WELCOME TO GOALS
Welcome to the new era! It’s time to drop the excuses and focus on what really matters here, football. It has been an incredible journey since our very first playtest, and the feedback we have received from you has been the driving force behind every change and new feature you are about to experience.
GAME FEATURES
Before we dive into the details, here is a breakdown of what you will find in GOALS at launch.
1v1 Ranked
Welcome to our competitive classic. Test your skills and climb the ranks in our 1v1 Ranked mode. Go from Rank 10 all the way to having your name marked in fire at the top of our Global Leaderboard. Be a name to remember in the history of GOALS.
1v1 Knockout
Our time-gated experience offers high stakes and high rewards. Climb all the way from Bronze to the top spot on the exclusive Knockout Leaderboard. The rewards just keep getting better as you move up! This is where you build your ultimate squad.
1v1 & Solo Tournaments
Bring the trophy home! Experience our tournament bracket system and fight your way to the final for some extra rewards. The Tournaments mode can be played against other players or solo against our AI.
1v1 Quickplay
Looking for a fast match or trying to unlock rewards from Challenges? Hop into 1v1 Quickplay to test your new tactics and formations, or simply take your skills to the next level. The choice is yours.
1v1 Friendly
Want to play a game with your friends or recreate a personal rivalry? How about a stress-free match to test out specific mechanics? Jump into our Friendly game mode and personalize your own experience!
Practice Game Mode
New to GOALS? We’ve got you covered. Hop into the Practice Scenarios and start building your fundamentals from the get-go; you will learn every aspect of our core mechanics. You can also hit the Practice Arena to master skill moves while you wait for a game. If you just want to relax after a long competitive day, you can play against our bots for a more laid-back experience.
WHAT'S NEW SINCE THE BETA
A lot has changed since the last beta playtest. Here is a breakdown of all the main systems we have implemented:
CORE & STABILITY
Lowered Minimum PC Specs
We have done massive optimization work for lower-end hardware, officially bringing our Steam Minimum Spec down to the Intel Pentium G2020.
If you are playing on an older PC or a laptop with integrated graphics, you will see a massive boost in performance. We re-optimized our pitch rendering, audio processing, and memory allocation so the game runs smoothly without sacrificing gameplay quality.
Dynamic Stadium Takeovers
Our stadiums are no longer static! We have implemented brand-new Stadium Takeover technology. Depending on active Live-Ops events, match sponsorships, or tournaments, the stadium will completely transform its visual identity in real-time.
Billboards, dynamic banners, and digital pitch-side ad boards will seamlessly update to reflect active campaigns, while the crowd dynamically reacts with matching flag displays and themed stadium effects to turn up the matchday energy.
Silky-Smooth Performance
Smoothed out recurring stutters on PS5 to ensure a consistent, fluid frame rate.
Banished random mid-match lag spikes and loading hitches by offloading background asset updates to separate threads.
Rock-Solid Connections
Re-architected our network handshakes to drastically reduce random disconnects (fixing those annoying connection errors).
Improved the game's bootflow. If the servers are ever undergoing maintenance, the game will now clearly tell you what is going on instead of getting stuck on a black loading screen.
Tighter Controls & Visual Polish
Added new advanced controller settings allowing you to fine-tune your input settings for the most responsive feel possible.
Patched visually distracting issues, including shimmering shadows in the Arena and pixelated player faces.
GAMEPLAY
Improved ball trajectories for shooting, dribbling, passing, crossing, and throw-ins.
Increased shooting accuracy from short range and decreased shooting accuracy from long range
Removed additional dispersion penalty on loaded shots
Lowered impact of weak foot stat on shot power
Solved an exploit with low chip shots from a particular distance/angle
Increased difference in min. touch length for contextual sprint dribbling based on the sprin dribbling stat, i. e. how much the touch can be brought in when the dribbler in under threat from an opponent.
Improved pass receiver selection
Improved cross and low cross pass targeting
Tweaked ground pass and through pass speeds to be more consistent
Increased dispersion on first-time lofted passed and lofted through passes
Introduced a max speed cap for all pass types when played at a high angle, with the lowest max speed at 180 degrees
Tweaked pass header trajectories to be higher to give defenders a better chance to react
Improved through pass targeting and increased the relevance of the through pass stat - more targets available for higher stat.
Improved pre-trap behavior to ensure players more consistently trap the ball with momentum
Balancing of the interceptions logic - max stretch interception radius and interception reaction times based on the interception stat.
Solved cases of too aggressive lock-on on air balls
Player switching logic improvements
Increased dispersion on shooting headers from all distances
Solved cases of excessive pass speeds when no receiver was found
Tweaked free kick and penalty cameras to give better vision
Balanced trap cooldowns to give more importance to the first-touch stat
Tweaked driven pass speeds
Increased goalkeeper aggressiveness on rush-outs
Improved player positioning on corners, including logic for player marking assignments and supporting player at the corner flag.
Increased max jockey and sprint jockey speeds
Increased stand tackle max lunge distance
Improved free kick trajectories and ball spin
Adjusted min. pulse rate and min. dispersion for free kicks
Improved goalkeeper positioning on free kicks
Balanced free kick speeds to better align with normal shooting
Improved skill move input detection
Solved cases of unintended speeds ups during skill moves due to aligning with a ball that was out of reach
Lowered touch cooldown on exit touches for fake shots
Removed acceleration boost on exit touch for fake shots
Lowered body feint execution time
Lowered stepovers max acceleration boost based on the skills stat
Improved ball roll angles and touch timings
Improved Elástico and Reverse Elástico ball trajectories
Solved cases of undesired speed loss during skill move execution - stepovers, fake shots, and body feints
Lowered min. slide tackle distance based on the slide tackle stat
Lowered on-ball player max speed penalty from 0-5% to 5-10% based on the sprint dribbling stat
Introduced an agility multiplier based on player height between 0.9-1, meaning tall players multiply the agility stat down slightly. Only comes into effect on-ball.
Introduced a max speed cap for first 1.5s of a triggered run to give defenders an opprtunity to react to the run
Improved blocking logic and directions to avoid too many rebound goals
Improved a player’s ability to protect the ball from auto-tackles from behind
Improved physical tackles and increased the relevance of the strength and balance stats
Iterated on the air-duels system
Improved bot behavior in bot games, including the addition of bots being able to perform skill moves when appropriate.
Various bug and polish fixes
AI & BEHAVIOR
Defensive AI
Improved marking algorithm for more robust defending and better mimicking of user intent.
Improved urgency system so defenders choose the appropriate speed to conserve stamina
Improved hand-off between defenders so it opponents are marked and tracked better
Improved tracking and let defenders automatically reduce the tracking distance to their ideal tracking distance
Improved offside traps
Defensive IQ stat now affects the quality of marking and tracking
Reduce cases of preemptive fallback of the defense line
Improve cases where midfielders help outnumbered defenders
Offensive AI:
Fully reworked offensive AI run detection and run adjustment
Introduced a new algorithm for ball supporters to reduce overall motion but give greatly improved passing oppurtunities
Reduce overall unnecessary movement and sprinting to conserve stamina
Add more animation telegraphing to tell the user what the AI's intent is
Make all teammates more aware of passing lanes and opportunities
Make teammates more aware of gaps in the defense or when claiming space is valuable
Increase attacking buildup smoothness
Improve effect of build up setting in the game plan
Improve the effects of existing special roles and mentalities
Teammates now keep up better with faster attacks or solo-dribbles
ANIMATIONS
Animation Polish: Player and goalkeeper locomotion, Headers, Dribbling starts and stops, goal celebrations, goalkeeper saves, slide tackles
Re-animation: Shot animations (power shots and finesse shots), set pieces (passes and run-ups), cross passes
Animation overhaul: Traps, front end animations (lobby screen, player upgrade screen, kit selection screen), Skill moves (Body feint, Berba Spin, McGready Spin, Elastico, step-overs, ball rolls)
Added animations: Player jumping over keeper to evade eating turf, added more keeper saves, added passing coverage
A plethora of bug fixes in movement, alignment, and recovery after actions have been performed.
UI/UX
Added a new way to manage player upgrades directly from the Main Menu.
Players potential rating can now be seen directly on the Details screen and on the player cards is many screens.
Added the ability to convert players to Legends once they finish their career journey, making them permanent members of your Club.
Added the ability to Quick Chat in-game by using the d-pad or arrow keys.
Added the ability to mark players in your Collection as favorites, making it easier to remember who your upcoming stars are.
A new End of Match flow includes queueing up for you next match and claiming completed challenges without having to exit to the Menu.
The Collection flow now handles more robust in navigation, including managing filters.
Many screens have received a lots of visual love to make the game truly shine.