Sifu developer Sloclap has been celebrating the success of its multiplayer football title Rematch. In an interview with Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar), creative director Pierre Tarno revealed that the studio was conceptualising Rematch since before even Sifu was released back in 2022.
According to Tarno “the decision to do Rematch happened way before Sifu was released.” He also went on to talk about how the studio isn’t particularly risk averse, which would explain how it was able to pivot from working on more action-based martial arts-centric titles like Sifu and Absolver to a multiplayer sport game like Rematch.
“It was not a question of ‘oh, Sifu did very well – what are we doing next,” he continued, noting that prototypes for Rematch were already being developed by a small team at Sloclap during the development of Sifu. The decision to work on a game that is completely different from its other offerings came about because, for the studio, “chasing the safe bets is a death sentence,” Tarno said. “I think gamers are on the lookout for new, original experiences.”
When it comes to drawing inspiration from other titles, it could be easy to see how games like the older FIFA franchise and even Rocket League could have inspired Rematch. However, Tarno noted that “these games are different giants in all these fields, and they do what they do super well. And so I think we just want to do something different.”
Rematch was released just a few days ago on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. While the PC version is available via Steam, PC and Xbox players can both also play it through Game Pass. The title puts players in control of a single footballer in matches that could be 3v3, 4v4 or 5v5. Rematch also features a 5v5 ranked mode for players that might want to get more competitive with their football.
Since its release, Rematch has proven to be incredibly successful. The studio revealed that, in just a day, the football game had gotten more than a million unique players across PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Back in April, Tarno had spoken about how Sloclap had never considered a free-to-play business model for Rematch. When asked about the game’s $30 price tag, Tarno spoke about why it didn’t need to go free-to-play to find success. Rather, he believed that the unique skill-based gameplay would be something players would find interesting enough to pay money for.
“I never considered free-to-play,” said Tarno. “One of the things I love about making games is that there is no secret formula or anything, but the best way—or maybe actually the only way—to make a commercial success is to just make a very good game.”
Speaking about the core gameplay of Rematch, Tarno had also mentioned how Sloclap wanted to respect its players by offering them challenging gameplay that would also be fun.
“One of our cultural pillars at Sloclap is respecting our players, respecting their intelligence, respecting their skills,” he said. “We like challenging gameplay and gamers are a very discerning audience. They are often very analytical, very precise in their assessment of mechanics and what works, what doesn’t, what’s balanced, what’s not balanced, etc.”
For more details about Rematch, check out our review.
