WHEN WE MADE...


Pierre Tarno, creative director at Slocap, tells Vince Pavey about capturing the essence and rhythm of football in their online multiplayer sports game


Rematch is quite a different game to Slocap’s previous martial arts action game Sifu. How did you end up making a multiplayer football game of all things? At Sloclap, every game we’ve made has been a different way of exploring movement and body mechanics. In Absolver, players could create their own combat choreographies. Sifu focused on mastery, on the solitary rhythm of learning and improving. With Rematch, we wanted to bring that philosophy into something collective, all about movement and positioning. We wanted to capture the flow of football, the constant back-and-forth, the coordination, and turn it into an intense and dynamic experience.


What in your mind do the two games have in common, other than their developer? They are built around the same DNA: bodies in motion, tight and reactive controls, and a strong sense of physicality. Both games are choreographed experiences. In Sifu, the choreography comes from combat. Every move is an expression of focus and timing. In Rematch, it comes from the team. The way five players align, react, and move together. They share a sense of rhythm, precision, and a deep respect for movement. The camera, the animations, the sound and VFX; everything in both games is designed to make the player feel the motion, not just see it.


46 | MCV/DEVELOP December/January 2026


I know it’s not a simulation game, but what were the most important things you felt you had to capture about playing football in real life when making the game? For us, it was never about reproducing football by the rulebook. It was about capturing its essence. Football is a beautiful choreography of movement, rhythm, and anticipation. It’s about being in the right place, at the right time, in the right dynamic and then executing perfectly. We wanted Rematch to make players feel what it’s like to actually play, not watch: the ebb and flow of the match, the ball moving away and coming back, the collective pressure building. So instead of chasing realism, we focused on credibility: actions grounded in what great athletes can really do, expressed through fast, reactive, 5v5 gameplay. That’s what makes Rematch feel authentic: you’re not simulating football, you’re embodying it.


What made you decide to remove some of the reasons for “pauses” in football like fouls, the offside rule, and throw-ins? As mentioned above, what mattered most was capturing what it feels like to play: the rhythm, the coordination, the shared anticipation between players. Those pauses break the flow, and flow is the soul of Rematch. We wanted the match to feel like a continuous dance, where the action never stops. It’s not about simulating football, it’s about distilling its essence: speed, spontaneity, physicality.


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