WELCOME TO THE BETA
0.63 is Beta. That's not just a version number; it's a statement about where GOALS stands. Since the Alpha Playtest, the team has been heads-down: acting on your feedback, rebuilding systems that needed it, and adding the features that turn a promising game into a complete one. This release touches everything from how it feels to dribble in a tight space to how the game performs on your hardware. Jump in, push the limits, and tell us where it breaks. This is how we build the best football experience out there together.
NEW SKILL MOVES & DRIBBLING OVERHAUL
The skill move toolkit just got a major expansion. The Heel-to-Heel, Spin & Go, Body Feint, Elástico and Reverse Elástico, join the roster, alongside the ability to dummy a pass (R1), letting the ball run through for yourself or a teammate. On top of that, we've overhauled the responsiveness of existing moves: Ball Roll timing has been restored to feel right. Skill now pays off the way it should.
EXPLOSIVE TRANSITIONS
Pace changes are the heartbeat of 1v1s. We've implemented forced sprint touches for dragbacks and stepovers; meaning the moment you exit one of these moves, you explode out of it. The result is more realistic, more dangerous attacking play, and a far clearer gap between players who commit to a move and those who don't.
POSSESSION & DEFENDING OVERHAUL
The physical side of football has been rebuilt from the ground up. Passive Barges now give you automatic shielding in close-quarters duels, while Super Barges introduce a brief possession-protection window after your team wins the ball; eliminating the frustrating instant tackle-back. On the other side of the ball, manually positioning in passing lanes during interceptions no longer penalises your reaction time.
KNOCKOUT ARRIVES AND NEW RANKED REWARDS
The brand new Knockout mode challenges you to climb the divisions as high as you can with limited attempts every week. The top 500 players in the world fight for their place on the global leaderboard for the best rewards. Knockout is only available for a limited time each week, so build your squad and get ready to climb when the doors open.
Ranked has been redesigned to now support repeatable rewards. You no longer earn rewards on a weekly basis, but instead they are instantly yours as soon as you reach 15 Rank Points. Earn 3 for each win, 1 for a loss. Rewards improve based on your Rank.
CORE PERFORMANCE & CONSOLE INFRASTRUCTURE
0.63 is the first release built with console in mind at an infrastructure level. Stadium assets have been reorganized into independent modules, goal VFX are now preloaded during match initialization to prevent frame hitches on scoring, and we've added official support for AMD Anti-Lag 2 and Intel XeSS 2.2.1. A project-wide low-latency frame synchronization mode has also been enabled. The game should feel faster and cleaner across every platform.
WHAT'S NEW SINCE THE ALPHA PLAYTEST
Community-Driven Changes
- Skill Move Execution: Players felt stick rotations for Elasticos were too sensitive and caused accidental triggers in the middle of sequences → Adjusted angle tolerances and restored original Ball Roll timing to 10 ticks → More consistent and intentional skill execution, especially during high-intensity stick rotations. [Community]
- Movement Fluidity: Players felt that skill move exits left them planted in place, killing momentum → Added forced sprint touches to dragbacks, body feints, and stepovers → Immediate pace change on exit; 1v1s now feel dynamic rather than static. [Community]
- Tackle-Backs: Players reported that winning the ball felt unrewarding due to instant pressure regaining possession → Introduced Super Barges, a brief possession-protection window immediately after a team wins the ball → Winning a tackle now means something. The ball is yours for a moment, and you can move with it. [Community]
- Manual Defending: Players who actively read the game and positioned in passing lanes felt unfairly penalized on interceptions → Removed reaction time penalties for players who are manually positioned in passing lanes → Intelligent defending is now explicitly rewarded over reactive button presses. [Community]
- Stadium Environment — Aerotech: A brand new 5v5 stadium tailored specifically for high intensity 5v5 games.
VFX Overhaul:
A full suite of new VFX has been added. Dynamic ball trails and goal effects based on the performed shots being the most notisable.
- Shooting Feel at Range: Players reported long-range shots felt too clean — lacking the difficulty and weight of a real-world attempt from distance → Implemented a 1.3x horizontal deviation penalty for shots taken from 15m–25m → Distance now matters. Shots from range carry authentic unpredictability without being random at close range.
- Defensive AI: AI teammates were frequently out of position on marking assignments and slow to apply pressure to the ball carrier → Overhauled marking logic and ball-holder pressure behavior for AI defenders → Teammates hold shape and contribute meaningfully, particularly in 5v5 where spacing is critical.
- Passing Selection on Crosses: Players noticed passes were incorrectly targeting teammates positioned behind the passer, particularly on crosses → Corrected the pass receiver selection logic to exclude backward targets during crossing scenarios → Passes now go where you expect them to. [Community] [Fix]
Balance Philosophy for 0.63
The word guiding balance in this release is intentionality. Every input should produce a predictable, readable outcome; reducing what we call "mechanical noise" in high-level play. That means tightening the relationship between stick input and skill execution, scaling pass speed and shooting accuracy to player attributes, and ensuring that new defensive tools keep pace with increasingly explosive attacking options. We haven't aimed for a perfectly solved meta. We've aimed for a meta where skill is the variable that decides matches. We'll continue tuning based on what Beta surfaces.
SECTION 3 — FULL PATCH NOTES 0.63.00
GAMEPLAY
• Added the ability to dummy the ball (R1) as a pass receiver, letting it run through for yourself or a teammate.
• Added a manual unlock input (L1 + R1) to cancel out of pass receiver lock-on or defensive lock-on states.
• Implemented Loaded Shots: a new shot type for high-powered, high dispersion attempts. Triggered by performing a low shot or low curved shot in the 85-99% charge range.
• Implemented a dedicated Goalkeeper Rushing attribute that scales keeper speed and effectiveness when coming off the line to challenge.
• Introduced Passive Barges: automatic physical shielding and contact logic that protects possession during close-quarters duels.
• Added Super Barges: a brief possession-protection window immediately after a team wins the ball, reducing instant tackle-backs. [Community]
• Removed reaction time penalties for players who are manually positioned in passing lanes during interceptions, explicitly rewarding intelligent defensive positioning. [Community]
• Ground and lofted through-pass speeds now scale dynamically based on the passing player's attributes.
• Implemented a Turn Radius to Max Speed multiplier: high-speed turns now carry appropriate inertia and feel weighted, rather than snapping to new directions instantly.
• Overhauled AI teammate marking assignments and ball-holder pressure logic for more reliable defensive shape. [Community]
• Players will now intelligently wait for the ball to drop into a volleyable height before executing a volley action, preventing premature swing animations.
• Implemented a new 180 Turn System with interrupt support for more responsive direction reversals during open play.
- Added new skill moves: Spin & Go, heel to heel, Elástico and Reverse Elástico, body feints
• Added forced sprint touches to dragbacks, body feints, and stepovers, enabling immediate explosive changes of pace out of skill moves.
• Added the ability to perform a complete stop immediately after a fake shot.
Adjustments & Improvements
• Shooting Calibration: reduced the auto-abort charge distance for shooting from 16.5m to 10m to prevent accidental long-range cancellations. Also implemented a 1.3x horizontal deviation penalty for shots taken from 15m–25m to reflect the difficulty of long-range accuracy.
• Relaxed Ball Roll timing back to 10 ticks and adjusted Elastico angle tolerances to prevent accidental triggers during stick rotation. [Community]
- Lowered pass speeds and split speeds between receiver under threat vs open receiver to allow for better AI transitions between passes.
• Introduced semi-assistance for slide tackles to improve contact reliability in close-range defensive situations.
• Tightened air duel tolerances to prevent players from locking onto loose balls they cannot reasonably reach.
• Conducted a major tuning pass for 5v5 gameplay, including specific adjustments to spacing, marking, and pacing at the smaller match scale.
• Refined reflex save timing for goalkeepers and adjusted execution speeds for high-difficulty save animations.
• Balanced power and dispersion values for bicycle kicks, scissor kicks, and volleys.
• Disabled character leans immediately after exiting strafe or jockey states to prevent unintended tilting animations.
Animations
• Fixed edge cases where players would become stuck in "Start" animations during transitions. [Fix]
• Improved stopping logic when the player releases the movement stick, resulting in cleaner deceleration animations.
UI/UX/AUDIO & QUALITY OF LIFE
- Added Knockout mode hub, with leaderboard and rewards details
- Ranked mode restructured with new rewards design
- Added top 500 SR leaderboard for Ranked
- Added a new entry point to the 5v5 mode. Currently only supports friendly match functionality
- Added Club Customization for selecting kits and celebrations
- New Store UX with support for cosmetics
- Controls can now be fully remapped by putting your input preset to “Custom”
- The old “How to Play” section has been removed, controls can now be found under “Movement & Skills” in Settings
- New flow in the Lobby for selecting kits and readying up
- Player cards have received a fresh coat of paint with new VFX, lighting and poses
- The Collection view can now be viewed as a list as well as the original card grid
- Replay skipping in 5v5 matches is now determined by a majority vote rather than a single input.
- The 5v5 HUD now shows the captain’s team as the name instead of “Home” and “Away”
- Added dedicated performance optimization and UI scaling profiles for Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Legion Go.
- Added a Pass Receiver Lock Setting allowing players to choose between "Early" and "Late" lock-in timing for pass selection.
- Implemented idle detection (GPUThrottle) that caps menu FPS to 15 after 45 seconds of inactivity to reduce power draw.
- Added a safety confirmation dialog before deleting a squad to prevent accidental loss.
- New Pause menu visuals
- Added Thermal Pressure Alerts: HUD notifications that warn players if their hardware is approaching thermal limits during play.
- New visuals for the on-pitch buzzer beater indicator
Audio
• Added gender-specific ambient player voices and pitch shouts to the Barcelona 5v5 stadium.
• Resolved a bug where the free kick breathing sound effect would loop indefinitely after the kick was taken. [Fix]
CORE
• Added full upscaling and frame generation support across FSR4, DLSS 4, and XeSS 2; including dedicated latency reduction integration for each package (AMD Anti-Lag 2, Intel XeLL, and NVIDIA Reflex). Combined with a comprehensive Handheld certification pass (UI scaling, automatic device detection with bespoke optimizations, virtual keyboard support, and platform-specific defaults), GOALS now meets Microsoft Handheld certification standards out of the box.
• Enabled a project-wide low-latency frame synchronization mode to increase input responsiveness across all platforms.
Performance & Stability
• Goal-scored visual effects are now preloaded during match initialization, eliminating frame hitches at the moment of scoring.
• Optimized character network data by removing obsolete space-reasoning components, reducing bandwidth usage per player in online sessions.
Other
• Resolved a critical crash caused by manual lofted through-pass calculations. [Fix]
SECTION 4 — KNOWN ISSUES
The following issues are on our radar. We'll update this section as hotfixes are deployed.
• [SEVERITY: High] — Stadium Loading Hitch: Players may experience a brief visual hitch or an extended loading screen when entering The Amp Stadium under specific match conditions.
• [SEVERITY: Medium] — Post-Match UI Stats: Post-match statistics may occasionally display placeholder values for specific defensive metrics rather than actual match data.
• [SEVERITY: Medium] — Penalty UI Flicker: Penalty shot UI elements may flicker if a match-state transition occurs during the shot wind-up phase.