Summary
Rematch’s recent beta was an incredible success, peaking at a concurrent player count ofalmost 160,000 players on Steam. That’s in addition to console players, who were able to play Rematch for the first time. According to Sloclap, over 1.8 million unique players participated in the beta.
The player numbers prove that Rematch has the potential to be a multiplayer success story, but a couple of lingering issues have continued to frustrate the budding community. Rematch’s major issues are almost exclusively tied to network performance.
Network Issues Are Constantly Worked On
Rematch’s beta tests haven’t been the most stable, to say the least. A disconnect or two was commonplace before most matches, and if someone who did connect had a poor internet connection, you could expect a fair amount of desync and rubber-banding, something that’s particularly annoying in a game designed around positioning and precise inputs.
Sloclap addressed these issues ina post on the game’s website.
“Obviously, players need decent internet connections to play the game in good conditions, but in some cases, even players with low latency were seeing these problems,” the post begins. “This is a critical point of focus for us, our servers are running at 60fps to ensure the best quality possible, and we are constantly working on netcode improvements - we have already implemented several server optimisations which should improve network issues.”
The post continues, “We are also working on another fix to improve desyncs - the worst case when you’re playing as goalkeeper, making a perfect catch, only to have a goal scored on you because of a conflict with the server. This fix is making good progress and should be solved for launch. We will be monitoring this extremely closely and aim to keep improving netcode throughout live development.”
Sloclap also stresses that the team is quite small compared to the “giants making multiplayer games”, but they are working very hard to ensure a “high frequency of updates.”
Rematch won’t be completely finished at launch as Sloclap is committed to further developing the game post-release.
Rematch releases June 19 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. If you pre-purchase the Elite or Pro editions of the game then you will receive “advanced access” to the game three days before the official release.
