Frozen Endzone touches down onto Steam Early Access later today

Frozen Endzone has been cleverly tailored to catch the attention of a pretty wide cross-section of humanity: those who like sport, those who like robots, and those who like asynchronous tactical multiplayer. A new trailer hopes to secure the interest of anyone caught in this particular Venn diagram, ahead of the game's imminent arrival on Steam's Early Access .

While the game has been available directly from the Frozen Endzone site , the Steam version also heralds the arrival of a new update, bringing with it the following features.

"Players can now have stats: strength, resilience, “burst” (a small burst of acceleration when getting the ball), evade, intercept radius, block radius
"'Handball' (now called 'Full Match') game mode enters beta. This has been totally revamped to accommodate stats and is now the main game mode. Lots of turnovers, interceptions, end-to-end action, and new points zones make this really exciting and strategic.
"Team Editor allows you to name your players and set their stats; upload your team to the server and use it in multiplayer or skirmish with it offline
"Completely revamped, much more intelligent AI and a selection of new AI skirmishes
"Easy-to-use tile-based Pitch Editor (alpha)
"Custom Game Mode creator (alpha)
"Commentary system (alpha): commentary makes use of player names; in single player, the AI calculations are also used to allow the commentators to analyse your play-style; in multiplayer, the commentators will discuss your previous history with your opponent
"Some brand new animations and some big improvements to camera code
"There is now in-game audio to go with the music!"

As with the developers' previous Frozen Synapse, buying a copy provides two keys, so you can send one to a friend/'80s high-school movie rival. For more, check out Mode 7's Reddit AMA , which is just getting started, and look out for some Frozen Endzone analysis in a future Early Access Report .

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.