Goals review-in-progress: A good start to a football hit prioritising gameplay

This free-to-play title is only just starting to find its feet and while it’s lacking the depth at the moment of the likes of FC 26 and eFootball it’s working hard to deliver a fun gameplay experience

Football gamers tend to either be an FC26 player or an eFootball user.

Both games are good to play but ultimately the king of the footballing castle has been EA Sport’s juggernaut for years now.

So it’s brave of anyone to step up with a completely new footie title to take on that FC behemoth and what was formerly the much-loved PES series, rebranded as the free-to-play eFootball.

The result is Goals, also free-to-play and on first look very similar in style to both of the above hits.

Makers in Stockholm, at the studio also known as Goals, hope they’ve delivered an easy-to-play, highly addictive game that breaks away from the formulas of other titles.

They promise their title will offer responsive gameplay without delays or excuses – a game built for football lovers willing to put in the hard yards to build a team over time that can dominate.

And they’re certainly on the right path.

This is fast fluid football, great fun and immediately reminded me of the old-school arcade style of soccer gameplay from the best of the Pro Evolution Soccer era before it went eFootball.

Balls pinging between players, great use of power metres over each character’s head to help with strength of ball when fine tuning, say, through-balls or lobs, and superb goals when connecting right for a shot.

Games are speedy and all the buttons you’re used to playing in FC26 are basically the same here, so you can literally jump in and instantly get to grips with the matches.

That’s a big bonus when you’re trying to pitch a free-to-play game to the masses who have short attention spans and no money invested in the game.

You can curl the ball when shooting by pressing the R1 trigger, that can produce some excellent goals from the edge of the box.

And it isn’t too hard to win back the ball in a defensive position as you’ll find jostling and tackling intuitive, while the referees are fairly relaxed around aggressive behaviour.

It’s fun to play, even though the character animations are fairly bog standard at launch and pitches themselves not as refined graphically as the FC series.

I’m a fan of having real players in a game, and this title will inevitably suffer when gamers – particularly young ones – realise you can’t star as a Saka or Kane, with all their likenesses intact.

The makers have done this on purpose.

They generate a unique team for you when you sign up.

Each member has different numbers to anyone else in the game and it’s on you, over time, to build your squad up into a world beater.

It’s a neat idea and plays into their desire for this to become a footballing home for eSports players.

But when more general players are used to endless game modes, tweaks and licences in EA FC titles, Goals does feel somewhat barebones compared.

Overall, this is a fun easy-to-play football game that doesn’t quite match up to the likes of FA FC26 graphically and in game depth.

One that footie lovers should definitely try out as it is free to play and well thought out.

It has a clear vision and roadmap for the future.

So hopefully as the months go by we’ll get more content and eSports players will take to it, which could spur on their fandoms to make this a success.

VERDICT 3/5