For many, myself included, football (occasionally called soccer in select regions of the world) is less a game, and more an intrinsic ritual firmly embedded in everyday life. If anything’s certain in this world, it’s death, taxes, and Arsenal losing on a mild Monday evening. However, outside of the excellent solo experience of Football Manager Mobile 2017 ($8.99), or the better forgotten free-to-play experiment that was last year’s FIFA Mobile (Free), there hasn’t been a true online soccer simulator that can help hasten the agonising wait between match days. Gameday Live, from BAFTA-winning developers Stuart Reid and Stuart Anderson at Digital Sports Arena, is looking to remedy this issue, and has turned the art of football management into what they describe as a Clash Royale (Free)-esque real time online simulator. Having soft launched in Australia, Canada and Holland back in 2016, Gameday Live is approaching its global launch in the coming months, and an official trailer gives us a good look at what to expect from this groundbreaking football title when it kicks off around the globe.
From the details that can be gleamed from the upcoming release’s website, it appears Gameday Live takes a slightly diluted version of the tactical intricacy from the Football Manager series, and merges it with the marketplace mayhem of the Ultimate Team mode on FIFA. Through selecting specific tactics – both before a match and real-time during the big game – and drafting players from a database of thousands of possible recruits, Gameday Live lets you assimilate the life of a leading football manager as you climb up the leaderboards and try to become the number one coach in the world. While a lack of licenses is painfully evident, Digital Sports Arena have compensated by promising constantly updating stats based on the real world performance of players, which serves to reward players who can put down the game for long enough to watch a real life football match. If Gameday Live can capture a significant player base when it launches worldwide in the coming months, it could be the online football title that the App Store has been crying out for, and so I’m incredibly excited to see if this promise is fulfilled. If you’re in the aforementioned soft launch regions, download Gameday Live now on the App Store, or use our soft launch guide to download the game early if you simply cannot wait to get your 3-5-2 on.
