Starting a New Game

Choosing your club

When you start a new game you pick one of the ten original NSL clubs. Each begins with its own roster, wage bill, and place in its conference — but every club starts on a level footing, so pick the one you want to lead.

Eastern Conference

• Columbus Forge
• D.C. Republic
• Boston Harbor FC
• Metro Empire FC
• Tampa Bay Corsairs

Western Conference

• Colorado Summit
• Dallas Ember
• KC Union
• LA Eclipse
• San Jose Circuit

Tap a club to see its squad before you commit. Once you confirm, your save is created and opens with a Club Briefing: a quick look at your club, squad and immediate priorities. After the preseason Challenge Cup, a Season Preview sets the scene for the 32-game year.

Options

Before you start, choose the rules that will follow this save throughout its career:

• Shootouts or ties. By default, level regular-season matches finish in a shootout. You can instead disable shootouts and use conventional draws: three points for a win, one for a tie, and none for a loss.
• Playoff format. Choose a Best of 3 series (the default), home-and-away Two Legs on aggregate, or a single-game Straight Knockout for the conference rounds. See Playoffs & the Founders Cup for the details.
• Roster building. Transfer / Free Agent uses the open market. Allocation / Free Agent adds a league-wide priority order for selected returning Americans; see Allocation Order.
• Founding Draft. Start the inaugural season by building your own squad through the one-time founding draft instead of taking the standard club roster.

These choices are locked to the save once the season starts.

You choose the club and the rules above; the game handles the calendar from there.

Which club should I pick?

There’s no “easy” or “hard” club flagged in the game — every roster has strengths and holes. If it’s your first game, pick a club you’ll enjoy following. You can always start another save later.

Multiple saves

You can keep several games going at once — a different club, a fresh restart, or a career you want to preserve. Each save is completely separate: its own squad, standings, money, and history. Nothing you do in one save affects another.

• Switch saves to jump between careers. Only one save is active at a time.
• Delete a save you’re done with to clear it out.

Starting over

Want a clean slate with the same club? Start a new game and you’ll get a fresh 1994 season with a newly built squad. Your old save stays put unless you delete it.