Im Amazed The Rematch Team Didnt Look To Blue Lock For Inspiration

Rematch is quickly becoming one of my favorite games of 2025, despite it still feeling a smidge like it's in early access. The choice to transform the fantasy of playing football (soccer for the American folks!) from the traditionally tactical experience seen in most other football games into more of a high-action, mechanically complex throwdown with an emphasis on pulling off acrobatic plays and heroic saves is very cool. It's led to incredibly rewarding moments and crushing defeats, and riding the wave of those two extremes is a big reason why I enjoy games like Rocket League or Apex Legends. It's also why I love Blue Lock, a manga/anime often cited in comparison to Rematch.

"We did see A LOT of players referencing Blue Lock, more than we expected, actually!" Rematch creative director Pierre Tarno told me via email. "We didn't really know it was so popular--it wasn't a major inspiration for the game, though internally some of us do enjoy both manga and anime!"

For the unfamiliar, Blue Lock is about 300 Japanese high school football players getting locked away in a black site training facility overseen by the mysterious mastermind Jinpachi Ego. Ego tells the group they'll be put through a series of trials, all in hopes of honing one of them into the world's best striker--someone so egotistical that they'd sacrifice Japan's irresponsible emphasis on teamwork to selfishly score goals no matter what and lead the Japan national team to victory. The other 299 failures will never be allowed to play on any Japan team again, ending their football careers in the country.