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UFL
UFL Gamereactor Interview Part I: The current state of the F2P football game and the upcoming PC version
Our David Caballero sat down with Alexander Bogomolskiy, Head of Publishing at Strikerz Inc, to talk all things UFL in a lengthy 3-part interview. Here's the first part, about the 0.62 update, dedicated clusters, gameplay feeling, and PC version.
Audio transcription
"Hi, Gamereactor friends! As you know I'm a huge football fan and I've been playing EA FC and eFootball which were called FIFA and PES back in the day, for many many years but ever since last year there is a new contender that it's been proved to be very interesting for many fans that is called UFL and here I am joined by Alexander, thank you so much for joining us, from Strikerz Inc. which is gonna tell us all about UFL so thanks a lot Alexander, how are you doing?
Doing great thank you. So UFL as I said you know it had some previous versions during 2024 and then in December it got a big important upgrade and since then it's a more finalized product so what can you share with fans they can play and enjoy from UFL as it is right now?
Oh speaking of the game in its current stage It is a fully released game."
"Basically, it means that you can download the game and play the game for free without any issues, without any reasons to find a code, to pay for the game, or to do whatever.
You just look for the UFL or look for any football game in the platform store."
"Then you just download the game.
Then you press play.
You create your club and you play.
And the game is fully available for everybody who is willing to try it."
"On which platforms as of now?
As of now, we are available at PlayStation 5, PS5 Pro as well, and Xbox X and Xbox S.
So basically, it's the latest console generation."
"And soon we are going to be available on PC.
Just this week, we are going to start a small, closed alpha on Steam PC.
But you know, when it is alpha, soon it is beta.
And hopefully, we will soon deliver the game to any PC enthusiast who is willing to play our game."
"What can the PC users expect in terms of, you know, similarities with the console version?
Is it going to be the exact same version?
Are you guys planning to update it together from now on?
Or what can you tell us about that?
Yeah, this is going to be absolutely the same version with no addition to gameplay, to content or whatsoever to anything."
"So basically, it will be the same game.
It will even look the same as the Xbox version.
The only difference is that players will also have options to control the game using a mouse and keyboard.
Oh, wow, okay, okay, interesting for a football game."
"So now that you mentioned gameplay, what can you tell me about the gameplay?
How it feels, controller in hand, compared to the aforementioned EA FC and eFootball?
What can fans expect to feel from UFL gameplay?
Well, basically, it is, I can be sure with the answer of what our developers and what we as a team are going to achieve, trying to achieve."
"We are trying to achieve a seamless, very, very comfortable, very easy to control gameplay, which is either similar or slightly different from already existing titles on the market.
Basically, this is our goal.
And we are moving to this goal every update after update."
"Well, it might be too enthusiastic or too, you know, blunt to say that we are, we have already achieved this point.
We are moving to that and there are still some, there are still some peculiarities in which we feel that there is great room for improvement."
"But anyway, we are, we have already presented the game, which is playable, which is playable and fun to play in online player versus player game mode, which is played only on dedicated clusters.
Which is, and thus, it is almost impossible to use any sort of cheats, any sorts of, any sorts of other, forbidden exploitable programs just because everything is controlled from the game server and it is not that much important for console play players but it will be very important for PC players and also we have already installed a lot of gaming clusters, distributed them across the world and virtually in every in every point of Earth, in every point when we expect to have many many customers we do have a gaming server and basically it means that we provide a very nice within 30 40 50 60 milliseconds latency ping for our players so that they don't suffer in absolute majority cases they do not experience connectivity troubles we have connectivity troubles less than 2% of our audience and the game is comfortably playable online which was our initial goal. Speaking of the..."
"Speaking of what kind of gameplay do we offer to our players, first of all it is the modern, latest game engine is Unreal Engine which allows us to have high quality of graphics which allows us to look modern. I'm not going to compare with other titles but in our opinion both in gameplay and in cut scenes we are not inferior to any of our counterparts so we prefer Epic Games to be a more counterparts, and maybe in some aspects we are even better, especially than some of them."
"Speaking of controls and control responses, we believe that we improve the game in this specific aspect every update. Currently, the game is not reported to be laggy. Currently, the game is not reported to be with slow response. We used to receive such reports during alpha stage, but we have already overcome this issue. We also provide a very stable game client with very occasional chance, very occasional chance of a game crash. Crashes occur very rarely, rarely, extremely rarely. Less than 1% of all gaming sessions occur with crash and usually there are multiple reasons for that. Not only the game, but the console, the player's console, the conditions of the network..."
"So, basically, we are also able to provide stable, reliable and, once again, only online working game client, working through game clusters.
Speaking of the feelings of the players who play, I mean, the passes, they're receiving the ball, dribbling, kicks, various versions of kicks, various versions of logics, the AI assistance in the game, assistance in defense, AI assistance in attack."
"Well, we do improve the game from update to update. Usually, we have a major update every six or every eight weeks with significant improvements in terms of controls, in terms of AI, in terms of...
logics, in terms of animations, in terms of scenarios of cutscenes and so on."
"The next update will happen the day after tomorrow, on Thursday, on the 15th of March.
But it means that this is, you know, the road to horizon because we have to improve the game version after version, month after month. And as soon as we are either satisfied with the current state of the game or if, in case we are not satisfied with the current state of the game in some of the aspects we are pretty sure, we're pretty sure that in a month or two or three or four these aspects will be improved and we will have more animations, we will have more scenarios, we will have more game modes and so on and so on. So, the best feature of our game is that it is constantly being developed. The best feature of our game is that it is constantly being developed."
"In all the aspects.
Out of curiosity, how do you control the game with mouse and keyboard?
I found that to be very interesting and unique.
Does it give you more strategic options, for example, or do you use a pointer?
How do you control it?
We haven't released the game on PC yet."
"So the game is not released on PC.
Other football games can also be controlled via mouse or keyboard.
Maybe it's a matter of getting used to, or maybe it's a matter of tradition.
But on PC, some portion of PC players, they tend to play using these controllers."
"And we haven't invented bicycle.
The controllers.
They're pretty much the same as in the other football games.
And yeah, we just use the keyboard button as an alternative to joystick buttons."
"And we use the mouse axis as an alternative to joystick axis.
Basically, that's all.
I understand.
Okay, okay, interesting."
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