Any British footy fan worth their season ticket will remember the good old days of Sensible Soccer. It was the pinnacle of football games back in the day and dads up and down the length of Britain were constantly fighting off their kids from the computer. This author fondly remembers being told never to touch the in-house computer “because pressing the wrong button would start a war.” Classy man, my dad. (Read: Bastard.)
The series was a hit in the early 90’s but its success waned as technologically advanced hardware became available and 3D graphics became the norm. See, Sensible Soccer was simple in that it was played overhead in the view of the bird’s eye. [Ed: You mean bird’s-eye-view?]
The controls were simple, the graphics were simple but the gameplay was incredibly fun. That fun is coming back thanks to the series’ creator Jon Hare who is looking to re-ignite that fire once again, this time on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. However, we won’t be playing Sensible Soccer, we’ll be playing ‘Sociable Soccer’. Probably something to do with licenses and laws and all that stuff – we’re not sure, nor do we care, we just want more of that good old footy fun.
The game is being developed for the next-gen machines and PC and has a target release date of December, 2016. It’s still some time away from fruition, then, and there’s a Kickstarter campaign going through the motions to try and raise some cash to help with the development costs. It has a modest goal of £300,000 and another 29 days to reach it. You can pledge your support here.
Sociable Soccer is being developed by a team of developer who’ve previously worked on some pretty big-name games that include the likes of Mad Max and Alan Wake – though don’t expect to be kicking arse and taking names. (Bonus feature, perhaps?)