My bedtime routine includes one of my favorite activities – perusing YouTube for video game trailers. My algorithm has gotten so curated that I quite often discover new games, and occasionally it is one that I like to bring to the Gaming Nexus audience. This week, the YouTube gods fed me Varsity High School Football, a football sim focused solely on the ranks of high school American football that is one to put on your radar if you’re a fan of sports games.
Developed by Spear Interactive and Pyramid Lake Games, Varsity High School Football features an immersive dynasty experience, allowing you to build your high school program over multiple seasons (up to 50 in its current iteration) as you navigate rivalries, manage relationships with players and parents, boosters, and your coaching staff.
Varsity also includes a robust team customization suite which will allow you to create your team and school in what appears to be just about any location in the United States. Each town, county, and state creates a unique football atmosphere, and you’ll be able to choose your state’s playoff structure for your school’s classification. From a player customization standpoint, you can create or edit individual players from their stats to their equipment. On the team side, you choose your facility, bleachers, scoreboards, press box, and more.
The studio has been releasing monthly development updates, but some of the big 2025 highlights include the addition of coach schemes and tendencies, game themes (homecoming, rivalry, senior night, etc.), community file sharing of custom teams, player training boosts for playing other sports in the offseason (!!), PA announcers, crowd sound, improved motion capture, and they also held the first playtest for a 7on7 game mode.
At first it had my curiosity, but now it has my attention. Varsity High School Football does not have a release date, but will come to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox when its ready for kickoff.
