Hands-On With Wild Card Football, A Gridiron Game That Draws Inspiration From Mario Kart

Since the early 21st Century, NFL fans have only had a few options when it came to officially licensed football video games. EA Sports Madden NFL has been exclusive to the NFL since 2004. It includes all of its players, teams, and stadiums. This led to the closing of several franchises including the NFL 2K competitive series and the arcade-focused NFL Blitz (which EA acquired in 2011). The recently announced Wild Card Football from Saber Interactive, part of the Playgrounds franchise, hopes to smash through the established line to give players a fresh 7-on-7 arcade-facing take on the sport starring their favorite players.

Wild Card Football does not hold the NFLPA’s license. This means the teams and stadiums of the National Football League aren’t present, but many of its biggest stars are. As I browse through the available teams, I see this for myself. The in-game teams are centered around the quarterbacks, with Team Mahomes, Team Burrow, and a squad built around this game’s cover star, Team Kaepernick. Dream Squad allows you to create your own squad. This mode lets you customize the roster, playbook and uniforms of your team and unlock rewards. 

The build I’m playing is an early one, and the developers explain there are plenty more players that still need to get added, but we should expect more superstars and several of the most promising rookies to be added prior to launch – hundreds in total – with more arriving via post-launch updates. Jalen Watt, Justin Jefferson T.J. Watt Joey Bosa Ja’Marr chase Aaron Donald will all be there at the launch. Lamar Jackson is in there, according to the developers.

The hook to Wild Card Football, aside from the fast-paced arcade action, is the eponymous Wild Card mechanic. The deck contains a variety of gameplay and power-up cards. Each player draws cards from the hand. The cards range from basic cards, like ones that increase your passing accuracy this down or decrease your opponent’s catching skills for a play, to epic cards that summon tornados to take out anything in their path, UFOs that pick up players and move them around the field, and pinball-style bumpers that harshly repel anyone who runs into them.

You can also summon three rotating balls of electricity that immediately conjure images of the red shells in Mario Kart, or the most powerful card I saw, which grows your ballcarrier into an unstoppable giant for a short period of time – perfect for when you’re at the goal line trying to punch it into the endzone.

As the system works on an energy-based economy, you don’t have to worry about your players misusing these cards. More powerful cards cost more energy. The more energy you receive for a positive play for your team is based on how good the game was for the other side. You can find out more about this by clicking here. energy.

Wild Card Football, with its UFOs and tornadoes, is an arcade-style game. NFL Blitz players will enjoy the gameplay. Hard hits, excessive celebrations, and exaggerated proportions of the player are all part of this experience. 

Wild Card Football was a lot of fun to play. Though it took me a while to get the hang of the passing game – the receivers seem to deviate from their route to run upfield as soon as the QB releases the ball – the running game feels great. The juke, which is the strongest weapon outside of Wild Cards, opens up the lanes in a very effective way. Wild Card Football has a faster rate of play, and I feel that my Madden skills have adjusted. It’s not just that I like the new powerups, they also add a fresh twist to American Football.

Wild Card Football is a game that has potential. With its post-launch plan and card-based system, the name of the game, it can be a great experience for people who played games like NFL Blitz. It’s exciting to play the game once more to see if I can move some chains. This fall, the game will be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch.