Rematch has been nothing short of a shock so far. A mixture between Rocket League and EA FC‘s Pro Clubs, developed by Sloclap (the team behind Sifu), the game is a physics-based arcade soccer game that pits two teams of 5 players against each other. I’ll be honest, when I first heard of it, I didn’t think much of it. But, as we’ve had a few chances to play it, we here at Operation Sports love it. And it seems that many others do as well.
At its peak, the beta for Rematch topped out at nearly 160,000 concurrent players on Steam. And that’s not even counting players on consoles such as the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S who were given access to the beta as well.
Rematch is officially due for release on Thursday, June 19. However, players who preordered the title have been given early access to the title three days earlier. So, how is it doing in terms of concurrent players? Pretty well, in fact. But will they stay?
Concurrent Players For Rematch Have Been Steadily Rising Since This Morning
Early access for Rematch began at around 6 AM this morning. Obviously, with it being a Monday, I wouldn’t have expected many players to immediately jump into it right away. But as the day has gone on, the number of concurrent players for Rematch has only risen.
At around 4 PM ET, Rematch peaked at a concurrent player count of 42,925 players. Mind you, the work day for most people hasn’t even ended, so one could expect that number to increase over time. And mind you, this is simply early access, as the game isn’t due for a wide release for another three days. And even in this exclusive window, the concurrent player count already accounts for nearly a third of the total players seen during the game’s beta phase.
Now, will Rematch be able to have not just a successful launch, but also stay relevant moving forward? That certainly remains to be seen. After all, Rocket League — a similar physics-based game — has remained popular, despite being nearly a decade removed from its initial launch. And currently, the EA FC player base, especially those who play Pro Clubs, is at an all-time high when it comes to frustration.
Obviously, the environment is perfectly ripe for a game like Rematch to carve out a significant niche in the soccer gaming market, especially with EA FC being what it is and eFootball not so much as making a dent. Of course, UFL is still out there, too, trying its best to poach EA FC‘s Ultimate Team players. But when it comes to team-based soccer gaming, there is obviously a void outside of EA FC‘s Pro Clubs and Rush communities.
