Axis Football 2026 is the first new Axis Football game to be released since its development switched to a 2-year development cycle. The extra development time means that I have slightly higher expectations for the game (especially after the previous, 2024 edition, ended up being a bit underwhelming). However, I am still going into this game with the tempered expectations of a low-budget indie game, and the satisfaction that it's a budget $20 title. This means that even if this release is bad, it can only be a quarter as disappointing as any annual release of Madden that costs 4 times as much.
I also put off playing this game until the end of December, even though I bought it on its Steam release date. I kept meaning to start playing it, but my gaming time has been very limited the last few months due to real life circumstances. I was so engrossed in Cities Skylines 2's first major expansion that I kept putting Axis Football off another week. Honestly, I wasn't in much of a hurry to jump into Axis. I was kind of still getting my football video game fix from this year's Madden, since I actually do kind of like the new weekly strategy feature in Franchise that uses coach abilities -- especially once the run blocking issues were patched and fixed (in, like, November!).
The 2-year development cycle also means that I didn't feel as much pressure to play and review this game as quickly as I normally do. I hope the developers at Axis, and anyone who might have been waiting for my review, can forgive me for the tardiness.
Mad scientist
Let's jump right in by talking about the biggest and potentially most innovative new feature of this year's game: the play editor. The previous version of Axis introduced a playbook editor, and this game lets users fill any gaps in those playbooks by creating your own custom plays. This works about how you would expect and doesn't really do anything particularly innovative. In my experience, the play creator is defined more by what it can't do, rather than by what it can do.
A new play creator can be used to fill-in under-developed formations or playbooks.
Your play designs are limited to only the play concepts that exist within the game (including the newly-added Run-Pass-Option (RPO) plays). Concepts like Read Option and Triple Option are still absent in the default playbooks, and you cannot create pure option plays in the play editor. You are also limited to the formations that are present in the game, so you cannot create your own custom formation. So if you were hoping to be able to mod in a college football league and play as a service academy running a Flexbone Triple Option playbook, then I'm sorry, you'll have to wait at least another 2 years. I also couldn't create a proper 3-2-6 defense.
There are other frustrating limitations as well. For example, the actions a player at a position can perform is limited by the position group and chosen play type. You can't assign a defensive tackle to drop into coverage to try to take away drag routes and kill mesh concepts. Even common concepts like halfback screens aren't in the game, and the play creator won't let me assign linemen to pull on passing plays. Other, more complex concepts like option routes (in which the receiver changes his route based on the defensive coverage) are not in the game, nor can we bake in any pre-play motion.
Many football plays and concepts cannot
be created with the play creator.
We also cannot create or edit any special teams plays at all. This isn't a surprise at all, but I thought I'd mention it anyway, since special teams has always been one of the weakest elements of Axis Football, and that hasn't changed in this year's edition. So if you have any brilliant ideas for a new fake field goal, trick kick return, rugby punt, or a new onside kick, you're out of luck.
On the upside, the play creator is fairly easy to use. If you have a favorite playbook or formation that is missing some common run or pass concepts that are present in other playbooks or formations, you now have the ability to add those concepts.
Loss of control
To be honest though, I didn't expect a lot from a play creators. Play creators in football games have historically been little more than novelties.
What's really disappointing about Axis Football 26 is that the developers seem to have taken control of the on-field action away from the user. Runner moves have been removed and replaced with a single-button prompt to "break tackle". The user simply holds down the X button when the prompt comes up, and you have a higher chance of the runner automatically succeeding at whatever evasive move the CPU decides to attempt. We can't manually juke, spin, hurdle, dive, stiff arm, or anything else. Just hold X and hope the runner does what you want.
Axis 26 takes control of the on-field action away from the player.
The only remaining runner control is the ability to hold the right trigger for a speed burst. That's it! That's all you can do when user-controlling the offense.
I really do not understand the motivation behind this change. Did the developers think that manual jukes and spins were overpowered? The only thing that I can think of is that PC players using keyboard and mouse hated the keyboard controls, and the Axis devs decided to "simplify" the controls to make keyboard easier to use. But that also meant sacrificing control on gamepads, with no setting (that I could find) to restore the old controls.
There is a prompt to hold a button
to break tackles.
Defensively, things are only slightly better. There are button prompts, but they are at least for different controls. Hold Square to make a tackle, hold Triangle to defend a pass, and hold Circle to break a block. The strafe and speed burst buttons are also preserved, except that the speed burst button seems to have another problem with it. I've noticed that when I hold the speed burst, my controlled pass rusher ignores my inputs and backs off to play pass coverage and defend the pass, instead of continuing to pass rush.
In the game's defense, my defender usually plays the play correctly, and sometimes even swats the ball or makes an interception. It isn't like he's running himself out of the play or anything. But that isn't the point! The point is that the game is taking my control away. It isn't forcing me to have to make the correct decision, or letting me make my own mistakes.
I absolutely hate these control and design changes. This new runner control almost single-handedly ruins the game for me. The on-field football feels so awful to play, and this is probably the worst-playing version of Axis Football that I've ever played. There doesn't seem to be any skill or timing element to this control. I don't see why you wouldn't just hold the X button as soon as you snap the ball. Everything is a crap shoot. I feel like I might as well not even bother playing the actual matches, and I might as well just play in Coach Mode.
Holding the speed burst button seems to put my defender into an "auto pass coverage" mode?
But even playing in Coach Mode manages to feel awful due to the poor decision-making of CPU-controlled players on the field. The QB can't complete a pass, and throws at least 2 interceptions a game. I just cannot trust my players to execute passes, and I cannot rely entirely on the running game. On the other side of the ball, DBs play cover 3 completely wrong, with the outside deep zone defenders routinely chasing inside-breaking routes and leaving routes on the boundary completely undefended.
There's also so many defensive holding penalties! Without being able to dedicate points towards reducing penalties in Weekly Practice, there really isn't anything that I can do about this. I guess I could fire my Defensive Coordinator or DB Coach and hire a coach with a much higher Discipline rating?
Let's see that again!
There's also now an instant replay feature, which means I can go back and see just how much of a crap shoot things actually were. All the janky physics and animations are now completely exposed for all to see. Footballs changing direction mid-air to warp into receivers hands, or phasing through a receiver's hands and into the hands of a defender for an interception. We can see runners clipping through the bodies of potential tacklers. We can see defensive players getting sucked into blocks. All the things that people used to complain about in Madden games.
Axis is a low-budget indie game, so I give it more leeway with these sorts of things. But I was surprised to see just how bad things can be.
An instant replay is great to have. It's nice to be able to go back and see a highlight play again. So I'm happy that this feature is here (after all these years). I'm not saying that I think Axis should take instant replay out. I'm just saying that it makes it that much easier to see when the game is cheating or lying with its physics and animation. This is something that the game had always been doing, but which was hard to see and confirm without a replay.
Re-watch your highlights -- or animation jank -- with the new instant replay.
(this pass goes through the receiver's hand and is intercepted)
Instant replays also aren't integrated into the presentation at all. The game doesn't automatically show instant replays of big plays. If you want to see a play again, you have to pause and select "Instatn Replay" from the pause menu. This means that you also won't be hearing any commentary about replays from the commentary team commentator. That's right: there's only one commentator now!
Dan Stevens and Peter O'Keefe are not reprising their roles as the game's commentators. I'm not sure what the reason for this was. Maybe the developers got tired of listening to the same commentators? Maybe the voice actors withdrew permission to use their voices, or the contract expired? Or maybe Axis wants to rebuild the commentary from scratch, but couldn't get Dan and Peter's voice actors back into the recording booth for whatever reason?
Or maybe ... just maybe ... and I'm just speculating out of my ass here ... maybe the voice actors are doing commentary for an actual new 2K football game, and are on a non-compete that prevents their voices from being used in Axis?
I don't know the reason, but there's now only a single commentator. There is no color commentary, and so no banter between commentators. The commentary isn't really any better or worse in terms of its accuracy or how often it repeats, but he does lack the energy of Dan and Peter. Of course, it also means that the NFL 2k5 nostalgia is gone.
A tiny spark of life
So if the on-field action is un-playably bad, are there enough improvements in Franchise Mode to save the game?
Well, no. Not really.
Franchise Mode did get some solid updates. The 2 year development cycle apparently means that Axis was able to add new gameplay features, and also add stuff to Franchise Mode, instead of having to choose one or the other. This hadn't been the case in previous years, as the team always seemed force to choose one or the other, and maybe make a token change to the other, at best.
Trading draft picks during the draft no longer breaks the draft.
The biggest change to Franchise, from a strategic level is the inclusion of a salary cap. The salary cap adds additional strategy, challenge, and realism to Franchise Mode, because it prevents wealthy teams from stacking their rosters every single year. Roster management is, therefore, much more thoughtful, and hitting in the draft is more important than ever.
To go along with the increased importance of the draft, the game now properly supports making trades during the draft. In previous years, it was possible to back out of the draft to make trades, but this would partially reset the draft, and would break a lot of things.
There isn't a U.I. (that I could find) for making a trade within the draft, so you still have to back out to propose a trade. But at least the game properly saves the draft progress so that you can resume where you left off. I also didn't notice the CPU teams trading with each other during the draft, nor did the CPU ever send me a trade proposal during the draft. There's also no real way of knowing when it's a good idea to trade for a draft pick. There's no mock drafts, no in-draft preview or predictions of who upcoming teams might pick, so you have no idea if an upcoming team might steal your preferred pick before your turn comes up.
Outside of the draft, however, the CPU can now offer trades to the human user. This helps to make the league feel a little bit more alive, and gives additional agency to the CPU teams.
Miami sent me the same trade proposal every week of the season.
From what I can tell though, the game seems to be scripted for at least one CPU team to offer the user a trade every week, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do so. They rarely, if ever, offered me anything that I wanted or needed. The same team also kept making me the same offer every week. No matter how many times I told them "No", they kept coming back every week with the same offer. There was no way for me to say that I wasn't interested. Every week, I had to go and tell Miami that "No, I already have a B- rookie running back who's playing well. I do not want to give you my 2nd round draft pick for your backup B rated back. Stop calling me!"
Worst in the series?
I had hoped that the extra year of development would mean that legacy issues would be addressed. But that isn't really the case.
Perhaps the biggest legacy issues is the pathetically under-developed special teams play. In addition to not being able to create special teams plays in the new play creator, the existing special teams plays are also severely lacking. There's no fake field goals or punts, no onside kicks, and no trick returns. There's also no options to use new NFL "dynamic" kickoff rules, no options to use new college touchback rules, no option to mandate a 4th and 12 conversion instead of a kickoff (though the 4th and 12 conversion does replace onside kicks). There's also no mechanics for botching a longsnap, and blocking kicks also seems impossible. There's no depth chart for special teams positions like coverage gunners, longsnapper, or holder.
Onside kicks were replaced with the 4th & 12 conversion.
Kicking, returning kicks, and covering kicks has just never felt good to execute, and that hasn't been addressed at all since I started playing Axis back in 2018. Without fake kicks or any chance for a block or other special teams gaffe, if the other team sends the kick team onto the field, you can safely put down the controller. Special teams plays just aren't even worth playing because there's so little variation in how they unfold.
I was planning on doing an extended Franchise Let's Play of this game, but I don't know if I can do it. I'm only a third of the way through the first season, but continuing to force myself to play it just feels like a grind. Playing on the field just feels awful, but I can't coach or spectate games because I can't trust the CPU's decision-making when I'm not taking direct control. I just do not like this version of the game, and it sucks that I'm going to have to wait 2 years to see if the next edition will be better.