Strikerz has released a new trailer of the long-awaited soccer game UFL, but to challenge FIFA 22 it takes more than that and potential players know it very well
UFL is the soccer game by Strikerz, still in development, which not without controversy wants to challenge FIFA 22 and eFootball 2022 (formerly PES) with a game model “Fair to Play” and the graphics engine Unreal Engine (Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Street Fighter 5, Fortnite, just to name a few of the most popular).
That “Fair-to-Play” clearly makes fun of the two competitors, which have been accused of being “Pay-to-Win”: if you don’t buy items and expansions in the game, you don’t move forward. Officially announced in late August, but with no official launch date yet, UFL has been developed since (even) 2016 and will be available “for all major consoles, the release date will be announced soon.” The release date is still awaited, but at least a new trailer has been released. Which, however, has attracted endless criticism on the developers because it is actually not even a trailer. From the published video, however, we learn two things: the graphics of the players will be very good and the second testimonial of the game (after Oleksandr Zinchenko of Manchester City) will be the Brazilian Roberto Firmino of Liverpool.
UFL: Firmino’s trailer
In the new UFL trailer you can see only one thing: the camera that goes around the head of Firmino, positioned in the middle of an empty soccer field and without an audience. The model of the player, which Strikerz assures was made with the Unreal engine in real time and not computer pre-rendered, does only one thing: blinks.
But, it’s fair to say, it’s really well done and with a great detail, light years ahead of the bad reproduction of players seen in eFootball 2022 (which probably Strikerz wanted to mock with this video) and not inferior to that of FIFA 22.
If all the graphics of the UFL game will be so, then there is hope for the final result, at least from a purely aesthetic point of view. The problem, however, is that the aesthetic is the only point of view that we can judge at the moment.
UFL: the controversy
After publishing the short video of Firmino on Twitter, the official account of the game has been flooded with negative comments. Comments like “The game must be years away from launch if you refuse to show us gameplay. Or the gameplay isn’t good,” or “WWI and WWII didn’t last more than 5 years. I expect World War III to break out and you guys still haven’t finished your miracle game.”
Or even: “Gameplay, stop showing ambassadors, show us gameplay, gameplay” or “We want gameplay. I’m starting to think UFL’s gameplay is as boring as eFootball’s.” In short, there’s little to add: this public release of UFL was not among the most appreciated by its potential future players.