Hey everyone!
It's been a while since we've done one of these. A lot has happened, so we thought we'd give you a quick recap of what we've been working on lately for Patch 7, and what's to come. We won't delve too much into our "bigger plans”, this is something you'll discover alongside our roadmap next year.
In case you missed them, you can read the latest patch notes here.
Let's get started!
Ranked Rewards
As Season 1 comes to a close, we’re rolling out end-of-season Ranked rewards to celebrate your climb. This time, the reward is a set of shorts, designed to match the Season 0 shirts that were handed out at the end of last season. Just like in Season 0, these rewards are reserved for players who peaked at Platinum rank or higher. You’ll receive the shorts for your highest achieved rank, plus every rank below it down to Platinum. Note that there are currently no plans to retroactively grant the Season 0 shirts. We believe in lasting "bragging rights" and that "you had to be there", but we’ll be keeping a close eye on player feedback and reception as we move forward with this decision.
Battle Pass Progression
One of the main pain points we've heard about the Battle Pass was that progressing through it felt like too much of a grind. Our goal is for more players to actually enjoy and unlock the cool rewards it has to offer, so we’re making some large changes. The XP required per Battle Pass token has been reduced from 1,750 to 800, with tier token costs adjusted accordingly, resulting in a smoother and faster unlock curve from start to finish. Looking ahead, we’re exploring new systems (such as daily and weekly missions for instance, though not confirmed at this time) to make Battle Pass progression more engaging as well.
1v1 Limited Time Mode
Some of you already got a taste of our 1v1 Limited Time Mode during the beta, and we want to thank you for all the feedback and bug reports you sent our way. We deliberately put this mode in your hands earlier than we usually would, so we’d have the extra time needed to polish the experience and fix issues we simply wouldn’t catch on our own. As a reminder, the 1v1 LTM is scheduled to officially release with Patch 8 in late January, and will be available in Custom Matches as well!
Discord-themed Items & Custom Titles
Earlier this month, Discord awarded us the “Breakout Hit” badge for being one of the fastest-growing communities on the platform, and that’s entirely thanks to you. We celebrated the milestone by giving away 20 one-year Discord Nitro subscriptions (kindly offered by Discord) on our official server. But there's more! To further honor the community, we're working on several Discord-themed player card items, completely free, available to everyone, and with no time limit.
We’re also exploring custom player titles for winners of major community events, like tournaments or our Clip of the Month contest on Discord. All of this is tentatively planned to roll out with Patch 9. We realize this is a long way off, but that's how long it takes for new items to arrive for any given update while respecting our patch development cycle.
Esports
When it comes to esports, we want to be upfront with you. Official, Sloclap-run competitions are still a long way off, and Rematch isn’t quite ready yet for high-stakes competitive play. We don’t ever want a match or a tournament result to come down to an unlucky bug, and the game simply needs more time to be polished before we go that far.
That said, the competitive spirit is already very much alive. Several community groups are running their own tournaments, sometimes on a pretty big scale, and that’s something we're both impressed by and excited to see. While we keep improving Rematch, we’re slowly exploring ways to support and sponsor these community-run events, and to give players more reasons to jump in and compete. This is a gradual process, but it’s a direction we’re excited about as the game gets better, patch after patch.
If you’re interested in participating in one of these competitive events, feel free to join the official Discord server and browse the tournaments section as well as our community partners!
Leaver Penalty
We’ve enabled the leaver penalty to keep matches fair and flowing the way they’re meant to. If you intentionally leave a game, you’ll now get a 3-minute cooldown during which you won’t be able to queue for any game mode. This timeout is designed to discourage disruptive behavior and, as a temporary stopgap, help prevent an exploit where the ball can get stuck after the controlling player disconnects on purpose (a proper fix is being worked on). In-game moderation is also a hot topic internally, with various systems currently being designed. Our goal is to protect the competitive integrity of Rematch while keeping the experience smooth and fun for everyone on the pitch.
Player Feedback
Player feedback is something we keep a very close eye on. The Patch 7 beta saw a huge amount of participation, and it directly helped in shaping the game: the new Dribble Push Ball variation (there are now a long and a short variation of the move) exists because players asked for it during the Beta. That kind of back-and-forth is exactly how we want Rematch to evolve (albeit not all player requests can be implemented on such a short notice). Looking ahead to Patch 8, you can expect more movement and core gameplay changes as a continuation to the tweaks made in Patch 7. We’ll also be carefully monitoring your thoughts on recent additions like the goalkeeper punching move, shorter match timers, and the new leaver penalty, and we’ll keep adjusting as we go.
Closing Words
To wrap things up, we genuinely feel that Rematch is moving in a good direction. The last few months haven’t been perfect, but the recent feedback has been encouraging and it tells us we’re on the right track.
We recently hosted an AMA on Reddit where players could ask anything about Rematch and we've received waaay more questions than anticipated. If you missed it, it’s well worth a read.
There’s a lot more coming too, and we’re excited to share more news with you early next year so you know what we’re working toward.
In the meantime, we hope you’re enjoying Rematch… and we have one last little Christmas-themed teaser for you!