‘Rematch' Devs Are Trying To Get Crossplay Working ASAP, Apologize For It Not Being There At Launch
Improving Rematch's slide tackle is on the to-do list for Sloclap. But first, bug fixes and ... More crossplay.
Rematch, the skill-based action soccer game from Absolver and Sifu studio Sloclap, is off to a strong start. At the time of writing, it has reached more than 92,000 concurrent players on Steam alone on its launch day. It's also available on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, as well as Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
But there's a significant feature missing from the game as things stand: crossplay. Sloclap said in a statement that it did its "utmost" to have crossplay ready by launch, but it ran into "unforeseen technical complexities which prevented us from having this feature ready in time."
The studio added that it should have been more forthcoming about crossplay not being ready in time for launch. It apologized "for the inconvenience and frustration it caused to some of our players."
Sloclap has been working hard to update and optimize Rematch – it deployed two patches during the early access period. But alongside fixing bugs, Sloclap says "crossplay is our absolute highest priority." The studio said:
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"We're committed to delivering this feature swiftly, and we'll share a more precise deadline as soon as possible. We already have a basic working version from a technical standpoint, but we need to implement the relevant interfaces, before debugging and polishing it, and finally passing console certifications successfully – all this takes time but we are doing our best to move forward quickly."
Here's hoping that's resolved soon. In fairness, Sloclap has a small team and this is the first time it's offering crossplay in one of its games, so this is a new challenge for it to solve.
There are other, perhaps more pressing technical issues that Sloclap is trying to resolve such as the lag, stuttering and frame drops that some players are dealing with. "Our team is currently implementing performance optimizations and settings adjustments to significantly improve stability," the studio says. "Likewise, we are continuously working on improving server stability to bring you a smoother gameplay experience across the board."
Along with those problems, Sloclap is tackling issues including server and client desync, crashes, game freezes after goals and menu lockouts. It plans to deploy regular hotfixes and patches in the coming weeks to attempt to resolve those, all the while adding more features.
Fixing technical problems should be the top priority for Rematch, but there are some interesting features and updates in the pipeline. In the coming months, Sloclap plans to improve slide tackles, goalkeeper mechanics, dribbling and wall contact (like in Rocket League, the ball doesn't go out of bounds and is kept in play by a barrier).
Test servers are on the way to help Sloclap trial new features and other updates in a live environment. Tournament and club creation systems are in the pipeline, along with more social features and a leaderboard system for players above Elite ranking. You can expect some updates for casual play too, such as more quick play modes and AI-controlled bots for you to practice with.
Again, Sloclap isn't a huge studio, so it'll be quite some time before it can add all of these. You might have to wait until next year for some of them. But here's hoping the studio can at least take care of the technical issues as soon as possible. There's clearly a large audience for Rematch, and it would be nice to have a viable alternative for the likes of EA Sports FC without game-breaking bugs getting in the way.
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