Rematch Player Count Plunges On Steam After Strong Launch

Rematch has suffered a sharp decline in active players on Steam just weeks after launch, with data pointing to a loss of more than 90 percent of its initial audience. The figures place renewed focus on Sloclap’s ability to sustain an online competitive game without the scale or infrastructure of a major live-service publisher.

At launch, Rematch recorded a peak of 92,841 concurrent players on Steam. According to SteamDB, the game now struggles to reach 5,000 concurrent users on the platform. The drop represents a fall of over 90 percent from its launch high. The decline is even more pronounced when compared to the game’s free beta-test, which attracted roughly double the launch audience based on early tracking figures.

Rematch isn’t a classic football game, and that design choice has defined both its appeal and its problems. The game was not built to mirror traditional broadcast-style football or licensed simulation. Sloclap has acknowledged that neither its developers nor much of its player base are deeply invested in football as a sport. That distance shaped a fast, physical five-a-side experience that feels closer to informal street matches than to structured league play. The result was an online sports title that hooked players through momentum, improvisation, and constant player control rather than tactics boards or licensed realism.

For some players, that novelty did not last. Netcode and desynchronization issues emerged soon after release, a serious problem in a game dependent on precise timing and spatial control. Jack Coleman from The Gamer notes that while these issues have improved since launch, early instability likely pushed players away before fixes arrived. In competitive online games, first impressions often decide whether players stay.

“I was very excited about Rematch during the game's beta and subsequent release.”

“Sloclap's unique take on the football genre was refreshing, feeling far closer to playing an actual 5-a-side than something like EA FC.”— Jack Coleman

Mechanical quirks also contributed to frustration. The physics-driven engine, particularly the way players interact with the ball and collide with each other, enabled a set of advanced techniques with limited counterplay. While technically skill-based, their execution often appeared erratic. Players on the receiving end described the experience as feeling closer to being hit by a bug than outplayed by an opponent.

The ranked system has drawn additional criticism. Rematch does not use a traditional hidden matchmaking rating. Players across ranks can be placed in the same matches, meaning progression reflects time invested more than demonstrated skill. As ranks lose their function as a measure of improvement, competitive motivation weakens. For many players, ranked play became a grind without clear rewards.

Sloclap’s size has also shaped the game’s trajectory. As an independent studio, it lacks the staffing and financial depth of large live-service developers. Feature rollouts have been slow, and bugs have taken longer to resolve. Early goodwill can carry a game through its launch window, but extended gaps between updates tend to erode engagement, especially in multiplayer titles competing for attention.

“After pouring dozens of hours into the game, I gradually stopped playing Rematch,” he wrote, adding that a brief look at SteamDB suggested most of the player base had done the same.

Despite the numbers, the core design is still widely regarded as strong. The moment-to-moment play remains distinctive, and few football games have captured the chaos and immediacy of small-sided matches as effectively. That strength makes the scale of the decline more striking.

Whether Rematch can recover remains uncertain. Player revivals are not impossible, but they usually require substantial overhauls, consistent updates, and renewed marketing pushes. For a studio of Sloclap’s size, sustaining that effort may prove difficult. As it stands, Rematch serves as another example of how quickly momentum can fade in the crowded online sports space, even when a game launches with attention, enthusiasm, and a clear identity.