The newest title from Run Games, Football Heroes League, is a fun and fast-paced 2 vs. 2 co-op experience where you go up against friends in a match of soccer (football for our international readers). We got to go hands-on with this at PAX East, so read on to check out our Football Heroes League preview!
Football Heroes League Preview - A Love Letter to Soccer
What sets Footballl Heroes League apart from other soccer games is its sense of on-the-field presence and the special abilities that each hero has. Where a game like FIFA gives you a bird's-eye view of the field, the Football Heroes League developers wanted to capture that feeling of being on the field yourself.
"My background is, I'm a soccer player," Run Games Creative Director Michael Marzola told me. "I've been playing it my whole life, it's a giant part of my life. I wanted to bring something to gamers where it feels more like playing real soccer, when you're running down the field and you have that tunnel vision."
A game of Football Heroes League starts as a routine soccer match, but each of the current five heroes (with more on the way) has special abilities that the player can unleash at any time. The current slate of heroes includes Kenzo, Frostine, Beckers, Bun-E, and Leo.
During my preview, I first played as Leo, a hulking lion man with abilities that allow him to leap great distances and charge, and then as Frostine, gliding around the field on an iceflow.
Adapting to the opposing team kept me constantly changing direction and redirecting my offensive and defensive strategies, especially when an enemy Frostine would surge forward with her Glacier Glide, creating a path of ice through the air that she slides on to get ahead.
Marzola still plays in a soccer league, but his inspiration to make Football Heroes League comes from the inescapable fact of getting older.
"My wife keeps asking me to quit, saying I'm going to tear my ACL," Marzola said. "I realized I don't have that many years left to play, so this is a love letter to soccer fans and also to myself to say, 'This is something when I'm old and gray, when I'm 80 years old, I can still play this when I can't play the real thing.'"
Football Heroes League & Global Influence
With how ubiquitous soccer is around the world, Run Games was able to leverage its international team to put everything they had into Football Heroes League. The team initially unveiled Football Heroes League at Gamescom Latam in Brazil and were thrilled to see the fan feedback they were receiving from a part of the world where soccer is so huge.
Marzola brought up a photo the team took with a young boy at Gamescom Latam and told me how he would play Football Heroes League again and again.
"He played probably 30 times," Marzola said. "Every time he'd play, he'd go to the back of the line to play again. We had these trophy matches, and when he won his trophy his dad had us all autograph it for him. It was honestly one of the best moments in my game-development career, and I've been making games since 2000."
Football Heroes League Preview - Final Thoughts
Football Heroes League was an unexpected delight on the PAX East show floor, one that I went back to multiple times even after my initial preview appointment was finished. The matches are quick, and it's easy to jump into Football Heroes League to play a quick session if you don't have much time.
The abilities of each hero make Football Heroes League feel more like a battle royale than a soccer game, while still showcasing crisp and reactive soccer gameplay that makes this experience stand out.
Football Heroes League is currently in early access and free to play on Steam with a promise of more heroes to be released over time. For the dev team, this was a total dream to be able to work on.
"This game for me is a dream project, a passion project," Marzola said. "It's something that I feel so lucky that I'm able to share with the world. It's genuine. It's not just business; it's business and art."
Football Heroes League was played on a PC at PAX East 2025.
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Dan is a Boston-based writer who has been with TechRaptor since the end of 2020. He has been working in the online writing, editing and SEO space for nearly… More about Dan
