Rebellion reveal a new Speedball with a surprise Steam Early Access launch

thesixthaxis.com:

Rebellion games have revived a British gaming institution, launching a brand new Speedball into Steam Early Access today! The game has a 12-month roadmap planned out, with a full 1.0 launch coming at the end of this path.

Rebellion’s Speedball will take the core idea of the game series and give it a modern look and feel. This is still a no-holds-barred amped up blend of American Football, Rugby and Football, with thrown passing between players, blood-spilling takedowns and no sign of a referee, whistle or flag in sight. You can take advantage of the specific arenas with various traps and scenery to try and get the advantage.

The Early Access release will feature arcade matches, with play against AI complimented with both online and local multiplayer. There’s plenty to come, though, with a team management and draft system, player and manager progression, Career Mode, skill-based matchmaking and leaderboards, new cosmetics, skins and arenas and more set to be fed into the game over the coming year.

We just hope there’s the rapid hip-wiggling celebration.

A brutal future sport that puts as much emphasis into beating the ever-loving crap out of your opponents as it does actually scoring goals, Speedball first launched in 1988. A bit like Street Fighter, though, it’s Speedball 2 that everyone actually remembers. That was the game that was ported and remade half a dozen times over the years, whether it was a 3D graphics remake for PlayStation, a more contemporary Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe for Xbox Live Arcade, or the traditional Speedball 2 HD which arrived on Steam over a decade ago now. Rebellion acquired the Bitmap Brothers back catalogue in 2019, with this new take on Speedball one of the first fruits of that acquisition.