Here’s how the World Cup was played in video games (Part 1) – Game Special

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The 2026 FIFA World Cup has begun! They say it’s historic: for the first time, it takes place in three countries and on two continents, and more national teams compete in the tournament than ever before. It will be remembered for the introduction of some new rules, (too) expensive ticket prices, and hopefully for good football.

Unfortunately, we will remember this world championship as the first one that was not accompanied by official content in current football video games. The official game of WC 2026 is the FIFA World Cup Launch Edition mobile title that can only be accessed by Netflix subscribers. Unlike all previous gaming content for world football championships, this is the first one that will not be preserved but will disappear from existence when FIFA and Netflix decide that we no longer need that game.

Fortunately, half a century of the world football championship in gaming will remain preserved, and this is an opportunity to remember and remind what the history of the biggest football competition looked like in virtual form. It’s a rich history, so we’ll divide it into three parts/texts – just enough so that you can read them in half time, so that you can brag about obscure information in front of the team if necessary.

We will start chronologically, so in the first part we will have fun with the early beginnings of soccer games for world championships, as well as their development until the mid-nineties. If the referee didn’t punish us for delaying the game, it would be wise to take action as soon as possible…

1974 World Cup: West Germany

The location alone suggests how long ago this was. Back in 1974, Germany was still divided in two, and video games were in their infancy. Just two years earlier, the first commercial console for playing games was released, and in the same year 1972, Atari’s cult hit called Pong appeared. It was an electronic version of a totally different sport – table tennis, but it eventually paved the way for the first video game of the world soccer championship.

The game was called World Cup Football and was launched by Atari in 1974. It was one of the many variations of Pong in which the “racquets” represented the soccer players on the field – two attackers, two defenders and one goalkeeper in each team. By moving the soccer player up and down (or left and right, depending on how you look at it), the ball was deflected and tried to push it into the opponent’s goal. The whole thing was similar to table football in that the football players were controlled by turning handles, and all football players in defense or attack moved simultaneously.

This game could be played alone or in multiplayer for up to four players. Admittedly, as the game was tied to the arcade machine, it could not be found on the free market at that time, but could be afforded by arcades and entertainment centers of that time.

1978 World Cup: Argentina

Although we already had the second generation of consoles at the end of the 70s, the only soccer game that marked the 1978 World Cup in Argentina was still reserved for the arcade machine. The game was simply called World Cup, and the Japanese company SEGA was behind it.

Unlike the 1974 game, this one had a color display so we saw a green lawn. Not only that, but this game had sound effects for the referee’s whistle and the crowd’s applause. It could be said – a generational leap in presentation.

And significant progress was also achieved in the gameplay. In this game, soccer players could move in all directions, not just vertically. When the position of the soccer player in possession of the ball overlapped with the position of the opposing player, the opponent took the ball away from him. Players here had control over the ball through passing and shooting commands.

Despite great progress in just three years (the game actually became available in 1977), it was still a short-lived 60-90 second pastime, after which players had to insert coins or chips to continue playing.

1982 World Cup: Spain

I’m not entirely sure what led to us not having a world cup soccer game in Argentina in the early 80’s. However, we had an alternative – the managerial football game World Cup Manager, from Software For All. Admittedly, when we say “we had”, it’s not actually us, but the British, because the game was made for the BBC Micro computers of the local media company.

In the simplest terms, there were no graphics as such, or even depictions of football players, the pitch and the match. This was a text game of football, but it still brought some news. For the first time, in a game of the world football championship, we were able to choose the national team that we lead, and the national team of the former Yugoslavia was also represented. In fact, this was the first game in which the world championship was played as an entire tournament by groups and eliminations.

As is to be expected from a managerial game, a game plan could be set here. The formation, defensive and offensive strategy was chosen. The matches were simulated and the events in them were presented textually, almost like teletext, if anyone remembers that.

1986 World Cup: Mexico

The World Cup in gaming became interesting in the mid-80s. First, in 1984, we saw World Cup Football for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum, directed by the British developer Arctic Computing. That game was not related to any championship, but had the format of an international tournament where you could play with 16-40 different nations depending on the platform (by the way, the then Yugoslavia was not on the list). The game had a view of the field and the audience, and the game was played by five football players on each side. It was also the first game in which the world championship was played with included corners, throw-ins and goal kicks.

When it came time for the championship in Mexico in 1986, the rights to the first licensed soccer world cup game went to the publishing house US Gold. They hired the studio Ocean Software, which proved itself in 1984 with the game Match Day. Those developers were initially supposed to develop a new football game for the World Cup in 1986. However, the development of that game did not start due to a misunderstanding between the publisher and the developer. In order for the license not to fail completely, the publishing house US Gold contacted other developers – the already mentioned Artic Computing, and recycled World Cup Football, which was released two years earlier.

Ultimately we got a game called World Cup Carnival for Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. Only the ZX Spectrum version had all 24 teams competing in the championship, but the game only had the elimination phase of the tournament, which was a complete failure. The reviews were justifiably bad and the first official game of a World Cup was an embarrassing affair. In the end, it all ended in a lawsuit because Artic Computing had sold the rights to its World Cup Football a year before the World Cup Carnival. They lost the lawsuit and ultimately went bankrupt.

However, not everything was so black because there was also an unofficial World Cup game in Mexico. Tehkan World Cup directed by the Japanese company Tehkan was released in 1985 as a game for the arcade machine of the same name. Although it could not be bought to play at home, this was one of the revolutionary football games. It was then the first game with different types of passes and kicks. Lobs, volleys, fells, headers were used. It was also the first football game in which you could dribble, catch the ball with your chest and score an own goal. During that time, it also had the most football players on the field – as many as 20.

Later, this game was ported to Nintendo’s first home console, called Tecmo World Cup.

World Cup 1990: Italy

The rights for the official WC 1990 game in Italy were tried again by the publishing house US Gold, but fortunately they did not succeed. The license was obtained by British company Virgin Mastertonic who launched World Cup Soccer: Italia ’90 for various platforms including Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MS-DOS and Sega Mega Drive.

Just like in the case of the previous World Cup Carnival, this game was a recycling of older football. Rick Davis’s World Trophy Soccer came out in 1989 and was practically renamed to another game when it was necessary to release something for the world championship in Italy, without any changes of teams and such. Although the game itself had some specifics (eg the camera switched to “3D view” when the player was in front of the goal), ultimately it was not a true presentation of the World Cup because it could only be played with four nations: Italy, England, Spain and Belgium.

With this world championship, the number of unofficial games for the occasion has increased significantly. There were as many as four of them: Italy 1990, Italy ’90 Soccer and Italia 1990 developed by Codemasters. None of those games are really worth mentioning, but we said that there were four unofficial WC titles in 1990. The only title worth mentioning was the Nintendo World Cup for the NES console.

And it was a repurposed version of the Japanese game Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club: Soccer Story, so it had 13 national teams facing off in Tournament mode. Admittedly, only Japan could be led. Despite this, this was a fun arcade football where fouls were absent and neither was the backline. The football players had supernatural moves, and the game was played on different fields: on ice, that is, an ice rink, in quicksand, etc.

1994 World Cup: United States

When it was the turn of the World Cup 1994 in the USA, the rights for the official game were again acquired by the company US Gold, and they gave the task of developing the game to the British developer Tiertex, which had previously launched Italy 1990 as an unofficial game of the previous World Cup. If anything, their World Cup USA ’94 was the first case of an official soccer world cup game that wasn’t a recycling of something that came before. The game appeared in versions for MS-DOS, Amiga, SEGA Mega Drive, Super NES, Sega CD, Game Boy and several other platforms.

World Cup USA ’94 was specific in several ways. For example, it was possible to play here with several national teams that did not qualify for the World Cup in 1994. There was an option to play a full match lasting 90 minutes. For the first time, it was not allowed to return the ball to the goalkeeper. A coin was tossed to determine who would play on which side of the court.

In the version for the SEGA CD platform we had two songs by the German hard rock band Scorpions. And the SEGA Mega Drive version even supported a 16:9 aspect ratio, making it the first console game to do so.

Just like in the previous championship, in 1994 we also had unofficial World Cup games. Only two titles are worth mentioning this time. Super Sidekicks 2: The World Championship for Neo Geo arcades and consoles provided a qualifying segment of the competition. Super Formation Soccer 94 – World Cup Edition for Super Nintendo had unexpectedly good graphics and quite a bit of tactical depth.

We stop here – so that it won’t be too long to read. After all, the 1994 World Cup was the end of an era for soccer video games. After this period of experimentation and recycling, there was an era of stability for football games on the theme of world championships, which we will cover in the following text.

And until then, be sure to let us know in the comments if you’ve played any of these games or if you’re just old enough to remember collecting thumbnails for championships in the 80s and 90s.