Development Update 3/12/25 - Announcer, Portraits, & Onside Kicks

Hi Folks,

I hope everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of winter, as we anticipate the weather warming up! It's been a couple months since our last update, and I'm excited to share what we've been working on!

New Player Portraits

For the past few years, the player portraits in Axis Football were generated from a 3D modeling software that simply wasn't capable of producing photorealistic images. The portraits were serviceable, but not great to look at and failed to deliver the simulation quality we strive for. We are happy to announce that Axis Football 2026 will feature over 1,000 brand new, photorealistic player portraits. This is a small change that adds a surprising boost to immersion and realism. The 1,000+ portraits will be divided between five different skin color / races, then further divided into smaller and larger player types. That means that portraits of smaller players will only be applied to players with weights on the lower end and vice-versa.

New Announcer

Several years ago, we implemented an ambitious announcing system that featured the legendary voice of Terry McGovern. The performance of the voice talent was great, but the way we set up the system often resulted in segmented, robotic, or unnatural sounding commentary. We are aware of what we did wrong, and we know what we did right. So, it is with that in mind that we set out to completely revamp the entire announcing system in Axis Football 2026. This includes writing, recording, and editing a brand new announcing script that has been updated to include all of the features that we have added over the years. We will be leaning heavily on the talents of our amazing audio engineer, Nick, who has already elevated the crowd audio to an unbelievable standard. We will also be utilizing a new announcing voice: Andy McNamara, who has been working with us for a number of years help to announce live eSports and Sim League events. At this point, we have completed about a 25% of the script, and the audio quality, delivery, and implementation are already a noticeable improvement.  We will continue to update and post samples as they become available.

Onside Kicks & Kickoff Conversions

Outside of the NFL's infamous "Tush Push," the onside kick is probably the most controversial play in modern football. Many fans have called for its removal altogether, and several spring leagues (XFL, USFL, and the current UFL) provide conversion alternatives to the kick. In previous Axis Football titles, we offered the option to select onside kicks, but in all transparency, the play never looked good and was difficulty to convert - even more difficult than the actual onside kick. As we looked at process for improving the existing onside kick in Axis Football, we also considered the alternatives and spoke with many community members to get their feedback. Historically and as a general rule, our approach to potentially adding replacement features like this is to offer both and give users the option of which to use. However, after taking everything into consideration, we decided to deviate from precedence due to overwhelmingly consistent feedback and various other factors. With all that said, Axis Football 2026 will not offer onside kicks. Instead, teams will have the option to attempt a kickoff conversion. This option will be available following the PAT and will only be offered to teams that are losing in the fourth quarter. Teams selecting the kickoff conversion option will need to convert 4th & 12 from their own 28 yard line.  Internal testing, combined with data and feedback from professional leagues that utilize this type of kickoff conversion, all indicate that this option is much preferable to the traditional onside kick. We love it, and we think you're going to love it, too!

Beta Gameplay Footage

We know everyone is eager to get their hands on the beta version of Axis Football 2026. While we aren't quite ready to begin testing, we did want to share some of the footage we captured from our internal testing. The video is available on the Axis Football 2026 store page!

If these updates have you excited for Axis Football 2026, please go ahead and add it to your wish list!

Discord: https://discord.gg/YFuF9TSZKV
Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/axisfootball?lang=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AxisGames/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theaxisfootball/

Best,

Danny Jugan
Founder & Lead Developer, Axis Games