Wild Card Football plays more like NFL Street with Mario Kart-style power-ups in the form of wild cards. Every down before a play, the offense and defense can play wild cards with several effects ranging from but not limited to increasing/decreasing the speed or stamina of the whole team or specific players, instantly gaining extra yards, having the next tackle force a turnover, increase/decrease fumble/interception odds, blocking the opponent's cards, turning the team or ball carrier invisible, placing oil slicks on the field, giving the ball carrier a rotating bumper or electron (similar to the triple shell Mario Kart power-up), etc.
Wild cards can also be turned off (in Season and Quick Play only) for a traditional 7-on-7 arcade style football game, akin to a toned-down, but serviceable version of NFL Street. Gameplay is generally okay and feels fun, but spinning, hurdling, showboating, and calling audibles aren't present. A one button QTE pops up every time you hand the ball off to your running back for a running play, or when you attempt to break through the offensive line, which takes getting used to. You can stiff arm, use turbo and juke, though the AI has a tendency to stop you from running more than 2 yards. Passing mostly works, though manual catching has a tendency to cause your receiver to stop dead in his tracks for a moment, while the AI will frequently jump and swat your many pass attempts.
Game modes only consist of Quick Play, a shortened Season Mode, and Dream Team. No depth charts, stat tracking, drive summaries, roster management (aside from building your Dream Team), or anything in-depth exists. Dream Team is the main go to mode where you play the "Tour" option and play through games (some include objectives like first to score wins, play with no wild cards, stop the opponent from scoring in one drive, etc.) with your 49 Overall team, earning packs (lootboxes) to earn better cards, players, and customization options while leveling up your players by winning games. Inside of Dream Mode is an online league mode that acts as the ranked/competitive mode, where you play against online players Dream Teams to climb the division ranks to earn tickets. Tickets are another currency that can be used to instantly purchase any card (wild card, player or cosmetic) through an in-game shop. Cards you own can also be traded up for better or different cards. While this sounds microtransaction driven, at the time of this review 3 days after the games release, no microtransactions or option to buy premium currency exists.
The big issue with Wild Card Football is that for an arcade style sports game, the pace is quite a slog as games take a while to get through. A number of unnecessary celebrations, cut scenes, and animations play in between plays, making a standard 2-minute quarter game end up taking between 30-40 minutes. Add in playing against an online opponent with having to wait for them to choose their plays and cards, and you're looking at the same time or even longer just to finish one online game. Compare this to the classic NFL Blitz and NFL Street games where you could play through a game between 10-20 minutes.
Wild Card Football feels like a better arcade like attempt at replicating a sport over Saber's previous NBA 2K Playgrounds and WWE 2K Playgrounds offerings, but the slow pace, grindy unlock approach, and lack of long term content make it a game that is very hard to recommend - unless you're dying for an arcade football game and have no way to play NFL Blitz, Street or similar titles from the past generations. It's nice having another arcade sports game in a saturated market filled with sports simulation titles, but this game definitely needed more training and preparation before hitting the competition on the market.
Wild cards can also be turned off (in Season and Quick Play only) for a traditional 7-on-7 arcade style football game, akin to a toned-down, but serviceable version of NFL Street. Gameplay is generally okay and feels fun, but spinning, hurdling, showboating, and calling audibles aren't present. A one button QTE pops up every time you hand the ball off to your running back for a running play, or when you attempt to break through the offensive line, which takes getting used to. You can stiff arm, use turbo and juke, though the AI has a tendency to stop you from running more than 2 yards. Passing mostly works, though manual catching has a tendency to cause your receiver to stop dead in his tracks for a moment, while the AI will frequently jump and swat your many pass attempts.
Game modes only consist of Quick Play, a shortened Season Mode, and Dream Team. No depth charts, stat tracking, drive summaries, roster management (aside from building your Dream Team), or anything in-depth exists. Dream Team is the main go to mode where you play the "Tour" option and play through games (some include objectives like first to score wins, play with no wild cards, stop the opponent from scoring in one drive, etc.) with your 49 Overall team, earning packs (lootboxes) to earn better cards, players, and customization options while leveling up your players by winning games. Inside of Dream Mode is an online league mode that acts as the ranked/competitive mode, where you play against online players Dream Teams to climb the division ranks to earn tickets. Tickets are another currency that can be used to instantly purchase any card (wild card, player or cosmetic) through an in-game shop. Cards you own can also be traded up for better or different cards. While this sounds microtransaction driven, at the time of this review 3 days after the games release, no microtransactions or option to buy premium currency exists.
The big issue with Wild Card Football is that for an arcade style sports game, the pace is quite a slog as games take a while to get through. A number of unnecessary celebrations, cut scenes, and animations play in between plays, making a standard 2-minute quarter game end up taking between 30-40 minutes. Add in playing against an online opponent with having to wait for them to choose their plays and cards, and you're looking at the same time or even longer just to finish one online game. Compare this to the classic NFL Blitz and NFL Street games where you could play through a game between 10-20 minutes.
Wild Card Football feels like a better arcade like attempt at replicating a sport over Saber's previous NBA 2K Playgrounds and WWE 2K Playgrounds offerings, but the slow pace, grindy unlock approach, and lack of long term content make it a game that is very hard to recommend - unless you're dying for an arcade football game and have no way to play NFL Blitz, Street or similar titles from the past generations. It's nice having another arcade sports game in a saturated market filled with sports simulation titles, but this game definitely needed more training and preparation before hitting the competition on the market.