Football in
miniature.
A top-down football game built like a model stadium: every player animated by hand in Blender, every pass and sprint tuned against real match data. Pick up a pad and play in seconds.
One match. Four nations. Free.
Real countries with fictional players, plain kits in national colours, and a match that goes to penalties if it ends level. Play the CPU, a friend on the same screen, or sit back and watch the CPU play itself.
No download and no account. Open it in a browser and kick off.
Easy to pick up. Hard to master.
Daylight or under the lights
Play a bright afternoon match or a floodlit night game. Under the floodlights the stands fall dark, the pitch glows, and every player throws four soft shadows, one from each pylon.
- Hand-animated players with real strides, headers and dives
- Circular, striped and checkerboard mowing patterns
- Rain and wet pitches that change how the ball runs
Manage it at half-time
The half-time team talk shows your eleven and the bench on one sheet: energy, cards, fouls and goals for every player. Click to swap, change formation and set your mentality before the second half.
- Tired players flagged before they cost you
- 4-3-3, 4-4-2 or 3-5-2, switched in a click
- Works with a controller as well as the mouse
A CPU that plays the English way
CPU teams build from the back, keep the ball, switch play when a side gets crowded and press to win it back. Three difficulty levels, from a relaxed kickabout to a side that punishes every loose touch.
- Positional play: width, half-spaces and runs in behind
- Quick corners, free kicks and throw-ins when the other team isn't ready
- Referee, cards and added time that follow the Laws of the Game
Tuned against real matches
We measured seven Bundesliga matches, tracked 25 times a second, and tuned the game against them: how players move, how the ball travels, how teams hold their shape and which pass a real player picks.
Real player and ball tracking from DFL match data, used to set how players walk, jog, sprint and turn.
of real passes stay on the ground. The CPU plays it on the floor too, and lofts it only when it has to.
The pass model picks the real receiver 44% of the time, twice as often as the game's first attempt did.
The demo is the first half
Essential Soccer demo
One free 3-minute match between England, France, Spain and Brazil, in your browser. Play it, tell your friends, and help shape the full game.
Essential Soccer: the full game
- Leagues, cups and a full career with your own club
- Squads, transfers and players who grow with every match
- Online matches against friends
- Browser and macOS, with more platforms to follow
Be first on the pitch
Join the mailing list for the full release date, new builds of the demo and the occasional behind-the-scenes look. No spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Before kick-off
Yes. The demo is free to play in any modern browser, with no account and no download.
A keyboard, a controller or a touch screen. Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox all work.
The demo uses real countries with fictional players and plain kits in national colours. It isn't affiliated with any football association.
It's in development now. Join the mailing list and you'll hear the release date first.
Yes. A native macOS app for Apple Silicon is being tested alongside the browser version.
Essential Soccer is made by Cirracloud, an independent studio in Wiltshire, England.