It’s about time video games remember that dodgeball is super cool

Dodgeball has to be the most entertaining and least appreciated team sport. Challenge two teams to eliminate each other by throwing balls at each other’s face / crotch (I suppose you could also target other parts of the body) until only one is left standing. That is incredible! What other sport allows you to throw objects at people and get away with it? When you think about it, dodgeball is basically a real life deathmatch mode, but less gory, most of the time.

I’d also say that dodgeball lends itself to moments of individual toughness more than any other team sport. Any fifth grader will tell you that he never felt like the main character until he caught two balls in a row or swept an entire squad without help. Even the dodgeball itself is the best ball in sports. That satisfying “bing” sound when nailing a body part? Try replicating that with an old soccer or golf ball. The impact is so quiet that all you hear are the recipient’s groans of pain. Boring.

Knockout City

These hard facts always raised two questions: how come dodgeball is not yet an Olympic sport and, more importantly, why aren’t there more dodgeball video games? The rules are easy to understand, difficult to master, and the sport meets the necessary quota of violence while remaining family friendly. Sure, there have been exceptions like Super Dodge Ball for the NES or, if you squint enough, Lethal League, but they are few and far between, and the sport hardly gets any attention from mainstream games.

I pondered the subject in January, and the Law of Attraction responded by giving me not one, but two entertaining dodgeball games: Knockout City and the recently launched Dodgeball Academy. Both games successfully replicate the inherent thrill of dodgeball in similar but also very different ways. As a competitive multiplayer title, Knockout City furthers the teamwork aspect of the sport, but increases the insanity to 11 with explosive power-ups and crazy arenas to make an already ridiculous sport even more over the top. It’s one of the best surprises of the year, and any dodgeball fan who hasn’t taken a look at it is doing it wrong.

Dodgeball Academy

Dodgeball Academia, which launched last week for consoles and PC, takes a completely different direction by presenting it as an RPG-style adventure set in a Yu-Gi-Oh GX-Gifted Youth Style Dodgeball Academy. Despite having distinctive RPG features like character leveling and gear, the actual dodgeball is not turn-based. Matches are action-packed, often tense affairs of throwing balls at rival players in combat loaded with ridiculous superpowers and special moves. If you’ve been looking for that specific dodgeball mix with hints of sports anime and lots of humor, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Both games do a great job of reminding me of the joy of dodgeball while exemplifying what I already knew: dodgeball is the perfect sport for video games. It’s worthy of more representation in between, and I hope that getting two brilliant examples in one year will open the floodgates for a more inventive take on the sport. Pro Evolution Dodgeball? Dodgeball 2K? Pyre 2: Is it just Dodgeball now? Let’s do it.

Now, all that remains is to penetrate the Olympics. After all, skateboarding made its debut this year, and the sport has a trillion video games. If we can get more dodgeball titles before 2024, then the sport can gain enough credibility to crack that nut. Watch out, Paris.

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