In a sea of giant games, Rematch's simplicity is a gift
There are a lot of words I'd use to describe Rematch, the new multiplayer soccer game from Sifu developer Sloclap. It's fun, it's approachable, it's elegant. But there's one word I wouldn't use: ambitious. I don't mean that in a derogatory way; in fact, that's exactly what I love about it.
Rematch needs little setup or explanation to get across what it is, which separates it from so many modern, formula-twisting video games. It's an online multiplayer soccer game where teams of three to five, depending on the playlist, compete in six minute matches. The teams are dropped on a basic pitch, the only notable twist of which is that all the sides are walled off. Players pass, block, and shoot and the team with the most points at the end wins. There are no gimmicks, no tricks, and no flourishes like flying cars that make for a cool sales pitch. It's just soccer.
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With such an elementary premise on paper, you may be surprised to hear that I'm absolutely loving my time with Rematch so far. At a time where I could be playing the more involved FBC: Firebreak or Splitgate 2, I'm simply opting to kick the ball around. So what is it about Rematch that's grabbing me despite the fact that there's seemingly so little to it?
For one, there's a lot more to it than what I've described. Rematch may look shallow at first glance, but there's a lot of depth hidden beneath its surface. As I play, I learn lots of small nuances that beg to be mastered. I can kick the ball away from me if I know a rival is planning to slide kick it from me, forfeiting control for a brief moment only to regain it quickly. I can perform a rainbow flick to fake opponents out, or bounce the ball off a wall to set a teammate up for a goal. These aren't flashy maneuvers by any means, but each one raises the skill ceiling in subtle ways that push me to keep learning.
Even with those extra techniques, Rematch's strength lies in simplicity. Those who don't learn how to do any of that can still just pick up a controller and enjoy the simple thrill of kicking a ball into a goal or jumping to block a goal shot. In that way, Rematch is the closest I've felt a modern sports game has come to reaching the ethos of NES classics like Golf and Baseball. Throughout the 1980s, Nintendo loaded its home console up with very fundamental sports simulations that were easy to pick up and play. It would follow up on that philosophy decades later with Wii Sports (and eventually Nintendo Switch Sports), a game that would boil a game as complex as physically Tennis down to its essence. It understood that the joy of hitting a ball with a racket is powerful enough to fuel a video game, no further tricks attached. Rematch carries that same torch; Sloclap could have just called it Soccer had Nintendo not already taken the name in 1985.
As I've repeatedly queued up for another round, I've found myself thinking about other games I appreciate and how they relate to Rematch. See, I've spent a long time this year thinking about what I value in video games. It started around the time Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came out. Like many, I very much enjoyed Sandfall Interactive's impressive debut, but I simply wasn't as high on it as others. For every bit I liked, there was something else that I didn't. I found the whole thing messy, filled with clutter that didn't always work for me. I had conversations with fans at the time where I expressed that critique and would even find some advocates who agreed. However, the refrain I kept hearing was that the RPG's ambition made up for the flaws.
I started thinking about that word: ambition. It's something I've heard to describe a lot of critically acclaimed games over the past few years. It was inseparable from Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 during their respective Game of the Year runs. It's being used right now to describe Mario Kart World's divisive open-world component. More and more, 'ambitious' has become a synonym for 'exemplary,' showing that there's a large contingent of players out there who value massive creative swings over functional ones. It's perhaps why Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is one of the year's best reviewed games, while Avowed was received like a disappointment for not living up to The Elder Scrolls' scale.
Avowed, as it turns out, is one of my favorite games of the year. The pieces that its loudest critics see as thin are what I see as focused. It tells a clear story and does not waste a single one of its RPG systems. Everything is in its right place, a design philosophy that allowed Obsidian to create an elegantly streamlined RPG that still sticks with me. Many of my favorite games this year share a similar strength. Despelote is a 90 minute game where not a second of its runtime feels superfluous. The Midnight Walk doesn't do anything new with the adventure genre, but it excels at feeling like a playable folktale. Rift of the NecroDancer is a fairly typical rhythm game, but one that is perfectly sharpened. All of these games rank far above Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on my personal Game of the Year tracker.
I'm not sure where Rematch will land on that list, but my current obsession with it is consistent with the other games currently topping my charts. I appreciate the fact that Sloclap walked into the project with a very clear vision and set out to fine tune that as much as possible rather than dress it up in flashy distractions. At this point in my artistic tastes, I just prefer something that executes on a clear creative vision. It's why Videoverse and Venba were in my top five favorite games of 2023, while Baldur's Gate 3 wasn't. I do respect ambition in games, but I've come to value restraint even more. Rematch doesn't take 100 free shots only to miss half of them. It winds up a few careful shots and puts them square in the goal each time. It only takes one point to win a game soccer if you play your cards right.
Rematch is out now PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
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