Rematch was an unexpected success. Not in the sense that its positive reception came as a surprise, but in the sense of its very existence. After two releases focused firmly on martial arts, for the devs behind Sifu to be pivoting to a football game came as a shock to many. But while Sloclap racked up 5 million players in its first month, Rematch's first year has not proved to be an open goal.
"It's gone pretty well, but it was a very strong learning curve," Sloclap CEO Pierre Tarno tells me when I ask him about the last six months. Beyond the single-player PvP of debut title Absolver, he points out that Rematch was the studio's first foray into "actually operating a live-service game." Nothing Sloclap had done before had "the complexities of a team-based game" like Rematch, and that quickly caused problems for the devs, even as the game rocketed towards the back of the net.
