Maximum Football
Steam News 27 August 20258mo ago

Option Plays, Gameplay Rebalancing, and Vision Cone AI: August Developer Blog

What’s up, Maximum Football fans! It’s the most wonderful time of the year — the bands are playing, the turf is flying, and football season is officially here. To go along with the kickoff of the new football season, we…

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changedWhat’s up, Maximum Football fans! It’s the most wonderful time of the year — the bands are playing, the turf is flying, and football season is officially here.
addedTo go along with the kickoff of the new football season, we’ve got a brand-new developer blog that dives into what the team has been working on and what’s in store for the future.
changedOur Next UpdateIn the meantime, we may still release hotfixes or balance changes as needed. The next major update will arrive on September 16th, alongside the launch of Season 4. We’re excited about what’s coming and look forward to sharing more as we get closer.
addedOur Next UpdateOne added benefit — this also means you’ll have an extra week to make progress on Season Pass 3 before the new Season begins!
addedUpdated PlaycallingWe first mentioned our updated playcalling system back in July’s developer update. While we decided to push it out of that release to give it some extra polish, we also took the opportunity to add a few new features, including smarter 4th down logic, improved 2-minute offense, and better no-huddle behavior.
addedUpdated PlaycallingThis will be the first iteration of the new system, and we’ll continue to refine and expand upon it in future updates.

What’s up, Maximum Football fans! It’s the most wonderful time of the year — the bands are playing, the turf is flying, and football season is officially here.

To go along with the kickoff of the new football season, we’ve got a brand-new developer blog that dives into what the team has been working on and what’s in store for the future.

Our Next Update

The road to 1.0 was a big milestone, and now our focus is on making sure future updates continue to build on Maximum Football’s foundation. To give ourselves the proper time to polish, and deliver a strong update, we are moving the next major update to September.

In the meantime, we may still release hotfixes or balance changes as needed. The next major update will arrive on September 16th, alongside the launch of Season 4. We’re excited about what’s coming and look forward to sharing more as we get closer.

One added benefit — this also means you’ll have an extra week to make progress on Season Pass 3 before the new Season begins!

What We Are Working On

Updated Playcalling

We first mentioned our updated playcalling system back in July’s developer update. While we decided to push it out of that release to give it some extra polish, we also took the opportunity to add a few new features, including smarter 4th down logic, improved 2-minute offense, and better no-huddle behavior.

This will be the first iteration of the new system, and we’ll continue to refine and expand upon it in future updates.

Gameplay Rebalancing

We are making some adjustments to the overall balance of Maximum Football with a few goals in mind.

  • Move the game closer to a more realistic on-field product in terms of game speed, ball speed, play outcomes, and more.

  • Continue to limit the number of exploitable plays that players can leverage.

These balance changes will roll out in our next update, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on them.

Vision-cone Based AI

If a player can’t see it, they shouldn’t be able to make a play on it, at least that’s our philosophy with this particular gameplay update. With this update, players on the field won’t make a play on the ball unless they are able to see it. So, if a defender is trailing a receiver in coverage, they will need to make a play on the receiver in order to stop a reception, rather than making a frustrating over-the-shoulder interception.

Option Plays

We know this is one you’ve been asking about for a while — and we’re finally ready to start bringing option plays into the game!

Our long-term goal is to represent all the option concepts you’d expect: RPOs, triple options, read options, speed options, and more. To get there, we’ll be rolling them out in phases. Here’s why:

  • It gives us time to make sure each play type is balanced and that defenses respond the way they should.

  • It lets us capture and implement the right animations through motion capture.

  • It allows us to properly introduce several new mechanics, including manual handoffs, pitch/laterals, and predetermined pre-snap motions.

This phased approach means option plays will feel authentic and fair as they come online — and it sets us up to expand them the right way moving forward.

False Start Penalties

In our last patch, we introduced offsides penalties and the fake snap mechanic. Now, the team is working on the flipside, false starts! We have more animations to capture for different false start situations.

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Steam News / 27 August 2025

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