gamescom 2017 Preview: Football Empire

At gamescom 2017, I had the chance to briefly check out Football Empire, a mobile management game that puts you in full control of your very own soccer club. Made by Digamore and soon entering beta, Football Empire aims to be almost a sport themed version of SimCity.

Unlike Football Manager, you're responsible for every aspect of club management, not only team management -- from facilities to the stadium, from finances to player salaries, all runs under your screen-tapping finger. Building up the team allows you to play matches against the AI in various leagues all the way to a World Cup, and the club ground is where everything starts.

You select what is built and where, designing the whole space to your liking and upgrading buildings when the time comes. Football fields go from small backwater pitches to huge fortress-like stadiums, quickly growing in size and capacity until they seat hundreds of thousands of spectators.

As you build up admin areas, fitness centers, and recovery facilities, your team gets access to training and better items that lead to better performance. As it makes its way up the leagues all the way to the World Cup, you continue to gain money and invest in the club’s growth, eventually becoming a veritable (and eponymous) Football Empire. In a smart move, you can also play against friends and players from across the world through the internet in unsynced matches, though you must sign up to a scheduled game within 24 hours or lose by WO.

Team management involves choosing strategies for use on the grass, both regarding your own roster and the opponent’s. You get to choose team members items and training regiment in order to affect their stats, but must also keep an eye on their fatigue -- if playing multiple matches in a short time, your players will sometimes need to sit out and stay in the training grounds, or risk injury.

I’ve only seen about 10 minutes of Football Empire, but it did seem to be an interesting title -- it feels like a mix of SimCity and Football Manager, which is a winning combination for some folks out there. I myself have very little interest in soccer, but I definitely want to check out Football Empire at some point. If you do too, you can do it here.