Today, the remote-first triple-A game studio GOALS revealed that it had raised $20 million in Series A funding for its upcoming free-to-play cross-play football game for PC and consoles.
Andreas Thorstensson, a former Counter-Strike World Champion, started GOALS in Stockholm, Sweden, two years ago. Since then, he has raised a total of $39 million in funding and hired more than 50 veteran developers who have worked on games like FIFA, Battlefield, Madden, and other triple-A franchises. The company wants to hire up to 75 more developers to speed up the making of the game, which aims to change the genre with fast, smooth gameplay instead of realism. Not surprisingly, multiplayer and eSports have always been important.
GOALS is more about how football makes you feel than how it looks on TV. We want you to feel like you’re the winner. But it’s up to you how you win. The football field is just one part of this game.
Like football, GOALS is more fun with other people. We’re building everything around making it easy to play with other people. Push the start button, and you’re ready to go.
GOALS is a true esports game with multiple players. The code is made from the ground up. We want to make sure that your time online goes smoothly, with as little lag, latency, and button delay as possible.
There is a good AI, but no one ever noticed it. We use it to help, but that’s about it. In GOALS, you and your fellow people do most of the work.
Everyone can play GOALS, so we have computers all over the world. Not only where the majority of players live. Gameplay is always more important than graphics, so the game should run well on any link that’s halfway good.
The developers have stated that there will be regular matches for up to 2v2 (versus or co-op) people, as well as a separate 5v5 mode where each player is controlled by a real user. GOALS is still in Pre-Alpha playtesting, so the release date is probably still a long way off. However, you can sign up for the testing stages here.
This is just one of many upcoming football games that will shake up the market. Electronic Arts left the FIFA brand to make EA SPORTS FC, while FIFA is looking for a developer to make a new version of the legally licensed game. Konami is always working on eFootball, and UFL is a more direct rival to GOALS. This free-to-play game will come out later this year, according to a tweet from the game’s official account today.