From the genuine celebration of the reunion with PC Fútbol, one of the best and most beloved video game sagas Made in Spain, to the uncertainty of not knowing if it will be released or in what state it will be released; and from there to attending a presentation with a live game of Hector PratsCEO of the developer. Or, at least, to a newly compiled version whose purpose and priority was to clear up doubts about the development of PC Football 8. Even above what this installment will bring to the franchise. A press conference that, in fact, was very unconventional.
Evaluating how a video game will be before its launch – or its beta – is unfair to everyone, starting with what is conveyed to the readers themselves. However, the big topic that was and is still on the table during the presentation of PC Football 8 It didn’t revolve so much around the game itself, but rather its current state. A video game that, I can tell you in advance, It exists but it still has a long way to go and whose greatest enemy is time itself. Well, and the patience of those who made the reservation and are not sure what will happen.
The general photograph that the presentation left us: the compiled version, limited for the occasion and that we were able to see is not ready for sale. It was an incomplete build, all things considered, but it reflected many of the problems that should have been resolved. And that PC Football 8 It was supposed to be released over a month ago. As the game progressed, Prats noted errors, bugs and unexpected crashes along with other problems of varying severity that cannot and should not be included in the final versions.
Needless to say, Héctor Prats did not expect the presentation to turn out this way.
Don’t get me wrong: the appearance of bugs in a video game in development is almost a daily occurrence, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that it is something very unusual for a presentation, whether public or press. However, Prats’ main objective, and this is essential, was always clear from before starting to play: to make it clear to the attendees that there is more than just a few screenshots of PC Football 8 next to the purchase button. One thing does not take away from the other, but at this point it is worth putting it into context.
What’s happening with PC Football 8
After years of stumbling, the license of PC Football passed into the hands of One more gamea developer established in February 2024 and which announced the new installment not long after. When a saga like this returns it is something that does not go unnoticed. According to Prats, the project has been taking shape for more than a year, however we know that when the game was presented it did so with an empty website and, after the presentation, it became clear that when it was time to open the reservations it was much less advanced than it should have been.
To put it in context, PC Football It is not just another Football Manager clone. Among other things, because both sports management proposals were born in the same year. Technically, the Spanish one is older since the current SEGA license is the reborn one. Championship Managerbut it is clear that the aspirations of Una partida más are not to match or surpass the proposal of the English football titan, but to complete a development that has been stuck for several months and exposed to different problems.
The new PC Football 8 will be released in an early access phase despite the fact that it has delayed its release date several times. If you search its website on Google it reminds you that it was supposed to be released on June 7th and, without having a copy to see what it brings to the gamers’ table, what was shown in the compilation created for it makes clear how much remains not only to be done, but to be revised.
However, in theory, not all of the team and player databases that the final version will have were used, but that also means that, collaterally, we are not clear about what will happen when all that information is transferred to the full game experience. Which, on the other hand, brings us to the central problem of the current version of PC Football 8: The plan is to get it out as soon as possible. As a result, the whole project is in a very strange phase.
If the situation is like this, Why open pre-orders instead of releasing it in Early Access on Steam? Hector Prats confirmed that the release would be in early access through his website, but Valve’s program does not allow them to release the game in an advanced state, but rather it must arrive at a very early stage. Furthermore, he clarified that what would be released is not a beta.
“We’re going to give early access because it doesn’t have everything we want. But the game is going to be fully functional. It’s not like the simulator is going to suddenly lose the ball there. In fact, you’ve seen all the times we’ve delayed the game for any kind of bug and we could say that it’s a “no, no, it’s just a beta.” But we don’t want it to be.”
Without giving figures on our part, One more game is dealing with the disbursements of PC Football 8 and there are still several to be processed. We can say that one of them has to do with languages, but that the matches will be narrated in Spanish and Catalan and, to speed up the time, much of the content is being translated using artificial intelligence, but not all. However, and this is fundamental, the way in which a match in progress was shown to us was at least unexpected.
This is the current status of PC Football 8
Shigeru Miyamoto said that it was better for a game to arrive late but well than to be released early and be remembered for its terrible start. What we do know after seeing the compilation shown of PC Football 8 is that, even arriving in early access, One More Game needs more time.
As we mentioned, the version we saw was compiled before the presentation began, the process continued during the presentation, and it was only shown to us an hour after the presentation. Partly, and to be fair, because there were other issues on the table.
Some of the questions asked during that time were related to what we could expect from the game, but mostly Hector Prat was responding to all the conversations generated about the development and the conditions under which the project was being carried out. Transcendental topics. However, at VidaExtra we are going to focus fundamentally on what matters to the players: the current state of PC Football 8.
First of all, the challenge for a football manager is the databases over the presentation. The clubs, the cities, the players. PC Fútbol 8 doesn’t have the licenses, but even in those the portion of the compiled version that we were shown still had many unexpected random elements and also automated elements for testing such as notifications. An example of the first is that a parameter when starting in a club is that there are two goalkeepers, but Hector found that in his newly launched team there were no forwards. That can’t happen in the final version.
And what about football matches? We saw that solving the game quickly by going directly to the result did not cause any problems, and that the return of the caps mode (the game in real time with dots instead of players) and the Viewing and Interactive options were planned. However, these last three modes could not be shown in the game in progress – or at least in the presentation – leaving that space on the screen empty. Héctor Prats said that he was watching it even though it was not shown in the broadcast and, using his own camera, he showed what should have been seen. But in the end it is still another big irregularity.
The compiled version for the press presentation was completed, it was buggy and made clear everything that is wrong or unfinished in a PC Fútbol 8 that, as promised, should already be playable. The double problem that Una partida más faces is that they are against the clock and to that we must add the weight of the acronym and the franchise itself. Which is an advantage on a commercial level, but also a responsibility towards the fans and their legacy.
That a glitchy presentation is unusual but can happen to anyone. Uncharted 4 has a trophy that pops up as a result of a problem Naughty Dog had when it showed it at E3. The question of whether there was actually a game behind the screenshots has been answered, although not in the way we expected, but we must not lose perspective: the harsh reality of PC Football 8 is that it has not come out and, after seeing it, We are also not clear how it will arriveBut we know exactly what it has and what it needs to improve. And also why.
One last fact: both in the presentation and in the questions and answers section of the official website it was mentioned PC Football 9whose launch is scheduled for December 2025.
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