I was surprised that the rematch team was not seeking blue lock inspiration

Rematch Although it still looks like an early access, it still feels like one of my favorite games of 2025. Transform from the traditional tactical experience seen in most other football matches to a more advanced, mechanically complex throwing, with the emphasis on launching acrobatics, and heroic savings are pretty cool. This leads to incredibly meaningful moments and scattered defeats, riding these two extreme waves is a big reason why I like games like this Rocket League or Apex Legends. That's why I like Blue Lock, a manga/animation that is often quoted compared to rematches.

“In fact, we did see a lot of players referring to Blue Locks, which are actually more than we expected!” Pierre Tarno, the creative director of the rematch, told me via email. “We really didn’t know it was so popular – it wasn’t the main inspiration for the game, although some of us do love comics and anime!”

For the unfamiliar blue lock is about 300 Japanese high school football players locked in a black field training facility supervised by mysterious mastermind Jinpachi Ego. Ego told the group that they will go through a series of trials, all of which hope to hone one of them as the best striker in the world – they are known to be so conceited that they would sacrifice Japan’s irresponsible emphasis on teamwork to selfishly score goals and lead the Japanese national team to victory anyway. The other 299 defeats will never allow a second game in any Japanese team, ending their football career in the country.

A lot (I mean, a lot of) What you can do in the rematch is similar to the characters in the Blue Lock (they themselves are intended to mimic the most gorgeous, memorable traits of famous football players, up to 11). like Meguru Bachirayou can master the dribble and fast ladder carry to cut one-handed defense and pass the ball only to teammates who challenge your imagination of what you can do. like SeishirōNagiyou can take off your skilled ball and hit the ball and use misleading, controlling balls and acrobatic talents to become the genius for target scores. like shōeiBarōyou can intercept the pass to your teammates (or completely take the ball from them while trying to dribble), score the goal yourself to steal the ball as the heel of the game. The opening movie of the rematch may highlight the opposite value, but Mechanics You can play yourself in the game.

Even the rules and settings of the rematch mimic the Blue Lock – one of the earliest (and best fans) arcs are focused on the 3V3, 4V4 and 5V5 showdowns, each player tries to score without deviating sides, and all players are included in the futuristic.

A quick search for “Re-Blue Lock” will reveal a lot of clips on Tiktok and YouTube and imitate the manga/animation by doing some really cool solos, and won't pass the ball to teammates even if the whole defense collapses. And, I can’t count the number of times I’ve fought against or played with someone who use character creators to make their players incredible faces, making their skin tones incredibly pale, bright, bright white hair and black uniform sport number 11 (like Nagi) (like Nagi) or making their tan skin players dark, medium-sized medium length, dyed yellow hair with dyed yellow tips, blue blue uniform size and 8 (like Bachira) (like Bachira).

Obviously, not everyone who plays rematch does this because they like blue locks. I'm sure most of them are like Richard Wakeling Review Gamespot's rematchthe reason they participate in the rematch is because they like to participate in the sport in real life (or just fans of Slocap’s works!). But obviously, part of the player base doesn't matter, it's replaying to embrace their conceited blue lock fantasy and play the hero of the game, who scored all the cool goals or the hover of the chuck.

However, despite all these clear similarities, the rematch is not a developer Slocap's attempt to follow the blue lock. This is not a team’s attempt to truly emulate any single story centered on football.

“The environment and artistic direction really come from the pillars of the game, not from specific media,” Tano said. “Replay is a game about the joy of playing football with your friends, about the necessity of individual talent, but never enough, and at the end of the day it’s important to be collective. The collective attention and positive sportsmanship are the settings and artistic directions we choose: a colorful, positive vision for the future.”

Sloclap hopes that the rematch has a positive future and the team has updated the game outside of the upcoming crossover tournament.

“Emerging strategies and mechanics are starting to appear (during the Beta), but they merged during the release week,” Tano said. “Most of them are valid and should not be deleted, but one vulnerability we are going to remove is the 'Dolphin Jump' where players move faster even when they are running out of stamina.

Like before other online multiplayer games, rematches are evolving as more and more players come in, and Sloclap notes that its vision for rematches may change to match players’ expectations. This may not mean that the Blue Lock Cross is coming (but we live in a post-vehicle world, so who knows), but other aspects of the game are changing to reflect the shift in focus, like 5v5 is no longer the “standard” mode, although SloClap sets it to be the default game mode for rankings.

“Our initial vision for the game was a 5V5 experience, which has more tactical configurations, challenges with precise passes and (more developing) your vision for the dynamics of the game,” Tano said. “However, the 3V3 game mode is very popular and we see many players demanding a queue for 3V3, so it's really a matter of players' taste.”

There, I agree with the herd. I know Sloclap wants 5V5 to be a rematch experience, but when playing the game on tighter 3V3 and 4V4 games, the game feels more tactical and strategic, and for goalkeeper/sweeper players it's easier to shout out actions, keep engaged, stay engaged, and feel useful in smaller areas.

Maybe it will only allow the Guardian to take off the last ditch's shachihoko fish kick to save the ball like a blue lock Gin Gagamaru? That's so cool!