Rematch hosted its final beta ahead of launch, and Sloclap revealed what the development team learned from the final playtest and also shared previously unreleased patch notes.
Sloclap confirmed that over 1.8 million players participated in the final beta. The 72-hour beta test reached an all-time peak player count on Steam of almost 160,000, which is the second-highest all-time total for any soccer game on the platform, only trailing Football Manager 2020.
Rematch officially launches on June 19 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Although the impressive player count suggests that there is excitement ahead of the official release, Sloclap has admitted that the team still has a lot of work to do.
Rematch Final Beta Update Explained
Sloclap apologized for not posting the patch notes ahead of the second beta.
“We should have sent patch notes before the Beta 2 – these past few weeks have been really intense, and we didn’t take the time to prepare patch notes, which was a mistake.:
The development team also addressed several issues introduced in the second beta.
- Server crashes: this was fixed live, we fine tuned the density of games per server during the Beta, and by the end of the Beta there were much less crashes where the whole team was booted out of the game.
- Client crashes: we have identified a couple of causes, one of which was linked to our implementation of anticheat. These issues will be fixed for launch, so the game should be much more stable then.
- Desynchronization / network issues: obviously, players need decent internet connections to play the game in good conditions, but in some cases, even players with low latency were seeing these problems. This is a critical point of focus for us, our servers are running at 60fps to ensure best quality possible, and we are constantly working on netcode improvements – we have already implemented several server optimizations which should improve network issues. We are also working on another fix to improve desyncs – the worst case being when you’re goalkeeper, make a perfect catch, only to have a goal scored on you because of a conflict with the server. This fix is making good progress, and should be solved for launch. We will be monitoring this extremely closely and aim to keep improving netcode throughout live development.
- Matchmaking durations: some extremely long matchmaking durations were happening, especially for players with high MMR. We also fixed this live, and by the end of the Beta, the matchmaking durations were much better, with less than 60 seconds of matchmaking on average, even for high ranking players.
In addition to those issues getting addressed ahead of launch, Sloclap also shared the update that went live before the final beta.
Rematch Beta 2 Patch Notes
Here are the patch notes that went live before the second beta.
Goalkeeper & Dive
- New and shorter invulnerability duration for Goalkeepers after receiving passes from teammates (as opposed to intercepting balls from enemies): “Long invulnerability” is 7 seconds, “Short invulnerability” is 2.65 seconds.
- Visual Feedback for Invulnerable GoalkeepersNets and goalposts now provide clear feedback when a goalkeeper has caught a ball and is invulnerable.
- Outfield Dive Rework
- Hitboxes reworked to hit more targets
- Dive has different dynamics and range depending on whether the player is running/sprinting
- Dive range slightly buffed in defense mode
The outfield dive is a core feature for defenders and we are going to be working to improve it over the next updates. These changes have made the ability more usable and flexible than in Beta 1, but we still have more impactful changes planned in the future
Defense and Tackle
- Sliding Tackle Dynamics
- Sliding tackle movement speed is 5% slower at the beginning of the tackle, and also 5% slower at the end of the animation.
- A player getting up from a sliding tackle while sprinting will now gradually accelerate to full sprint speed (V3).
- Hindering (Body Block)
- Fix of a bug that deactivated the hindering effect during ability execution
- Fix for hindering effect on the goalkeeper in Defense Mode (opponents could go through them)
The Hindering effect applies when two players are in contact with each other, and creates the physical contact between them. We have more improvements planned on this feature in the near future.
Gameplay Balance & Interactions
- Push Ball and Volley Push ball
- Standardized push ball south dynamic with controlled version: same duration, smoother exit speed (slightly less reactive)
- Volley lob push ball prioritizes targets further ahead (from 0.3 to 0.4 seconds) to prevent spam while keeping chainable actions: this change will be reverted in launch version
- Volley aerial push ball corrected: player lands properly behind impact point before redirecting
- Stamina cost for push ball increased from 0.35 to 0.375, fix to stamina regeneration to reintroduce a cooldown when stamina was entirely consumed.
- Fix for ignoring ball status in Extra Effort Push Ball (less chaotic deflects, better network handling)
- Volleys
- Minimum volley duration increased from 0.3 to 0.33 to allow for better control on tap and shoot power
- Volley taps at high height are now 10% stronger
- Shoot Mechanics Update
- Shot power is no longer influenced by player/ball speed if shot power is very low.
- Short Tap (A+X or Cross + Square) dynamic tweaked: same distance before the ball stops, but reaches that point faster (the ball slows down more at the end)
- Standardized Stamina Costs
- Stamina cost for dash and dribble standardized to 0.75 (previously: dash 1, dribble 0.25). Max stamina value is 10.
- Bug fix for stamina depletion and regen cooldown triggers in “out of stamina” state
Input & Control Updates
- Mouse & Keyboard Mapping Reworked
- Default mapping changed because some actions weren’t bound
- Modifier input moved from middle mouse after listening to player feedback and to improve overall keyboard input mapping
- Mapping Presets
- Two new mapping presets for mice with thumb buttons.
- Previous default mapping removed, with goal to enable full rebinds in the future
- New Tap Aiming System
- Previous system allowed 8 directions via WASD; this was changed to mouse aiming, to offer more granularity for passes – however as mentioned above, this system was bugged and overly sensitive, this will be fixed for launch.
- Gameplay Options & Communication System
- More gameplay options added, some options fixed
- Anti-spam system for in-game communication: after 5 quick communications, blocked for 15 secondsCooldown between two communications reduced from 2 seconds to 0.8 seconds
In other gaming news, Ubisoft’s Mark Rubin leaves the video game industry after XDefiant shut down, Switch 2 players are having issues downloading Mario Kart World, and the Xbox Game Pass June wave 1 titles were revealed.
Are these updates enough to convince you to purchase Rematch? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Forums.
