New free-to-play football game UFL wants to compete with FIFA and eFootball
The new studio Strikerz Inc. has presented football game UFL. According to the Belarusian developer, the game has been in the works for five years. The game is being made with Unreal Engine and coming to ‘all major consoles’. Many details are still missing.
The creators present UFL as a ‘global online football league’ where player skills are paramount. The game was announced with a short trailer, but gameplay is not yet shown in it. According to the UFL website, the game is being made by Srikerz Inc., which is a new studio based in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Also Vizor Games is mentioned on the page, that studio is from the same city.
The intention is that the game will be kept up-to-date in collaboration with InStat, a party that collects sports statistics. For example, the performance of football players in the real world must be copied into the game. The game is made with the Unreal Engine. eFootball, the successor to the PES series, is also made with that engine.
In an interview with IGN, the CEO of Strikerz Inc. that the game has been in development for five years and that a lot of research was done in the genre before work started on the game. The CEO says he has conducted a market analysis and concludes that football games have hardly improved in recent years and have lagged behind ‘modern gaming trends’. According to the CEO, players have been complaining about this for years and he wants UFL to compete with EA’s FIFA and Konami’s eFootball.
It is not yet clear how UFL handles licenses. According to the website, the game will have 5,000 licensed players from around the world, who will be able to scout and include players in their own team. English football club West Ham United has partnered with UFL and will be featured in the game. Nothing is known yet about licenses on other teams and competitions.
According to the trailer, the game will appear on ‘all major game consoles’, but which ones are not yet known. It is also not clear whether there will be a PC version. UFL will be a free-to-play game, but no details have been announced about the revenue model yet. The trailer states that the game will be released “soon.”