Pokémon Meets American Football In This New Free-To-Play Browser Game

If you love American Football and Pokémon, and have wondered what it might be like to see Nidoking going up against Gengar in some fast-paced on-field action, then Cole Thereum has created a game that's going to both blow your mind and your allotted quota of sick days from your job. It's free to play, and it's out now

Pokémon have been appearing in all sorts of different styles of games of late. It was only the other day that I wrote about Pokémon 2D Arena, a new real-time battle game that feels a little more like a 2D Mortal Kombat than traditional turn-based fighting. Then we've had Kanto Tactics with grid-based, Fire Emblem-esque battles, and now Cole has brought a battle to get the ultimate touchdown into the equation.

All 22 has two modes: Pro and Bowl. Pro shows the typical All 22 camera angle that you'd find when watching American Football (pictured above), whereas Bowl has a top-down view of the game like in the SNES games of old. Either way, the premise is still the same - pick a team of Pokémon from all 9 gens, battle the Gym Leaders on the football field, and become victorious.

Cole has mentioned numerous times that this is a free game to play and that there won't be any Fantasy Football betting or anything that can be monetised from this project. It's free to play, and it's going to stay that way. And the fact that you can play it in your browser wherever you are without having to load up an emulator or patch a ROM is fantastic too - it's easy to access anywhere... until your workplace bans it on their intranet, that is!

The randomiser is a great tool to use when you're picking Pokémon from all 9 gens, as there are so many to choose from. The controls take a little bit of getting used to, but that's only because there's a lot to remember, and it'll help greatly if you know the rules of American Football and how the game is played too (otherwise it'll all be nonsense).

As for whether Cole has used any AI in this game, I can't find any information that says All 22 was made using generative AI or AI in the coding stages. The Generative AI part is the bit I'm most precious about; lots of people are using AI to do menial tasks in coding these days, but it looks to me, from searching the web, that Cole has used that minimally too!

Head to the All 22 website to start playing!