Axis Football 2026

6.5/10 (C/C+) Keep expectations in check as it is a very small and lower budget indie venture. They still have not reached the 7/10 (or higher) mark yet. While the series is made with dedication and passion and has some good elements to it, be prepared to have to overlook or accept several shortcomings and frustrations. Know this going in.

I got this super looking forward to all the in depth stuff with franchise I hear so much about. I do come from madden, and I lived through the super Nintendo maddens games all the way up to now. So besides franchise mode, I do like to play so gameplay had to be decent. I am so sad by this. The gameplay was super janky, like not even fun jank. The action would slow down when the qb passed the ball, I didnt see a way to strafe, and the game froze on me in the first 12 minutes of playing. Also running the ball is way too easy and ngl I found passing pretty easy as well. I mean, kudos to those who like it, but I just cant. Not even for $20 bucks. I see axis football goes back a ways, but you wouldnt know that based on this game. Seemed like a first run at it. And I know the dev is like, one guy... but... no. This isnt a replacement for Madden. We need like a small team to come together to create a non nfl football game thats actually good. Heart is in the right spot here, but its far far far from impressive.

Graphics are not great, but gameplay is far better than any modern Madden. Get the NFL mod for free to have all the teams, artwork, players, names, etc.

Many glitches in the game , if you are leading in some games it will give the ball back to the other team where you are at on the field , it also sometimes cant keep track of the down and yardage , Sometimes on kick off the opposing team just runs around in circles and cant kick the ball you have to restart the game , overall it is still fun just hope they fix these issues soon

Bots are annoying at times but this is way better than putting up with EA shennanigans

i want to like it so bad because ea bad but i cant i dont care how customizable or like full the other parts of the game is i get all my immersion and fun out of football games if the gameplay is good but no the movement and stuff just does not feel good

Axis Football 2026 (played on Steam Deck) is good for what it is. A indie American football game that doesn't have the NFL license or the resources of EA or 2K. Come to think of it, Madden doesn't have the resources of EA considering how terrible its been for over 10 years. In some ways, Axis Football reminds me of NFL2k5, especially as I was watching my dad play the 2024 version on Series X and Peter O'Keith (from NFL2k fame) was doing commentary. A lot of the fundamentals are in place, decent run and pass game, playing defense is overall fun, special teams are ok. You have your hot routes, motion, flipped plays, coach's picks on offense. There's even a franchise mode which is great to see considering EA cares nothing about a full featured franchise mode in Madden these days. Game AI will challenge you as I've had a few games that turned into grind house defensive battles and other games that turned into Pro bowl quarterback, high scoring shoot outs. The overall game play is pretty solid minus a bug or two. Being an indie game, there are rough edges through out. Commentary isn't as in depth as I'd like and too many times the commentator got the yardages wrong. Called out a 3rd and 12 when it was actually a 2nd and 6 for example. Some animations feel a bit floaty or don't have proper transition animations. Run animations in general are bad. There aren't dedicated buttons for juke, spin moves or hurdles. The special moves I've seen seem to be situational and the animations aren't the best. A lot of the tackles are good though. Kickers are super human with punts almost going into the stands, 100+ yards. I've seen field goals booted from 60+ yards out like the kicker was Superman, it's hilarious. Presentation is bare bones at best. Stadiums get the job done which is a missed opportunity considering how All-Pro 2K8 had some incredible stadiums for its made-up league, but the crowds are pretty bad. Sidelines have very little detail, a couple of benches and a few static players. No animations, no camera men, no cheerleaders. no refs. Sound is okay with the exception of when the home crowd starts cheering for their team on 4th down and the game is on the line. That was awesome. But then again, the QBs don't sound that good when calling audibles and hot routes on the line. There are no half time or post game presentations. You can't even view team stats or individual player stats in the post game. There aren't any animations for player injuries, just some commentary and a notice on screen. There's work to done in the presentation department for sure. Axis Football 2026 feels like a WIP indie project and viewed from that perspective, it gets the job done especially for $20. Yes, this is the third version I believe, but if the devs can continue to improve on the formula and really kick up the overall quality, Axis Football could very well be a better American football game than Madden. Then again, they're not too far from that now considering how terrible Madden actually is.

I love play calling options and system. Great physics of players. Dev listens to the community and game gets better and better. Franchise mode is second to none. So much depth to this game. I really am rooting for this game to keep getting attention.

I bought this game for 19.99. I feel like this is a good football game for people who don't have a powerful enough pc or laptop to run Madden NFL 26. I bought this game because it has a play editor. It also has a playbook editor. It has hot routes. The playbook doesn't have as many formations as the madden playbooks. It doesn't have enough close formations. There is no formation editor. The play editor is ok. It lets you chose from a list of receiver routes. This is not an NFL or NCAA licensed football game. It appears to be similar to NFL rules. I like this game better than games like legend bowl and college bowl because it has more options and better graphics. The graphics to this game are very functional for a football game meaning that its easy to see downfield to find open receivers. I used and Xbox controller. The controls are decent. It seems there is potential that people have created NFL or NCAA teams you can download for this game. I have looked into it. Its not a bad football game. Seems like they needed to test it more before releasing it to fix AI glitches. I made a you tube video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3JviQx6wrM&t=92s

very fun to play. Sadly they still dont have online multiplayer... That's the only down side!