Mutant Football League 2

Written by Jason Dailey on 12/22/2025 for PS5  

Growing up, my childhood buddies and I spent a lot of time playing NFL Blitz, be it at the arcade or at home on the Nintendo 64. We grew quite fond of its violent, arcade take on American football. So, when I came across Mutant Football League 2, which is essentially gory NFL Blitz, I had to see if it could rekindle that nostalgia for me. A sequel to the 2017 original, which itself is a spiritual successor to 1993’s Mutant League Football, Mutant Football League 2 fills a fun niche, but is a bit lacking from a hands-on gameplay perspective.

If you’ve never played an NFL Blitz game, or the first Mutant Football League game for that matter, you’re in for somewhat of a treat. Mutant Football League 2 is genuinely one of the funniest games that I’ve ever played, with a raunchy, irreverent tone that is typically reserved for late night adult cartoons. This is mostly due to the in-game commentary, which features Tim Kitzrow, whose famous voice has graced lots of arcade sports games over the years, including NFL Blitz and NBA Jam. Tim brings the heat for MFL 2, with absolutely no filter whatsoever. At one point he complained about me having a created team full of auto-generated players because he “didn’t know their f****** names.” There is no fourth wall here, nor is there an E for Everyone content rating. Even the licensed soundtrack is laced with profanity, which caught me off guard at first because we obviously never hear that in other sports titles.

The writing doesn’t pull any punches either. Players crack jokes between plays, in addition to the commentators, and it’s like listening to a Comedy Central roast between downs of football. Very little is off limits in MFL 2. Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, Melissa Etheridge, nuns, big corporations, and Tim Kitzrow’s sex life are all the butt of jokes. One of my favorite lines pops up at the end of games: “This game is brought to you by Comcrack Entertainment. They’re not happy until you’re not happy!” As a former Comcast customer myself, I burst into laughter. The trouble here is that after a few hours of playing, I kept hearing the same punchlines repeatedly.

But are its dark comedic tone and shenanigans enough to make MFL 2 worthwhile? Not exactly. The on-field gameplay is simply fine. As an arcade sports game, obviously I’m not wanting the gameplay to play like a full sports sim, such as Madden, but MFL 2’s 8v8 football feels a little too basic. Players are on ice skates with not much happening in terms of physics or movement. Even tackles switch to a pool of scripted animations rather than physics-based ones, and I never felt attached to what was happening on the field through the controller in my hands. And why is everyone so slow in an arcade football game? That is the evolution I’d like to see for MFL 3.

With that said, MFL 2 takes some fun liberties with the sport of football. Tackles are more like takedowns, with brutal flips and slams happening every play. And after each play, you can punch, kick, and body slam opposing players to reduce their hit points. If their hit points reach zero, they’re dead and out for the remainder of the game. Along those lines, each field is lined with traps that can instantly kill players or severely injure them. You might get impaled by spike strips, blown up by a landmine, or fall into a blood pit. There is a little bit of strategy to it too, if you can time your runs just right to lead opposing players into a trap. If every player in a position group dies (all your running backs, let’s say) then that team forfeits the game, so, in theory, you could win a game by just focusing on killing players.

Additionally, you can take four Dirty Tricks with you into each matchup: two for offense and two for defense. These single-use tricks are essentially one-time ultimate abilities that can drastically turn the tables. For instance, using the Shotgun Dirty Trick executed a pre-set running play where you hand the ball to your running back and then press Circle to blast nearby opponents, clearing a path straight to the endzone with a double-barrel shotgun in one hand, and the pigskin in the other. You may even kill a player or two! It’s a totally outrageous riff on football and that’s part of the charm.

Even though MFL 2 struggled to completely satisfy me with its on-field gameplay, I did enjoy the surprising amount of depth in its Dynasty Supreme franchise mode. It is the primary mode, but also on offer is a Season mode, Training Camp tutorial, and Quick Game, which can be played online against other players or friends. In Dynasty Supreme, you can create your own team or choose from a plethora of prefabricated ones such as the Malice Hellboys or the Leaveland Burns.

They’ve also created hilarious pseudonyms for real life players and stadiums, like Hatrick MyHomies, and Stank of America Stadium. I ended up creating the Rock City Rizzlers, signed Traylor Heimlicky as my quarterback, and created a stadium with a nuclear winter backdrop. Adding to my surprise, the team and stadium creation suite has a wider variety of customization options than I expected – you can even select a dynamic weather event for your stadium, such as deadly thunderstorms or blizzards.

From there you go through the rookie draft and then head into the season. You’re given a deadline of three seasons to make it to the Mayhem Bowl, but you also have primary and secondary objectives for each season as well. These may include budgetary or win total goals, as examples. Each week you are allowed to make one player trade and sign one free agent player as well. This sounds restrictive, but I liked the forced pacing preventing me from just buying a team week one, though I am sure some players are going to hate this fact. You do have a salary cap and team budget, further limiting the number of players you can buy and how much you can upgrade them.

After each game, your players earn XP, which you can then use to upgrade their stats one point at a time. You can also spend the team budget to increase their stat ratings, should you choose. It’s all quite a bit more in depth than I expected, in a good way.

Amidst my surprise, however, there was one thing that did not surprise me, which is that the graphics aren’t quite up to par for a 2025 game. They’re a little rough around the edges, with some low-quality textures and weird artifacting on players that almost look like they’re rendered sub-1080p. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they’re somewhat fuzzy, even on PS5 Pro. I kept feeling like I needed to clean my screen even though there was nothing there.

At the end of the day, it’s hard not to be charmed by Mutant Football League 2, especially for its asking price of $29.99. I think it is a strong value proposition, even if I’m not thrilled by its on-field football. A surprising amount of depth in its Dynasty Supreme mode and wildly entertaining presentation package carries the ball here. But its far too basic gameplay and dated graphics stop this raunchy arcade football romp just shy of the goal line. It will likely strike a nostalgic chord within you if you enjoy the old NFL Blitz games, but once that nostalgia fades, it’s just an okay arcade football game, and that’s okay.