The state of the modern sports game is pretty dire straits at the moment. If your sports game of choice isn’t muddied with predatory modes trying to microtransaction you into bankrupcy, its struggling to finding ways to justify buying this years edition over last year’s. It’s why it’s so refreshing to see Slocap, the award-winning team behind the 2022 martial arts roguelike Sifu, jump into territory few others not associated with Electronic Arts or 2K Games have.
Those efforts may have resulted in one of the year’s biggest sleeper hits. Sloclap’s next game Rematch is the reimagining that the beautiful game deserves and the exact kind of shake up the sports game genre has needed for over a decade. And luckily for players curious about this promising competitive game, its available for free via Xbox Game Pass starting today.
Rematch is a very simple premise. It is a 5-on-5, multiplayer only soccer game. The 10-person set up immediately changes the dynamic of this game compared to something like EA Sports FC. Each player on the team being controlled by an actual human makes Rematch a game just as focused on team work as the real thing. Unlike EA Sports FC, players don’t need a high level understanding of how to manage and set up team formations or how to exploit openings in the open team’s defense. Rematch is a much more natural, schoolyard translation of the sport.
The game is also focused on quick, arcade fun. There are stylish crossups when going one-on-one with a defender. The game is full of presentation flourishes that wouldn’t be out of place in one of the EA Sports BIG games from the early 2000s. And it all takes place in an idealized version of the game set in the far future.
Rematch essentially takes Rocket League’s turbo powered and approachable version of footy, and reverts it back to the game that inspired it. When played, its an idea so obvious it seems ludicrious that no one’s thought to execute it before now. It also comes at a time when sports games seem less interested than ever in courting casual players (unless its a sports game starring Mario of course).
I’ve had the pleasure of playing Rematch during one of its playtests earlier this year, and I was blown away by how fun this game is. It have the perfect balance of controls that are fairly simple to understand but take some practice to master. You’re managing everything from positioning, reading the field, outsmarting defenders, all before the ball is even in you possession. Naturally, players may start playing positions. In others instances, more on the fly approaches to strategy can win these short games. Managing to score a goal via good teamwork and communication can feel more gratifying than winning a match in any multiplayer shooter I’ve played over the last five years.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only person thoroughly impressed by the game during its early access. It managed to pull in 146,573 concurrent players on Steam during its weekend-long beta in April, then another 1.8 million players across all console during another playtest at the end of last month. Players are clearly impressed with this pared back version of soccer free of all the useless crap meant to exploit players’ time and money. Based on those early engagement numbers, it’s no stretch to expect it to become the multiplayer sleeper hit of 2025.
Debuting on Xbox Game Pass is the wisest thing Sloclap could have done for a big swing like Rematch. And while the game won’t launch with crossplay, a disappointing development for those hoping to mix it up with their friends on other platforms, at the very least it’ll be easy to access for those with Xbox’s subscription service.
Rematch is antidote to the general sense of malaise around the sports game genre. The game will be available on PlayStation and PC for $30, and is well worth the asking price in my opinion. But if you have Xbox Game Pass, you owe it to yourself to set aside some time, grab a few friends, and experience this one first hand this holiday.
