Cristiano Ronaldo's backing, rivalling EAFC and 'fair-to-play' - how UFL plan to make a splash in the world of football gaming

Deciding to build a football title from scratch doesn't come about overnight. Nashilov was very clear that the universe needed aligning in a certain way in order for UFL to come to fruition.

"It's a mixture of our shared love for football and a business opportunity, I think that'd be the most honest answer I could give," he replied when asked about the inspiration behind UFL. "I have personally been in games for quite a lot of time, and I never thought my career would take me to an opportunity of working on a football simulation title.

"I've been playing football since academy level and [playing] the competitors' games back [since] 1996 or 1998, I was eight at the time. I think it's these two things. We as users, not developers as we are now, we've played these games and at some point in time we've felt that nothing is changing, and games in other genres are changing. Shooter games, action games, business models change and things just change.

"The competition between our main competitors at the time became mainly a competition of licensing. So we kind of felt with our background in games we could bring some fresh ideas, gameplay-wise, business model-wise. That was the starting point, I think."

The two overriding messages from speaking to Nashilov - both over Zoom and at UFL's launch party in London - are emphasis on community and the 'fair-to-play' aspect of the game. Again, there has been enough scope for a dedicated publisher to make their mark in this area.

"[UFL] is more like a Fortnite-slash-League Of Legends model where the game is free to play, easy to access any time," Nashilov continued. "There is a seasonality to the game, but you can basically start at any time and this won't be a serious disadvantage to the others because we have a matchmaking system and league system to make the opponent closer to you, your skill level and the power your team has.

"On top of that, we are doing extensive live-ops, meaning we are not any old product, we don’t have to prepare updates annually. We will be doing a lot of regular updates on a monthly or bi-monthly basis, with battle passes which we call team passes, with collaborative stuff with brands and big personalities in sport, in football, in media, with influencers. We’ll be adding new modes all the time, playing with them, removing and working that out.

"We are very community driven, that was one of the key points since day one. We ourselves were the community at some point in time, though that’s slightly less true now because we’re developing it. Still, we have a very close connection, a cool Discord community, trying to be active on our socials, doing surveys, so as to stay in touch with the audience. Their visions and desires are how this can be.

"UFL is basically designed to expand into a new experience, there are some very much awaited. For example, offline modes, we are working on these too. But in the general sense, if you look at the core product of UFL right now, this is the product where you create your own virtual club, you get yourself a basic set of players from the game, and so you start working on your team, going through the ladder."

Loot boxes - purchasing something in-game which spawns a random item - have been a topic of controversy for several years now, particularly in the UK where they have been likened to gambling but aren't covered by gambling regulations.

Beyond legality, there is also a moral concern, particularly with video games so popular among adolescents. UFL will not promote loot boxes, rather focusing players on improving their teams organically.

"Through playing, you earn resources and you can spend these resources to get yourself players on the team," Nashilov said. "So if we speak about the business part, you won't have to get players through loot boxes in the game as it is in the other titles. In our case, you can earn enough resources to get yourself any player.

"There’s a certain grind element, where you have to grind for Cristiano or Lionel Messi. It takes time. That's a slightly different angle at the operation model of the game. We don't have player copies like they exist in other games, where they have Ronaldo 90 [overall rating], then 91, 92, 93 and up to 99. It's the only Ronaldo.

"You get yourself a player and it’s up to you how you do with him because players are upgradable. So you can choose for example to take a not-very star team with mediocre players, around 75s, basic parameters, and get them to 90s. Or you can go with another approach where you don’t upgrade these, but you earn and collect money to try to get the best players out there. You can mix them, it’s up to you.

"On top of all that, we have a skin system in the game which is different from anything you see from competitors. The skin system is somewhat inspired by the sticker albums we had as kids. You can apply different skins to your players and it'll amplify how they play, it can change their visuals, add some perks, and combinations of perks can also give you additional bonuses in the game."

Ronaldo agreed in 2021 to become an ambassador of UFL, before then deciding to invest in the project too in 2023. For Nashilov, this was a massive personal achievement as well as a professional one.

He said: "Let me start with this - I'm a Cristiano Ronaldo fan personally. He has inspired me a lot since I was a kid, I think starting when he moved from Sporting to Manchester United. I never believed this could ever happen, that we could work together

"But when we came to the moment where we understood we need to find the results, the brand ambassador for the game, the main one we started looking for who we could approach. Obviously, we wanted to have the best you can have, and so we reached out to him and his representatives. We have been pitching the game to them, it had a lot of stages, we've been working on this deal for I think around a year, so it was not like we bumped in and it happened.

"We were nobodies, an unknown brand, it was complicated to convince his guys and him personally, but we really wanted to do this and I think he also saw the perspective with what we're trying to bring to the market.

"That's how we made the first deal, which was an ambassador deal, and then we started working together. There's a lot of cooperation with him and his team, which happens on a regular basis. We're in contact and having a number of things happen. Great things are going to come to the game further on, I can’t disclose but we’re working on many things. And of course it’s just so great to have him, he’s so inspiring and he’s very supportive, he’s helping us and never been reluctant to help. He’s just a great personality and a role model to many of us who love football. To me, this has always been one of the greatest milestones we’ve achieved so far. We’ve been together for some time, I think three years now already, and at some point in time we were going through investment rounds into Strikerz Inc, we need investments to bring up the product, and we felt like we had to offer it to him, we felt it would be a good opportunity.

"We didn't know what would be the reaction, but it was very positively received, he liked the concept and he just joined us. I think the second step, the investment, was even easier than the first one a few years before."

Ronaldo is one of four key football faces promoting UFL, joined by Manchester City's Kevin De Bruyne, Arsenal's Oleksandr Zinchenko and Al-Ahli's Roberto Firmino. However, the involvement of Ronaldo was not actually that much of a difference-maker in getting the players on board, rather further investors.

"I think it was not easier for us pitching to other players, but definitely related to big companies and brands," Nashilov admitted. "Cristiano is the ultimate 'clarificator' of everything football-wise."

Nashilov was also determined not to sanction UFL's release until their vision was realised. Their last setback saw the game delayed from August to December.

He explained the pushbacks: "It's majorly technical issues and player feedback. Throughout the summer, we had three tests. A lot of people participated, more than 1.5 million as far as I remember, and we were gathering feedback and making surveys. The last test, which was called the 'common test', we had a QR implemented right in the product so the player could use this and go to the survey. What do they like, what don't they like, is this a good time to release the product we have or not. I think the conclusion was, both internally at the studio and outside it with the community, that some certain things weren't yet on the level. Seeing the difference between the build we had in August and the build we have now which is already uploaded to the platform, it was the right decision."

GOAL had the opportunity to trial the final build of UFL a fortnight prior to global release, and it didn't disappoint. The gameplay hits a sweet spot between the stiffness of eFootball and almost ragdoll-physics of EAFC, and the promise of regular updates means incremental improvements should keep on coming, with Nashilov having cited the noticeable difference in the game's build from the summer to the winter. Through over three hours of gameplay, there were no bugs or glitches to gawk at, which is a rare treat in what can sometimes be a careless industry.

UFL's insistence in building from the ground up will provide great parity for those in search of an alternative experience to their ruthless and periodically unfair encounters elsewhere. In theory, a committed gaming community should be able to get behind that, especially if they don't have to spend a penny.

The graphics, visuals and cinematics are all fantastic too, but a major obstacle will be getting players to look past the lack of team and stadium licensing. That in-part proved Konami's downfall, but Nashilov is confident UFL will succeed for all of its strengths.

"I think the timing is very nice for us to be perfectly honest with you. Of course, EA's game is currently number one in terms of people playing it, amounts of licences. Konami's game is much less popular on consoles at the moment - they're pretty good on mobile but this is not a console experience or a premium experience, if we put it this way.

"We're trying to bring a premium product with a free-to-play and fair-to-play philosophy. So yeah, I believe the time to compete is now. It's a good moment to start, but ultimately I think the competition will be a long-term one, it's about how we operate the game and bring content and features, how it all revolves around football. I think in that regard, we will be very good. The competition is going to harsh, we're very very motivated, we've been working on this for eight years."