You can only take it with humor: The soccer manager kick-off will be postponed one day before the release on Steam.
Anyone planning to buy Kick-Off: The Football Manager on October 13, 2022 on Steam will have to reorient themselves. Publisher Toplitz Productions has the early access release namely stopped at the very last second and postponed the launch to a new date instead. The reason given was “some unexpected problems”, bugs and a “blocker” in the “final test phase” that make publication “impossible”.
For GameStar, the release postponement at the last minute also came as a surprise, but at least not out of the blue: we already had behind the scenes these days prepared the test of kick-off and had also stumbled across many gameplay bugs from the version released for Kickstarter backers.
We last got a look at the game, which is based on the legendary Ascaron series, in May 2022, but back then the 3D mode shown in the trailer below was still a secret:
Preview
Kick-off remains the great hope of football managers
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Kick off: You had to wait a long time for the very first 3D mode gameplay
The kick-off will be three weeks later
As the new release date for the game previously known as Anstoss 2022, Toplitz and developer 2tainment on 2 November 2022 fixed. The two companies commented on the unusual and ill-omened move in a press release as follows:
»We’ve been working tirelessly for you over the last few days and nights, improving features and fixing bugs. Unfortunately, a blocker crept in that we couldn’t solve at short notice. Therefore we have decided to postpone the release by a few weeks in order to be able to provide you with the best possible experience.«
Kick off: The Football Manager – View screenshots from 3D mode and menus
on the Steam page of Anstoss you will find information about the planned scope of functions of the early access version, which was supposed to appear in October. Accordingly, it is »complete in terms of content, apart from the national team option as a single player experience. All features are integrated. With regard to certain areas, however, the balancing is not final.«
2tainment and Toplitz are not committed to how long the early access phase should last until the final release: “New features will be installed over the next few weeks and months, such as the online multiplayer mode or the option of joining national teams to be able to train. In addition, some areas of the game will be visually revised. Added voice acting in all supported languages and more. Of course we will also do bug fixing and kick off in 2022 [sic!] further optimize. The roadmap is full.«
Kick-off: The football manager brings back the office screen from the predecessors (left). In the skill tree you unlock new bonuses with gained experience points.
How do we proceed with our test?
Our tester Wolfgang Rabenstein, an ardent admirer of the old Anstoss 3, has been busy playing a preview version of Anstoss: Der Fußballmanager over the past few days. In fact, he was already in the process of writing the test – until today when the news of the postponement came. Now he wants to know your opinion: Do you want to read more about Anstoss?
Wolfgang’s idea: to convert the test article with a conclusion into a column. Vote now on whether we should publish the article in the next few days:
We will of course keep you up to date on whether the new release date for the Early Access version works and what it looks like with any bugs.
