Cyprus-headquartered gaming company Strikerz Inc. CEO and co-founder Eugene Nashilov has said the company wants UFL Mobile to become one of the world’s top three football games, as the free-to-play title moves deeper into its global soft launch and prepares for a wider rollout later this year. 

Speaking to GamingonPhone, Nashilov presented UFL not as a short-term alternative to the football gaming giants, but as a long-term project shaped by accessibility, player feedback and a desire to bring something different to a market he believes had become too predictable. 

“Our ambition is to become one of the top three football games,” he said, adding that while football gaming is already established, Strikerz wants UFL to be recognised “among the top three in the eyes of the audience”. 

He added that “there’s still a lot of work ahead of us to achieve that,” but said the company’s “ultimate goal is to stand alongside the industry’s leaders and compete at the highest level”. 

For Nashilov, that ambition goes back to the beginning of UFL itself. The idea, he explained, was born out of frustration with a football gaming market that had, in his view, stopped moving forward creatively.  

“We felt like the competition on the market had been stale for quite a long time,” Eugene told GamingonPhone, adding that “ultimately the competition went into a situation where it was mostly a licensing fight”. 

That feeling eventually pushed Strikerz towards building its own football experience in 2016. At the time, the company was nothing like the 400-plus person studio it has since become, with Nashilov saying it began with only himself and current chief technology officer Max Chernega. 

The project was also personal. Nashilov said that football had been part of his own life from an early age, before injuries brought his semi-professional playing days to an end, saying that “I’m a big football fan. I played semi-professionally as a youngster, but sadly, I tore my ACL twice.” 

That connection, in turn, helped shape the way Strikerz approached UFL from the outset. Rather than building another premium football title, Nashilov said the company wanted to make the game more open to players, explaining that “the idea behind UFL was to make football accessible”.  

At the time, he added, “there was basically no other choice but to pay for football games at that time, and we wanted to shift toward free-to-play”. 

The mobile version has now become a major part of that plan. UFL 2026 Mobile, developed by Strikerz Inc. and XTEN Limited, expanded its soft launch globally on May 22, 2026, following earlier regional testing phases. 

The game is now available to a much wider audience as part of its second rollout stage, giving Strikerz a broader testing ground as it works towards a full global launch. 

Nashilov said the launch has been exciting, but also demanding, particularly because adapting a football game for mobile requires more than simply scaling down the console version. “I’m super excited about it because you always feel this passion when you’re launching a game anywhere,” he said, adding that “mobile has been a very big step for us”. 

He explained that “first, it was a technical challenge to optimize the console game for mobile devices, and secondly, because it reaches millions of people very fast”. 

The early response has also encouraged the company.  

According to Nashilov, UFL Mobile has already crossed around 1.3 million registered mobile players, despite the studio not yet running heavy marketing campaigns. “The speed at which people downloaded the game is crazy,” he said, adding that “we are not doing aggressive marketing right now either, so obviously, I’m super excited about it”. 

Still, Nashilov made clear that the current build is not being treated as the finished product. Instead, the point of the global soft launch is to understand how the game performs at scale, which systems work, and where Strikerz still needs to make changes before the full release. “That’s exactly why we call it a global soft launch,” he said, adding that he is “mainly looking at performance”. 

“We’re analyzing with the team how everything works, which ideas worked out, which ideas didn’t, and what we need to change and optimise,” he added, mentioning that the company still needs “to test things out, both in the metagame and in the core gameplay”. 

That work is particularly important on mobile, where football gaming has to fit different habits, shorter play sessions and a wider range of devices. Nashilov said the team is focusing on gameplay feel, defensive balancing, reaction timing, touch controls and pacing, while also recognising that “on mobile, players don’t always have one or two hours to play”. 

This difference in behaviour is also why Strikerz chose to build UFL Mobile on a separate proprietary engine, rather than relying entirely on the same technology used across other platforms. 

“We always viewed mobile as a separate experience,” Eugene explained, saying that “people play differently on mobile, and they deserve an ecosystem where they can enjoy the game without having to compete with players on platforms that operate in a completely different way”. 

For Strikerz, the decision was also about reach. Nashilov said the company wanted UFL Mobile to run smoothly across as many devices as possible, including lower-end phones that often struggle with graphically demanding football games.  

“When you have an engine that can run on a wide variety of devices, you make the audience pool much bigger,” he said, adding that “not everybody can afford a high-end device nowadays”. 

He said UFL “has always been designed as accessible football for as many people as we can reach”. 

At the same time, mobile is not being treated as a separate side project. Nashilov sees it as part of a wider UFL ecosystem, where players may first discover the game on their phones and later move across to PC or console.  

“If someone enjoys the game on mobile and also owns a PC or console, they may decide to try the experience on another platform as well,” he said, adding that this is why Strikerz sees “strong synergy between all platforms”. 

For him, running a separate engine for mobile is therefore “a strategic move for us”. 

Throughout the interview, Nashilov returned to the importance of player feedback. He said community involvement has been part of UFL’s identity from the beginning and will remain central as the mobile version develops.  

“One of the core elements of UFL’s DNA has always been community-centric development,” he said, explaining that the studio tries “to stay close to the audience, understand what they want, and involve them in shaping the future of the game”. 

“That’s a philosophy we intend to continue following,” he added. 

That same thinking is also shaping Strikerz’s approach to co-op gameplay. Nashilov said football games can become frustrating when played alone for too long, while playing with friends changes the emotional experience of losing, recovering and trying again.  

“When you lose alone, it becomes this love-hate relationship,” he laughed, adding that “you leave the game, come back later, and repeat it again”. 

With friends, however, even the negative moments feel different, because “when you have friends playing with you, negative moments become funny, you can rant together”. 

Strikerz is already looking at wider co-op support across platforms, including mobile, with ranked cooperative progression and shared rewards among the ideas being explored internally.  

For Nashilov, that kind of shared play can create some of the most satisfying moments in football gaming, particularly “when you understand each other and make the perfect pass before scoring,” which he said “feels like your minds are synced”. 

Gameplay variety is another area where the studio wants to go further. Nashilov said he personally enjoys skill moves and wants to see them expanded in UFL Mobile, although he acknowledged that making those mechanics work properly on touchscreen controls is more difficult than it may appear.  

“I personally love skill moves,” he said immediately, adding that “I love doing flashy things in football games”. 

He explained that “there’s a team experimenting with how skill moves should work on touch controls,” while the game design team is “actively experimenting with skill moves”. Nashilov said he is sure “the variety of moves available to players will continue to grow”. 

That part of the discussion soon moved into football fan territory, with Nashilov saying he would like to see proper stepovers in the game because of his admiration for Cristiano Ronaldo’s early years. “As a Cristiano Ronaldo fan, I really want proper stepovers in the game,” he said, recalling how he remembered him “at 17, 18, 19 years old just destroying defenders with them”. 

However, he also spoke warmly about Lionel Messi, pointing to the very different way the two players changed football. “Cristiano evolved from a flashy winger into a killer striker,” Eugene explained, while “Leo is different. He doesn’t need flashy moves because he changes direction so quickly.” 

Nashilov described both players as “absolutely equally genius”. 

Beyond the gameplay itself, Strikerz is also building out UFL Mobile’s customisation systems, including cosmetics, kits, stadium options and the Star Pass.  

However, Nashilov said players have so far been more focused on competition and progression than the studio initially expected. “When we launched on console, we thought cosmetics would matter more. But players mostly focus on player cards and competition.” 

However, visual expression remains part of the longer-term plan. Nashilov said he enjoys the small details that allow players to make the game feel more personal, explaining that “I like having different boots, different sleeve styles, different combinations, it lets me express myself visually”. 

For him, that reflects how football itself has changed, moving beyond the pitch and into fashion, culture and entertainment. “Football is not just a sport anymore. It’s a lifestyle thing,” he said. 

That wider view could eventually lead to more ambitious collaborations and crossover content. Nashilov mentioned entertainment-led ideas that would move beyond traditional football branding, although he stressed that these plans are not the immediate focus. “It could be something completely crazy,” he laughed, suggesting “maybe a Rick and Morty stadium or a Star Wars-themed event”. 

For now, however, the priority remains the core game. Nashilov said “people should start expecting things from 2027 onward,” adding that “until then, we still have a lot of work to do on the core game and foundational systems”. 

The challenge ahead is considerable, particularly in a market already shaped by major titles such as EA Sports FC Mobile and eFootball. However, Nashilov’s comments suggest Strikerz is trying to position UFL Mobile as more than another football game chasing the same audience. 

Instead, the company is building around accessibility, community-led development, mobile-first design and a wider football culture that extends beyond match results alone.