Goals (video game)

Goals (stylized as GOALS) is an upcoming football video game developed & published by Goals AB. Conceptualized by Andreas Thorstensson, Goals will follow a free-to-play business model with a focus on esports viability. First announced on July 22, 2021, the game is intended to compete with the FIFA & eFootball series of video games, with a focus on responsiveness over fidelity. The game will feature cross-platform play, for Microsoft Windows, MacOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and Series S platforms.

Gameplay
Goals places players on football pitches at different arenas, with game modes of 1v1 & 5v5. A practice mode called "The Arena" may be accessed, allowing for testing player avatars & features.

Development
Swedish gamer & programmer Andreas Thorstensson was one of the earliest professional Counter-Strike players, with his career beginning shortly after the release of the game in 1999. As a player, executive and owner of the German & Swedish organization Schroet Kommando, which became SK Gaming, he led it to become one of the most prolific in the scene, before retiring in 2009. After several web development & entrepreneurship ventures over the subsequent decade, Thorstensson teased Goals as his new venture, before formally announcing it as a football video game on August 18, 2021. Thorstensson detailed his intention to develop an esports-ready AAA cross-platform multiplayer game that would reward players.

The game would be built using Unreal Engine 5. An objective outlined by Thorstensson from the onset was to give audiences access to Goals during its early days, allowing for the team to gauge feedback and combat bugs before release. Early access testing for Goals began with a single-player demo called the "Arena" in September 2022, with rudimentary functionality implemented. The following February, multiplayer access on a football pitch setting began.

In April 2022, Goals AB was announced to have raised $15 million in seed funding, led by venture capitalist firm Northzone. In April 2023, Goals received an additional $20 million in funding - led by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm Seven Seven Six and supported by Northzone, Moonfire, Cassius and angel investors Peter Sellis, Wayne Mackey, Riqui Puig and Clément Lenglet - bringing the total funding to $39 million. In July 2023, GOALS AB's board was bolstered by the arrivals of Ebba Ljungerud and Oskar Gabrielson, the former chief executive officers of Paradox Interactive & and DICE, respectively.