despelote (2025)

Developer: Julián Cordero, Sebastian Valbuena

I saw the trailer for Despelote for the first time during game announcements at Latinx Games Show, which was packed with other really cool reveals. It stood out to me due to its unique aesthetics and its free-form style of soccer gameplay. It’s quite a short game, which made it easy for me to play it again in order to see more of its world and play around just a little bit more.  Despelote is a short soccer adventure taking place in Quito, Ecuador during a historic moment in early 2000’s. Despelote grants you so much freedom to play as only a kid would, while also telling a compelling, true and personal story; I only wish I had more time to get to explore and play in its warm and inviting world.

Despelote is a story of Julián, an 8-year-old boy living in Quito. It’s 2001 and Ecuador’s national soccer team has a real chance to make it to the World Cup for the first time. The story’s chapters are based around the preliminary matches taking place against other Latin American countries’ national teams. While Ecuador is experiencing a financial crisis, the country is also in a deep soccer fever, putting their hopes and dreams on the chance of qualifying. Meanwhile, Julián is just a regular kid who loves playing soccer - any free time he has is spent kicking a ball through the streets with his friends. You get to experience Julián’s perspective as he goes to family events, goes to school, gets in trouble, and plays a lot of his soccer video game (it’s clearly supposed to be FIFA).

All over town, there’s TVs playing the soccer games, billboards of the world cup, and people speculating what’s coming next.

Despelote’s art style is definitely different and probably the first thing you’ll notice about it. Its environments are a collection of monotone, grainy photographs of real-life places. The hue changes depending on the scene, but whether it’s green or burgundy, it has a washed-out feeling of an old photo album. I would call it a colorful and slightly more photorealistic version of Return of the Obra Dinn’s art style. Meanwhile, characters and interactable items in the game are simple black and white sketches, creating a strong contrast and letting you focus on those specific things. This style accurately gives the illusion of a different time, although it feels perhaps even older than 2001 (which is a whole 24 years ago - okay, that is a long time, and it makes me feel old). Despelote is also fully voice-acted in Spanish, though you can choose to have the subtitle text be in your language of choice. I started with text in English, but realized that in a game like this, it really felt right to have it fully in Spanish text. Spanish in every country is different, so as a native speaker from Mexico, there’s bits that went over my head - the subtitles over the spoken dialogue helped me pick it up much better than I would’ve otherwise. The voice acting is excellent for every character in the story, even (and especially) for the random people on the street who yell at you for causing trouble.

I was also 8 years old in 2001, and this scene brought back fond memories of going to rent movies at Hollywood Video with my family.

My favorite thing about Despelote is that it lets you just be a little shit kid, you can be as much of a menace as you want to be. Not only do you kick the ball at everyone and anything, you can also kick other things as a substitute soccer ball. You can be mean to your little sister, hide under the table with her at a party, kick balloons into fans, flush all the toilets, or even turn the house stove on just because. You get in trouble a lot, but at the same time, the game kind of encourages you to do what a rambunctious kid would actually do at that age, like choosing to have fun with your friends over being home on time. One small feature that I found really clever is the ability to look down and be able to see the time on your watch. You actually have to look down to be able to see it, which is purposely immersive and requires extra effort, especially when the time you get home matters and the in-game time isn’t aligned to real time. I honestly had so much fun goofing around in this game; my biggest complaint is that I wish it had given you a bit more time to do more of that, and to explore the town a little more closely. The game is short, and that’s fine, but a lot of time is spent in cutscenes or guided scenes where you can’t go play yet. To be fair, this does add to that childlike feeling of adults always telling you where to go and never getting enough time for play. However, I wish that when I beat the game I could have a little more time to just go back to those specific free play sections. However, my second playthrough was a good enough version of that and it also gave me the chance to understand the characters a little better.

It's a little funny to ruin a couple's day by kicking a ball through their picnic.

Despelote’s narrated story expressed the developer’s strong feelings and nostalgia about this time in their life and really made me feel that as well. As someone who doesn’t care much for sports, this game did manage to make an impact on me by reminding me of the inexplicably powerful tie between soccer and Latin American culture. This isn’t new to me by any means - I grew up in Mexico with three older brothers who are all obsessed with soccer to some degree and played it all the time during my childhood. At that time, I felt like being surrounded by soccer mania as a non-enthusiast felt a bit alienating. Now, my connection and small knowledge of soccer via my family makes me feel a little more connected to my culture as well. Even I can see that there is something exhilarating about a community coming together, united over a shared passion, celebrating the greatest wins together as one. Despelote made me feel nostalgic for something I hadn’t experienced first-hand, but second-hand through my brothers. I felt Julián could be any one of them, but the age gap between him and his little sister reminded me most of my youngest brother and myself.

A screenshot of Julian's little sister rambling about a story she made up about a cow.

A screenshot of Julian drawing a frog with his little sister.

I’m reminded of myself with the little sister who’s constantly drawing, asks her brother to draw too, and gets mad at him when he won't let her play video games with him.

Despelote is an excellent example of a game that feels like someone’s autobiography, or better yet, a walk through a moment in their life. It was only made by two people, and it is based on one of the developer’s (the narrator’s) childhood in Quito. The story and character relationships resonated with me more strongly than I thought they would. Not only did it make me reminisce of a similar time in my life, but it also is written in such a genuine way that it really transports you into the character’s perspective. This is the first game I’ve played fully in Spanish, and the excellent voice acting made it that much more immersive for me to do so. I would love to play a follow-up of a game like this that lets you just play around a little bit more, kick the ball around in some new places and let you see more of Julián’s life.

Despelote is available on PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S

Played on: PC (Steam Deck)

Finished: 5/9/2025

Playtime: 4.6 hrs