Retro football manager Nutmeg turns the beautiful game into a card battler

Nutmeg gameplay trailer - PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted 2025 - YouTube

If you're from the UK, like myself, you almost definitely grew up with friends and family alike who were utterly obsessed with football, even if you yourself were not. The beautiful game, a game of two halves—it has many names. Nutmeg taps into the British cultural obsession and takes us back to the sport's '80s and '90s heyday, but it also turns it into a card battler. Nutmeg, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

The new trailer revealed the game's release date of March 26, 2026, and gave us more of a look at how on Earth a football management sim can work as a card battler.

Essentially, everything is a card, from the formations your team will play in to the actions they'll take on the pitch. Teams flip cards from their deck onto the pitch, and you can then add more to take special actions or give buffs to the cards you have in play. The announcer keeps things exciting, even though in reality we're just watching cards hit a table.

You collect cards by completing challenges and doing training sessions, and you can even combine them to boost their effectiveness.

Nutmeg pulls from real football history and sets you off as the manager of a Division 4 team. Use your own knowledge (or cheat a bit and look things up) to snap up iconic players before everyone else knows how good they are and their salaries and egos inflate.

This is a very unique take on the football management sim, and the retro aesthetic works beautifully. Your office appears to be a kid's bedroom with a green screen computer, so I can only imagine the cards are meant to emulate the real-life phenomenon of collecting the football card packs from your local corner shop.

Nutmeg is out March 26, 2026, and you cann wishlist it on Steam to get a notification when kickoff is about to begin.

Once you've had a good kickabout, check out everything announced during the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted: Powered by Xbox Game Pass.

Issy van der Velde has been writing about video games professionally for five years, contributing to Rolling Stone, NME, GamesRadar+, IGN, and many more. He's been freelance and held editorial roles across news, guides, and features, and is now the deputy editor of the PC Gaming Show.

A lifelong gamer, Issy won the MCV 30 under 30 award for his work covering queer, Arab, and women's representation in the gaming industry.

His favourite games are narrative, story-driven adventures, arcade racers, roguelites, and soulslikes.

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