An free-to-play MMOG game for the PC, Football Superstars will allow players to meet within a utopian soccer-styled virtual world and take part in 3, 5, 7 and 11-a-side football matches. Players will take control of a single footballer avatar and will interact on and off the pitch living the football superstar lifestyle whilst pursuing fame, glory and success, striving to join the best clubs, compete at the highest level and progress within the game through skill and sporting prowess. The player will exist in a persistent football-themed world and be able to join or form and manage their own teams and careers whilst engaging in various leagues, competitions, events and tournaments.

Once downloaded, players re-create themselves online as a footballer and then have free reign in the state of the art interactive virtual world. Players can play their way from three-a-side up to eleven-a-side matches, gaining attributes and skills in order to specialise in their chosen playing position.

In bringing the most realistic football gaming experience to life, Football Superstars has had to break a few of the old molds and introduce new innovation previously unseen in football games. A new dynamic control system has been implemented that will allow the player to move around the pitch, easily know where his team mates are and intuitively pass, log and strike the ball while pulling off his skills. Also, several ranking systems have been tailor made for the game that will measure the success of the team during a match as well as the individual performance. Therefore, even if your team-mates have a bad day on the pitch, you’ll still be rewarded for your own good play.

Steve Marshall, Creative Director commented “With the help of our hugely supportive and growing community we have moved forward in leaps and bounds, which has not only allowed us to take Football Superstars from the concept I had in 2006 to a virtual reality, but also has allowed our players to have a very real impact on what we have always hoped would be the community’s game as much as our own. Football Superstars has always been viewed as a service to our player base and we continually strive to improve the service in what is a one of a kind product, where players can for the first time play real football with real people internationally, whilst enjoying the trappings of superstardom in a full virtual world.”

New Features:

• Player Managed Club system: Own your own club and manage REAL players
• Play 3, 5, 7 or 11 aside football with offside, foul and card system where making space and marking your opponent are critical to team success
• New fame system. Are you a Local Hero or a National Star?
• Improved Keeper AI, the holes have been filled, can you beat the keeper?
• Defender awards have been significantly increased which means strikers will need to be more aware of space and position or stand to lose the ball
• Three new clothing designers released, stand out from the crowd in Bownz, Avralan or Devine outfits
• Sheffield FC, the worlds first Football Club goes virtual! Visit the hallowed grounds of Sheffield FC and even grab a refreshing orange juice at the Coach and Horses!
• 11 aside matches opened up in the 3rd division. No more struggling to get into the 2nd division, challenge the best of the FS club world earlier.

Phil Booker, CyberSports Head of Sales and Marketing, said: “With nearly 300,000 pre-launch registrations for Football Superstars, these new features are going to give us a massive assist in the great work we are doing in converting that base into active players. We already know from our forums and our search engine activity that the introduction of Player Managed Clubs is the most eagerly anticipated feature we have introduced to date. We are now confident that all of these new developments will help us push on to reach our target of 150,000 active playing accounts by the end of May 09, setting some firm foundations for a great MMO”.

Booker continued “CyberSports are also proud sponsors of Sheffield FC, having struck a club sponsorship deal with SFC in July 2008. SFC is officially recognised by both FiFa and The FA as the world's oldest football club. In 2007 Fifa gave out for the first time 2 Orders of Merit, one of these went to Real Madrid C.F. who are recognised as the world's most successful football club to date and the other going to Sheffield FC.

In the latest version of Football Superstars we are delighted to have taken the first steps towards fully integrating Sheffield FC into our game. Our community can now drink in SFC's own pub The Coach and Horses and walk around the perimeter of their ground, which will be opened for game play in the near future. We love the almost irony of blending the world's oldest football institution with the world's newest form of football...which is of course Football Superstars!”

Once the basic skills have been learned on the training pitch, players can choose between unranked casual games, ranked Football Superstars league matches organised by the game and player organised league matches with player manager clubs. All of which will be backed up by extensive web support from developer Monumental Games, which would include downloadable replay videos of every competitive match. All the players – with the exception of the goalkeepers – are controlled by humans, leaving it as close an experience to the real thing as you can get, with the run of play shaped by the twenty human players.

The individuals you play with and against are all of the same skill level as yourself, so your aim as in the real world - is to become a better virtual footballer. You can then play at ever higher levels and enjoy all the financial and lifestyle trappings that will inevitably follow. In simple terms, the better you play the better and more fulfilling your experience in the virtual world will be.

Players are paid for the games they play in Football Superstars currency, of which there are two types-dollars and bonds. The bonds can be bought with real money and used to purchase special privileges and items. Again, following the real world, the higher the level you play the higher your wages, all of which can then be spent in the game’s two vast virtual towns, which have the capacity to host millions of other football fans online at the same time.

Away from the pitch you can socialise in restaurants, bars and clubs and visit shops where you can buy the latest branded football equipment – which aids your progress on the pitch – and designer clothes. You can train in gyms to enhance your physical attributes, which also improves your playing skills, or flirt with the paparazzi in a bid to enhance your fame and status and gain access to the most exclusive clubs and venues.

The lifestyle area of the game will be a first for the genre too. Success on the pitch will bring the player the additional bonuses of experience and fame as well as monetary assets that can all be utilised in the lifestyle world. But while many extra skills and material assets can be gained in the towns within this area it is the non-player-characters (game controlled characters also know as NPCs) that will arguably bring the best rewards, tracking you down as your abilities improve and head hunting you for better and higher profile teams.

The result of all this career and lifestyle building is the chance of that big dream transfer, on the pitch glory, off-the-pitch glamour and the opportunity to become the world’s ultimate Football Superstar.

Football Superstars, published by UK Company CyberSports, is due for release in late 2008.