Ludography
More scores
Metacritic usersuser score
29/100
Player reviews
45% positive369 reviews
Steam Deck
Playable
Runs on
Windows
Price
US$59.99

Where to get it

AFL 23 cover

2023 · Big Ant Studios · Australian football · Australian rules football

AFL 23

AFL 23 is the most authentic video game football experience to date. Featuring the fully licensed 2023 AFL Premiership and AFL Women’s competitions and over 30 detailed stadiums, it’s time to play footy for real.

Released
3 May 2023
Platforms
PlayStation 4PlayStation 5WindowsXbox OneXbox Series X/S
Genres
Australian footballAustralian rules footballSimulationSports
Developers
Big Ant Studios
Publishers
Nacon
Series
AFL
Modes
Co-opMultiplayerSingle-player
Country
Australia
Age ratings
GRAC ALLACB GUSK 0ESRB EPEGI 3CLASS_IND L
Languages
English

About

AFL 23 is a 2023 Australian rules football simulation video game developed by Big Ant Studios and published by Nacon. It was released in May 2023 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, and after a long delay, it was finally released for the Xbox One and Xbox Series X in September 2023. The game is the most recent installment in the long-running AFL video game series, and the first to be developed by Big Ant since AFL Live in 2011.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

AFL 23 is an Australian rules football simulation video game which strives to emulate the Australian Football League (AFL) and AFL Women's. While the title is centred around the two pre-eminent professional leagues, it also includes several second-tier state leagues featuring both men's and women's competitions. Players mostly play AFL football games with real or created players and teams. The game features commentary from Anthony Hudson, Jason Bennett, Kelli Underwood, Garry Lyon and Daniel Harford, and its visual presentation aims to replicate that used on Seven Sport's AFL coverage.

Along with standard quick play and online game modes, several other game modes are present. Season mode allows the player to play through an entire season in their selected league, controlling either the full competition or just one club. Management career expands on season mode to allow the player to control the club's finances, personnel, drafting and trading over multiple years. A card-based game known as Pro Team, similar to that of EA Sports' Ultimate Team modes, was announced in April 2023, but as of May 2024 it is yet to be included. In July 2024, Pro Team was finally released in an update.

Development

The game was originally set to be released on 13 April 2023. The game was then delayed to 4 May, supposedly due to physical copies of the Xbox versions not yet being in Australia. Days before the new launch date, it was announced that the Xbox versions of the game would again be delayed until mid to late June. The PS4, PS5 and Windows versions of the game were still released on 4 May.

On 16 June, Big Ant Studios announced further delays to the Xbox release, this time until "late July to early August". This time period again passed without any release or comment from the developers. On 17 August, a customer support representative from JB Hi-Fi explained that the Xbox release was delayed until 31 October. The Xbox versions of the game were eventually released on 22 September 2023.

Reception

AFL 23 received mixed to negative reviews on release and was initially plagued by game-breaking bugs and crashes. The game currently holds a 'mixed' rating on Steam, with only 44% of players leaving a positive recommendation as of August 2023.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Windows4 May 2023Worldwide
PlayStation 44 May 2023Worldwide
PlayStation 54 May 2023Worldwide
Xbox One21 September 2023North America
Xbox Series X/S21 September 2023North America

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Collections6 collections

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.