Rematch
Sloclap · Sports, Simulation, Arcade
Overview
Rematch is an online multiplayer football game. Control one player and compete with your team in fast-paced 5v5 matches from an immersive third-person perspective. Team up with your friends and join the action.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT10,000 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
The praise is for the football. Controlling one player in a walled-in 5v5 arena is described as fluid and physical, closer to FIFA Street or Rocket League than to the FIFA games, and scoring feels great. Players with hundreds of hours say they are still learning new moves. Many of the positive reviews are one-liners calling it fun, peak or addictive, and a few come from people who say they don't care about football at all. Reviewers who play with a full group of friends describe having the best time.
The complaints are mostly about the online layer around that core. Netcode comes up in more negative reviews than any other problem: 19% of them describe desync, rubber-banding, or a ball that teleports or passes through players. Solo players describe teammates who never pass and ranked matches against coordinated stacks. Others object to battle passes, a cosmetics shop and brand collabs in a game they paid for, or complain about goalkeeping that feels random, long queues outside the busiest regions, and leavers who go unpunished. The game sits at 61% positive in these reviews, a good number of the positive ones come with a warning about teammates or servers attached, and a handful of reviews on both sides sum it up as "great game, but". Sentiment improved steadily after a rough launch summer, but balance changes have split veteran players more than once, most visibly with the Season 5 Blue Lock update.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
The football itself: fluid, physical and unlike FIFAHigh
Much of the praise is about how the game feels to play. Positive reviews describe dribbling, passing and shooting with one player as smooth and rewarding, and 130 reviews call it the best football or soccer game around. Some of the longer ones connect it to Sloclap's earlier games: "Sloclap did it again with its style of easy to learn, hard to master controls." Rocket League comes up in 4% of reviews as the obvious comparison ("scratched an itch that Rocket League couldn't anymore"), and others reach for FIFA Street or Volta rather than mainstream FIFA. One player put the difference simply: "This isn't Fifa, this requires aiming." Plenty of negative reviews also praise the core before listing what ruins it, and 7% of negative reviews use the word "potential".
A game built for a group of friendsHigh
Reviews that mention friends mostly describe the same split: a full party with voice chat has a great time, and the trouble starts with strangers. One review puts it in a line: "Great to play with a group of friends, horrible to solo queue." Several say it is only fun with friends, and some would only recommend buying it if you have a group of three or four to play with. For a few it became a regular game with the same people every week.
A deep skill ceiling and techs to learnMedium
Players who stick with it talk about how much there is to master: dribble moves, flicks, wall play, goalkeeping, and "techs" the community has discovered. Positive reviews say practice pays off and improvement is visible. Newcomers see the other side of this, running into opponents doing moves the tutorial never teaches, and some veterans argue that many techs are really exploits (see the exploits item below).
Fun even for people who don't follow footballLow
A small group of positive reviews come from players who say they dislike football or sports games and love this anyway. One wrote "I also don't like Soccer (Football) at all yet playing Goalie is such a thrill." Others say a friend talked them into it even though neither of them follows the sport.
Where players are split
Whether the updates have made the game betterMedium
Reviewers disagree about what the patches achieved. Some say the game has come a long way or that they switched their review to positive, and credit better servers, crossplay and fewer exploits. "A lot of the early network and glitching problems have been sorted out by now," one player wrote, and another said "Good on the devs for improving it every update." Others say a patch or season made things worse, sometimes every one of them ("every patch made it worse"). Their objections are to sweeping changes to fundamentals (stamina, dribbling, tackling, goalkeeper dives) that make the game feel slower or remove skills they had practised, and one player asked Sloclap to "stop messing with the fundamentals." Both sides can be describing the same changes: one positive review credits "skill-based balancing" with turning an exploiter's heaven into a polished soccer game, while other players write "They killed dribbling."
Season 5 and the Blue Lock collabMedium
In reviews written since Season 5 arrived, which reviewers place in late September 2026, 9% mention Blue Lock, against 2% of the slice as a whole. Fans like the skins, celebrations and event, and some came to the game because of it ("Came for Blue Lock stayed for Rematch"). One wrote "The game is in the best state it has been after the Blue Lock update." The critics are two different groups. Long-time players dislike the gameplay changes that shipped with it, mainly the goalkeeper rework and the dribbling and stamina nerfs ("never touching the dog game until they revert the goal keeper change"); 124 of the 265 negative reviews in that window refer to the update, its goalkeeping, dribbling or stamina changes, or the collab. Others say the collab brought in players who "think they are the main character of an anime and refuse to play the game as intended." Sentiment still rose over the same weeks: 71% of reviews from that window are positive (657 of 922), and 79% in the second week after the update.
Price for what you getMedium
3% of reviews (342) discuss the price. Critics say an online-only game with one core mode, rough netcode and a battle pass isn't worth the roughly $30 they paid, and several put a fair price at $10 to $15 or say to wait for a sale. "Feels free to play despite being $40 CDN," one player wrote. 2% of reviews (201) ask for the game to go free-to-play, some to bring in players and shorten queues, others because it already has a free-to-play game's battle pass and shop. Some reviewers say it is worth full price, especially with friends, and some who bought on sale call that price fair.
What frustrates players
Netcode, lag and a ball that teleportsHigh
This is the complaint negative reviews raise most: 19% of them, and 10% of all reviews, describe desync, rubber-banding, high or unstable ping, server problems, or the ball teleporting between players. The same moments keep coming back: a tackle that clearly connects but doesn't count, a ball that passes through your player, a goal conceded after the keeper's screen showed a save, possession snapping back to an opponent. "The servers are a disgrace," one player wrote, and another described "ping bouncing from 30 to 300 because i touched the ball." Several reviews say the player with worse ping seems to win contested balls. The complaint faded over time: it appears in 21% of reviews dated to the launch summer of 2025 and in 3% of those written after Season 5. A few later reviews say they are waiting on a netcode overhaul.
Teammates who hog the ball, and solo queue against stacksHigh
8% of reviews bring up teammates or solo queue, and the warning turns up in recommending reviews about as often as in negative ones. The usual descriptions are ball hogs who dribble until they lose it, nobody willing to play goalkeeper, players who leave the goal empty, and people who never pass. One short positive review reads "Very fun if your team mates actually pass." Solo players in ranked add that they keep facing coordinated groups: "you are always put up against full stacks even when everyone on your team is solo." Another player wrote that "the solo queue experience simply ruins everything about this game," and one review opens its list of problems with "No exclusive solo queue."
Ranked and matchmaking that feel unfairHigh
12% of negative reviews talk about ranked, and 8% about matchmaking in general. Their complaints are specific: bronze and silver players matched with masters and elites, ranked points that ignore performance ("you gain around +20 for a win but lose -16 for a loss, no matter how well you perform"), full point losses when a teammate leaves in the first seconds, and, in one review, a ladder that anyone can climb just by playing. Players also ask for 4v4 ranked and complain about 3v3 ranked, where a team that scores once can simply keep possession. Few of these reviews come from people with only a handful of hours; it is mostly raised by players with dozens to hundreds of hours in the competitive mode.
Cosmetics, battle passes and collabs in a paid gameHigh
13% of negative reviews raise monetization. What they object to is a purchase price combined with a battle pass, a premium currency, a rotating shop and brand collabs (Ronaldinho, Puma, Adidas and others are mentioned), especially while core bugs remained. Some reviews mention having to buy more than one pass per season to get the good items, and others object to FOMO from passes that leave the game. "I bought it because I thought cosmetics were all going to be unlockable, not battle pass slop," one player wrote. Another called it insanity to keep "adding more cosmetics that you need to pay with real money on a game that is suffering from low player count." A minority of reviews defend the model, saying the pass pays for the next one and plenty of customisation is free.
Goalkeeping that feels randomMedium
10% of negative reviews complain about goalkeeping, and it comes up more in reviews from very heavy players. Keepers say catches fail on balls in reach and succeed on impossible ones: "Goalkeepers can go from catching top corner shots to being unable to catch a ball that is clearly within reach." Outfield players complain that keepers can grab the ball outside the box or hold it inside the net. Some also dislike being forced into goal because nobody else will play it. The Season 5 keeper rework renewed the complaint, with critics calling it slower and less reliable.
Long queues and a shrinking player baseMedium
Long queues, low player counts or a "dead game" come up in 10% of negative reviews. Players describe 8 to 30 minute searches for ranked 5v5, or being pushed onto distant servers: "I almost always end up waiting 8+ minutes and inevitably have to join EU servers." Players in South America, the Middle East and other regions without nearby servers say they get 80ms one match and 200ms the next. The complaint was most frequent in the first months after launch and has become rarer since. One player pointed to the Season 5 player peak and quick queues as evidence the game wasn't dead.
Exploits, volley meta and ball priorityMedium
8% of negative reviews complain about exploits or the meta. The topic is almost absent from reviews by players with under 10 hours and much more common among those past 200 hours, who also write about the dribbling and stamina changes. They describe glitch dribbling, an infinite-dribble exploit, and above all a volley meta of lobbing the ball into the box and winning the 50/50: "Volley meta is stale," and goals that keep coming from "volley goals from the edge of the box." Others say the ball priority and "magnet" rules that decide who gets a loose ball feel inconsistent. Some argue that skill in the game amounts to learning the current exploit.
Leavers with no backfill and a report system that does nothingMedium
Players say teammates leave after conceding one goal, the team plays the rest of the match a player down with no replacement, and ranked points are lost in full. 5% of negative reviews mention reporting, usually saying reports do nothing or that leavers and cheaters can't be reported properly: "cant report leavers, cant report cheaters." The reverse complaint also appears: players say they got a leaver penalty after their own game crashed or disconnected ("Leaver penalty when your game crashes").
Controls and a thin tutorialLow
A small number of reviews, from new and experienced players alike, find the keyboard-and-mouse layout awkward, the camera close, and the tutorial a quick list of buttons that does not prepare anyone for real matches. One controller player says the bindings can't be remapped, and players disagree about which input method works best.
Crashes and the "can't touch the ball" bugLow
4% of negative reviews mention crashes, freezes or being kicked from matches, and some mention frame rates dropping over a session. One bug comes up again and again: a player suddenly can't interact with the ball for the rest of the match. "It is 213 days post launch of this game and it STILL has the bug where you lose the ability to interact with the ball," one player wrote. Cheating comes up rarely and is mostly mentioned alongside exploits.
Few modes and missing basicsLow
2% of reviews ask for more game modes: a permanent 1v1, 2v2, more ranked sizes, custom and private matches. Reviewers also list missing basics: better quick chat and voice options, a way to say you're willing to play keeper, and a rematch option in a game called Rematch.
3. The player conversation
The conversation is loud and divided. Positive reviews are mostly short and enthusiastic. Negative reviews are long and detailed, and their writers often say they want the game to succeed, so the frustration shows up as itemised bug lists, edits after each season and phrases like "so much potential". The tone gets rough when reviews turn to other players: insults aimed at teammates are frequent, some reviewers call the community toxic, and one called the player base the game's "absolute worst feature".
Who raises what follows how people play. Reviews from players with under 10 hours rarely name a specific problem, and when they do, netcode, controls and teammates come up at similar rates. Netcode is the leading topic at every playtime past that. Exploits, the volley meta and goalkeeping are barely mentioned in short-playtime reviews and become common past 200 hours, along with the dribbling and stamina changes: the areas each balance patch touched. Those heavy players are the ones who describe patches "ruining" their playstyle.
The timeline shows a recovering game. Reviews dated to the 2025 launch summer were 45% positive and dominated by servers and desync. Reviews from autumn 2025 were 61% positive, those from the first half of 2026 were 64% positive, and those from June 2026 on were about 70% positive, while netcode complaints fell sharply. A burst of short, mostly positive reviews arrived in late November 2025 (79% positive that week). The Season 5 Blue Lock update in late September 2026 brought in a wave of new and returning players and raised sentiment again, while also producing a cluster of angry reviews from veterans about the goalkeeper, dribbling and stamina changes.
4. What the developers could do
- Finish fixing ball-possession netcode. Desync, teleporting balls and tackles that don't register are the most common complaint in negative reviews, and several players say ping decides contested balls.
- Separate solo players from stacks and match by skill. Solo players describe facing full parties in ranked and lobbies that mix bronze and master players.
- Protect teams from leavers and make reporting work. Players want backfill or reduced point loss when a teammate quits, real penalties for repeat leavers, no penalty for a crash, and reports that visibly lead to action.
- Make goalkeeping consistent and keep keepers inside their rules. Catches failing on balls in reach, keepers handling outside the box, and the Season 5 rework come up in 10% of negative reviews.
- Change core mechanics in smaller, tested steps. Veterans say each big overhaul to dribbling, stamina or tackling removed skills they had practised and brought new bugs, while the volley meta and ball priority problems stayed.
- Ease monetization in a paid game. Reviewers object to multiple paid passes per season, FOMO items and frequent collabs while bugs remain, and they ask for more cosmetics earned through play.
- Help solo players coordinate and learn. Better quick chat, a way to volunteer for keeper, and a tutorial that covers real match skills address the teammate and newcomer complaints.
- Add modes and regional servers. Requests for permanent 1v1 and 2v2, more ranked sizes, and servers for South America and the Middle East come up alongside the complaints about long queues.
