply isn’t possible when hitting an oversize ball with a car. This is the closest a game has come to mimicking the feel of playing football, and I’m loving it.
I’ve mostly played 3v3 matches so far, although you can also choose 4v4 and 5v5. Despite a tutorial that runs you through the basics, nothing prepares you for the intensity of an actual match where you’ll likely fumble under the pressure that simply isn’t felt during the training. 3v3, if anything, at least means I am letting fewer people down, so I’m sticking to this mode for the time being. There’s a fairly steep learning curve to battle through in Rematch, and the added stress of having more people wanting the ball or trying to dispossess you of the ball isn’t conducive to learning.