Ever since EA Sports’ Madden franchise bought the exclusive NFL rights, and the NCAA Football series had to shut down due to legal issues, there has been a big gap in football games on modern consoles.
Third party football games used to be rampant, the NFL 2k series was a lot of fun while it lasted, NFL Blitz hasn’t been made for years after trying to play without the NFL license, and even things like Mutant League Football were there to try and spice things up.
This summer, two new football games AFL (Aussie Rules) Evolution and Canadian Football 2017 aim to fill that void in different ways.
We’ll start with AFL Evolution, which is due out in less than a month after IGN confirmed last week that the game will launch on Friday, May 5.
The game will follow traditional Australian Football League rules, and will be a sim of the action that you see at 1 a.m. on FS2 when you can’t sleep on Saturday nights.
The game will have more than 80 teams, including all of them from the AFL, Victorian Football League and a couple other competitions.
The game is being made by Tru Blu Entertainment, who are the same folks behind other games like Rugby League Live and Don Bradman Cricket, and will feature create-a-player and create-a-team mode as well.
I’ll be honest, I’m really excited to try this game. If you have ever watched AFL on FS2 or really anywhere, you know it’s an action-packed game that features a ton of points and lots of hitting.
My only worry is AFL is kind of a free-for-all in real life, and I’m wondering how well that translate into a video game, and especially a video game that might be similar to Rugby, which has tried numerous times in the past to put out games, most of which were met with terrible reviews.
Still, if you’re a fan of Aussie Rules, you will probably never find a better representation of the game, I look forward to its release.
While Australians, or just AFL fans in general, will be getting an exact replica of their sport with full licensing, Canadian Football League fans will have to settle for a knock-off version.
Canadian Football 2017, set to release in June on Xbox One and then PS4 at a later date, will not have any CFL backing or licensing.
Three Down Nation at down with the game developers at Canuck Play, for a full Q&A about the game and all the details.
Now, not having the CFL branding or licensing is a big bummer, but it appears as if Canuck Studios will be doing all they can to give you as close to a CFL experience as they can without that branding. The game’s nine teams will all be in the cities that the current CFL teams are, just with different nicknames, jerseys, colors, etc.
And if you take a look at the screen shot above, and if you know the CFL at all, you’d instantly know that’s Montreal’s stadium, complete with the corners cut off in the end zone because of the track.
The game developers say the game will player closer to the style of the NCAA Football series rather than Madden, making it a faster, more free-flowing game that should be easy to pick up and play.
One major disappointment: A big time lack of game options, from that Three Down Nation story:
When making Canadian Football 2017 we really tried to stick to the KISS principle (Keep it simple, stupid). That’s why we’ll only be offering a quick play mode; you just pick two teams and play. It’s basic but if we had added other features like career mode, etc., we’d have needed much more development time. In the end we decided to spend our time on the core experience rather than trying to add a bunch of modes or trading card features. Perhaps in future versions we can add those options in.
So no CFL backing, no season, franchise or other modes has me skeptical about the viability of this game, but, if you’re a CFL fan looking for any sort of fix to play the Canadian version of the game, this looks like it will be your only option.
Price for the game is said to be around $15-$20.
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