While the rest of the world is celebrating football and the FIFA World Cup, the developers at Digital Dreams Entertainment are working hard on bringing another type of football to the Nintendo Switch. Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition is an arcade-style American Football game characterized by its brutal violence and gore as bloodthirsty monsters fight each other to the death to score touchdowns. Digital Dreams Entertainment gave us the opportunity to experience this cruel twist on America’s gridiron pastime during our time at E3 2018.
It’s easy to compare Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition to EA’s Madden, but MFL’s ethos is not even close to EA’s realistic simulation of American Football. MFL is an arcade-style American Football game where the goal isn’t to make the game as true to life as possible but to imagine a world where the gridiron experience has few rules or limitations. Players are made up of various types of monsters like mutants, orcs, werewolves, killer robots, and demons, among others.
These grotesque player types and teams parody some famous NFL players and organizations with players like Wham Neutron (parody of Cam Newton, quarterback for the Carolina Panthers) and Ghoulio Jones (parody of Julio Jones, wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons) being some of my favorites. You can choose to play from up to 25 teams and from up to 24 fields that are made distinctive by the physical threats and obstacles lurking in the arena. One of the stadiums we had a chance to play on had blazing fast buzzsaws roaming back and forth across the screen that would severely injure or murder one of our players.
Speaking of murder, Mutant Football League encourages violence in its gameplay. In fact, violence and killing is a core component of the title. At the end of each play, you have a brief moment to beat up a downed player or start a fight with the enemy team. Players can throw bombs, equip shotguns and even chainsaws if it means eliminating the opposing team’s star players. All players have a health bar over their bodies, and once that health bar is completely depleted, they are dead.
It’s possible to revive them in some cases, but this gameplay element of killing the enemy team or having your team killed forces players to consider roster management in a whole new way. Murder and violence aren’t the only ways you can give yourself an advantage in Mutant Football League. At the start of a play, players can choose from certain defensive or offensive plays depending on their role. Players also have access to a “Dirty Tricks” playbook where they can engage in dirty tactics like bribing the referee or attacking the referee. The absolute ridiculousness of these plays made for hilariously memorable moments in our time with the title.
Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition performed admirably well at the demo booth. It wasn’t 60 FPS, and there was a severe lack of anti-aliasing, but it never hindered our enjoyment or performance during the match. The Switch version of Mutant Football League will have access to new teams, new playable monster classes, local and online multiplayer, and a new dynasty play mode that allows you to become a General Manager of your MFL team of choice.
Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition is being developed and published by Digital Dreams Entertainment. Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition will be launching on September 18 at retail for $29.99 on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One systems. We had an absolute blast during our time with Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition and are looking forward to (literally) eliminating the competition when the complete version of the game is officially out soon.
A special thank you to Digital Dreams Entertainment for the opportunity to play this game at E3 2018.
