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The only sports game where you can literally murder the other team and get away with it!

"If the sound of a torn achilles, followed by taunting and laughter brings a smile to your face, you're tuned to the right place! Hi everyone, this is Grim Blitzrow, and welcome to the Mutant Football League!"
Grim Blitzrow

What do you get when you combine orcs, skeletons, robots, aliens, demons, cyborgs, zombies, werewolves, and mutants with American Football? Well, if you also throw in copious amounts of violence, then you get the Mutant Football League.

In 1993, Electronic Arts released Mutant League Football for the Sega Genesis. An arcade-style football game where players are encouraged to kill the other team in any way they can. The fields are covered in landmines and spikepits, the referee can be bribed to give a team an advantage, and then killed by the other team if they disagree. Despite the great balance of violence, Black Comedy, and engaging football mechanics, the game never achieved massive critical success but did become a cult classic. It did well enough that EA would release Mutant League Hockey the following year. The franchise even earned a cartoon series that lasted two seasons but was quickly forgotten. After that point, the franchise died down, and Electronic Arts allowed the copyrights on the intellectual property to expire while they looked towards the future of gaming.

Michael Mendheim, the lead developer of Mutant League Football, formed Digital Dreams Entertainment LLC, picked up the IP, and released Mutant Football League in 2017, a modern remake that quickly gained critical acclaim because it doesn't change anything from the original formula. It has the same-but-modernized gameplay football mechanics, the same style of grotesque humor, same character designs recreated in a 3D environment, and the developers have been patching in annual roster updates to reflect the actual National Football League's team changes for every year since. While the initial release of the game only had a limited selection of teams and no proper season mode, a Dynasty mode that tasks you with building up a team and leading them to victory over multiple seasons has since been released, and a slew of new teams were added to the roster as cheaply priced DLC.

The game is available on Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, and ports are being made for Android and iOS.

Compare the Blood Bowl series, which may have served as an inspiration for this series.

Someone at Electronic Arts is kicking themselves for not being able to monetize the hell out of this resurrected franchise.

In May of 2021, Digital Dreams announced that the development of a Mutant Football League 2 game is currently underway.

"This is Grim Bliztrow. Let's go to the field for the Tropes!":

    open/close all folders 

    Tropes # to G 
  • 419 Scam: During the conference championship of the playoffs of a 4-time Mayhem Bowl-winning team, Junior mentions that Brickhead is horrible with his money. Brickhead mentions that he just gave his credit card info to some intergalactic prince who says he was holding money from his long-lost great-aunt.
  • 420, Blaze It:
    • The entire premise of the Mile High Chronic, a reference to Colorado being the first US state to legalize marijuana. One of their dirty tricks is a drug-induced Strawberry Fields that reverses the controls and slows down movement of the players on the offensive side. No Authority Field in Indica Springs, Colorado is literally filled with giant psychedelic mushrooms, has a rainbow motif, and the announcers mention having the munchies and partaking in the delectable brownies they bake at the food vendors (obviously implied but never stated to be made with pot, because that's the joke). They also like to screen 2001: A Space Odyssey before games as well.
    • One of the penalties a bribed ref may call on the other team is because life is harsh, unfair, and punishing, and nobody brought him any substances to cope.
    • Another penalty a bribed ref may call on the other team is for playing under the influence, to which the referee admits they're also currently stoned and forgets what he was talking about.
  • Adam Westing: Grim Blitzrow is a parody of his voice actor, Tim Kitzrow.
  • After the End: Grim and Bricks will sometimes mention the world that existed before a nuclear apocalypse overtook the planet. The resulting radiation (and Monsatan's tainted livestock) ended up creating the werewolves, demons, mutants, zombies, Deadheads, and orcs that now occupy the world. Players themselves also mention rules, strategies, and game plays that were not allowed in "the old league." Grim does mention that their announcement box is an old World War 3 bunker, and the official game manual mentions that World War 4 happened after that.
  • All There in the Manual: The official game manual properly explains the backstory and the world setting that is only casually mentioned through in-game dialogue.
  • Ambiguous Syntax: The Purple Mutant Eaters, a parody of the Minnesota Vikings, are purple-skinned cannibals. The intro to the Mutant Eaters' Dynasty Mode campaign leaves no room for confusion: "We're the purple ones, and we don't only eat purple mutants."
  • And That's Terrible: Invoked after some tackles.
    Grim Blitzrow: Oh, that's a vicious hit! And the crowd loves it!
    Brickhead Mulligan: He just turned that guy into 300 pounds of ground mutant meat!
    Grim Blitzrow: And you can't hit a guy much harder than that... and that is unfortunate.
  • Angrish: Angry gibberish can often be heard after someone scores any points, presumably from the defense's head coach.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: A Dynasty team with negative funds will still be allowed to manually resurrect dead players between games, albeit at normal cost. This is to ensure that a player doesn't immediately risk forfeiture by going in without a full team.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The story from the Official Game Manual explains that in the not too distant future, the world was thrown into chaos through a series of cataclysmic events that ravaged the planet and drove humanity to the brink, including rising oceans, drought, famine, atomic war, mega-earthquakes and irate, feral teenagers denied internet access due to inflated prices.
  • The Artifact: The Dynasty mode cutscenes show banners of various teams in the background, including the Croakland Invaders. The team was changed to the Lost Wages Invaders when the Oakland Raiders moved to Las Vegas.
  • Bear Trap: A few sawtoothed steel "mutant traps" are found near the sidelines in certain stadiums. Stepping on one kills any player instantly, forcing a fumble if he had the ball. Like the other lethal hazards, you can use them to your advantage by herding the opposing defense (or the ballcarrier) into them. Also like other lethal traps, having them on your home field is a double edged sword, especially in Dynasty Mode; your less intelligent/agile players on the kickoff team (offensive linemen and underdeveloped 3rd and 4th string defensive backs) will walk right into them.
  • Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: While Grim and Brickhead are a Straight Man and Wise Guy pairing, Brickhead Jr. is the straight-man who often ends up pointing out Brickhead's sheer stupidity.
    Grim: Hi, Grim Blitzrow here, along with my partners Bricks and Bricks Jr. How're you guys doing?
    Brickhead: I'm doing that little hottie who does the deep fry at the concessions!
    Brickhead Jr.: He said "how", not "who", you idiot. Even if you got the answer right!
  • Borrowin' Samedi: The Brawltimore Razors' team logo is a skull and dagger crossbones wearing Baron Samedi's top hat.
  • Big Red Devil: Hellspawned Demons generally have pointed horns and large demonic wings that aid them in making vertical jumps. They often have reddish skin tones, with exceptions for away team colors and certain teams that give specific colors to their players anyway.
  • Blood Sport: Violence is the name of the game. The fields are laced with traps that can injure or outright kill players, the players themselves are violent, and the fans are bloodthirsty. You can force a team to forfeit if you kill all players of a certain position (like quarterbacks, receivers, guards, etc. - or severely injure the last two of a position, which leaves them unable to play).
  • Bloody Hilarious: A lot of the humor comes from the grim and macabre setting of the game. If a player or referee gets killed, the other players or broadcasters will usually have a laugh at it.
  • Boom, Headshot!: Grim threatens this on Bricks after an obnoxious touchdown commentary.
    Bricks: GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!
    Grim: You ever do that again, Bricks, I'll shoot you in the head.
    Bricks: But people like it!
  • Bread and Circuses: With the various newly mutated races of humans, robots, demons, and aliens killing each other, the mega corporations realized that they were losing profits from there not being enough people alive to actually spend and invest money. The Wall Street investment firm Goldung Ballsac realized something needed to be done and joined up with entertainment conglomerate EVLSN and internet giant Scroogle to help quell the masses with regulated battles in the form of American Football, and the Mutant Football League was formed.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: When a player acknowledges earning the game MVP.
    Game MVP: On behalf of my babies, my mama, and my baby mamas, I'd like to thank my fans for keepin' us in Jordans, Gucci, and a whole lot of hoochie!
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall:
    • A player might brag that if they score so many points, the game will be rated Adults Only — a risk he's willing to take.
    • The MVP at the end of the game might question if he's really that good, or if the computer AI is just that terrible.
    • During the second season of Dynasty mode, your team captain might mockingly praise the "monkey with the controller" for winning a game.
    • Some defensive players may comment on making a hit so hard that (you) probably felt it through the controller.
    • During the final game of the third season of Dynasty mode, taking an undefeated team through two seasons and two Mayhem Bowls the entire way makes Brickhead question his reality.
      Brickhead: Watching these guys is kinda nuts, like we're all in some sort of video game. They're the two-time champions, and a undefeated, and a dynasty! Man, that's just a video game!
      Grim: Uhh... We're in a video game, Bricks.
      Brickhead: Ohhh, that's why I got no real life.
    • When beating your fifth Mayhem Bowl in Dynasty mode, Grim wonders if they'll ever see such a great coach ever again. Junior comments that with the nerd that's playing, he'll be right back at it in a couple hours with a different team.
  • But Thou Must!: Kill a bribed ref if you let one go unchecked for too long. Grim will usually call out when a referee gives a "bullshit penalty", but should a player chose to ignore it, Junior will specifically tell you to go into your Dirty Tricks playbook and choose the Kill the Ref play. If a player ignores it again, the game will force you to choose the Kill the Ref play by taking away all other options in your playbook, and the referee will show "BRIBED" above his character model on the next play.
  • Chainsaw Good:
    • The Chainsaw Massacre dirty trick equips the ball carrier with one. Spinning around while attempting to evade a tackle will result in the tackler getting severely injured, if not outright killed.
    • Certain stadiums feature a circular sawblade that runs across the 50 yard line. It doesn't show up until after the ball is hiked, but it will kill any players it touches.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Grim or Bricks may start Waxing Lyrical of Talking Heads after a Quarterback Kill dirty trick
    Grim: If he were still talking, he'd say "Psycho Killer qu'est-ce que c'est What the fuck-fuck-fuck-ka-FUCK!?"
  • Circus of Fear: The main theme of the Karcass City Creeps, their stadium even sports circus decorations around it.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: If you can't quite figure out what NFL franchise each fictional team is supposed to be based on because of the punny names, they share the same team colors. For example, the Microhard Mutilators share the same blue and green colors of the Seattle Seahawks.
  • Confusion Fu: One of the Dirty Tricks is called Strawberry Fields, which causes the opposing player's controls to be temporarily messed up as well as slowing down the players on the field.
  • Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: If you hesitate to make the choice to receive or kick at the start of the game, Tim Kitzrow will constantly heckle you to make a choice, though he doesn't really care because he's getting paid in the studio either way.
  • Corrupt Politician: Chiraq, Killinois is not only the home of the Midway Mutants, but as Junior mentions, also the "Most Politicians in Jail" Hall of Fame.
  • Country Matters: Brickhead thinks that "punt" is a banned word because of this.
    Grim: Boring, but smart. Time to punt.
    Bricks: Woah, woah, woah! You can't say that on the radio!
  • Cyborg: Enhanced Humans have various cybernetics showing on their bodies.
  • Death is Cheap: In Dynasty mode, you can resurrect your dead players after each game by spending your winnings. As long as you actually win your games, you can usually afford to raise them.
  • Dem Bones: Skeletal Deadheads. They're generally on the speedy side and have a potent Healing Factor makes them extremely difficult to injure or kill, making them ideal running backs. The manual states that they're reckless daredevils (and party animals) who like to practice by running into brick walls.
  • Disc-One Nuke: Dynasty mode starts you off with more than enough money to easily buy some of the best players in the game through trades or as free agents. Bones Jack-Sinn has 100 stats in every category and is extremely hard to kill without a dirty trick, and you can pick up powerful quarterbacks like Airborne Dodgers or Bomb Shady by trading a reserve. While Dynasty mode encourages you to build up your own players because they grow stronger through actual use and accomplishments, using a superstar can give you a very fast advantage if you're having difficulty.
  • Divided States of America: Gore-ga (not to be confused with the still existing state of Georgia) was once the states of Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama, which seceded from the nation after the fundamentalist Monster Orcs became too stupid to realize any better.
  • Does This Make Me Look Fat?: One of the ridiculous penalties the referee gives you is this:
    Referee: Hey! I heard that, [team name]. That's a 10 yard penalty for talking about me behind my back. And for your information, this jockstrap does not make my butt look big.
  • Dug Too Deep: An Inverted Trope where-in the Hexxon Oil Corporation burned so many fossil fuels and contributed to climate change that the Hellspawned Demons found it warm enough to invade the surface of the planet.
  • Every Man Has His Price: A bribed referee will look the other way when your team properly executes a Quarterback Sack Attack dirty play or a cheap kill to another player after the play has ended. They also love to call completely nonsensical penalties on the other team, and will hinder any legitimate attempts at scoring points. The only way to counter this is to use your own bribery on them, or kill them and take the yardage penalty that the replacing referee will incur.
  • Fantastic Racism: Skeletal Deadheads are not classified as a technically living species by any team or government, and thus are not legally allowed to vote, own property, or have social security.
  • Fartillery: The Orc's of Hazzard have a dirty trick called "Fart", which is a quarterback sneak that allows the QB to completely stun any would-be tacklers.
  • Felony Misdemeanor: Bribed referees will make up completely nonsensical penalties on the opposing team.
    Referee: Look, Killadelpha Evils, you friended me a while back and I'm sick of your political posts on Facelessbook. They still don't have a dislike button, so have a 10 yard penalty instead.
    Referee: Stupidity penalty on the New Yuck Tyrants for insisting that Rush is better than Led Zeppelin, that's 10 yards.
    Referee: 10 yard Unfashionable conduct penalty on the Scarolina Panzers, wearing Crocs and socks in public.
  • Fire and Brimstone Hell: The Malice Hellboys stadium takes place in a scorching hell filled with lava pits and sand worms that can eat unsuspecting players. The broadcasters often comment on the suffocating heat before the game.
  • First Contact: Mercenary Field in Chiraq, Killinois is an important part of history because it's where the Criminal Aliens made first contact with Earth. They landed right in the middle of the field and demanded all the Italian beef sandwiches.
  • Flipping the Bird: The coach's response when being asked about retiring.
    Team Captain: We're just two wins away from another Mayhem Bowl title! Are you sure you want to retire? I'll take that middle finger as a yes.
  • Fragile Speedster: Criminal Aliens are extremely intelligent, fast, and hard to catch up to if a runner or wide receiver breaks away, but also have the least amount of health and are very easy to kill.
  • Gag Penis: A short-to-medium range field goal attempt will sometimes trigger this line:
    Bricks (excited): I once saw a kicker make a kick like this with his extra leg! He used it like a golf club!
    Junior: That wasn't a leg, you moron, that was Tripod Jenkins. The one with the big schlong.
  • Garrulous Growth: Brickhead Jr. is often described as a mutant hobbit-head growing out of Brickhead Mulligan's shoulder. He's crude and surly, loves to heckle the players for screwing up a play, and isn't afraid to tell it like it is at Brickhead's own stupidity. Despite literally growing out of him, Jr apparently has his own social life and completely distances himself from Brickhead when they're not doing their job as professional sportscasters. Brickhead Mulligan was allegedly kicked out of the Mutant Football League for not taking enough steroids, to which he mentions he had to stop taking them because it resulted in Brickhead Jr. forming on his shoulder in the first place.
  • Gasshole: Orcs can often be seen releasing green fart clouds that linger behind them while waiting for the ball to be snapped.

    Tropes H to O 
  • Hayseed Name: The Orc's of Hazzard roster is comprised entirely of comically exaggerated examples like Cletus Moonshine, Festus Podunk, Elrod Cornfed, and Raleigh Barnstormer. A good percentage are also named after characters from The Dukes of Hazzard or famous country singers of the 70s and 80s.
  • Hellish L.A.: The Los Scandelous Damned play up the stereotype. Shake-N-Bake Arena in Los Scandalous, Crazedzonia has glowing demonic runes popping up everywhere, a giant "HOLLYWEED" sign in the upper rafters, the field itself is full of cracks and crevices from the earthquakes, and the weather is often described as hot and smoggy.
  • Hit You So Hard, Your X Will Feel It!:
    Player: Hit you so hard your next three kids are gonna be born unconscious.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard:
    • The Murder Ball dirty trick involves throwing a deadly ball that instantly kills any and all defensive players who happen to be in the direct line to the receiver. If the defense happens to play the Sticky Ball dirty trick at the same time, the murder ball will kill the quarterback. The QB can still take out a few linemen if he stays close to the line when he throws though and it also applies to Bombs Away and Sonic Blast though the latter is slightly less lethal.
    • If you're on defense and use a Hot Potato or Thunderbolt Dirty Trick, DON'T intercept the ball.
  • Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Going completely undefeated by the time you reach your 5th season in Dynasty mode will bring this comparison.
    Last season you went undefeated and won your fourth consecutive Mayhem Bowl. Perfection! This team is the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Our defense brings famine to the opposing offenses because they can't score. Our passing game is war because we strike like lightning. Our running game brings death to opposing defenses, and you Coach, are pestilence, because you bring doom and destruction to all who oppose us.
  • Incendiary Exponent: The Flame On! dirty trick engulfs the runningback in flames. The defense takes minimal damage on contact but are unable to properly tackle until the flames wear out. BruiserBots and Hellspawned Demons are immune to flames though.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: Bones Jack-Sinn is a legendary Skeletal Deadhead runningback immediately available as a free agent in Dynasty mode. His stats are 100 across the board, and his regeneration factor makes him exceptionally difficult to kill through any means besides a dirty trick.
  • Instant-Win Condition: A team will be forced to forfeit if all players of a specific position are killed, especially among the offensive or defensive line. Quarterbacks are easy targets with the QB Sack Attack dirty trick that can help kill two, but Safeties, Line Bashers, Blitzers, and other positions besides running backs and wide receivers will also qualify. Having both of the last two quarterbacks on the team injured at the same time will also result in forfeit during their possession of the ball.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Brickhead Mulligan comments that Sin Fransicko is full of great places to eat, especially vegan.
    Junior: I love eating vegans, but they always whine when you cook 'em!
  • In-Series Nickname: Grim often refers to Brickhead as "Bricks."
  • Is This Thing Still On?: After an inteception:
    Interceptor: Great throw, buddy. I'll slip the cash into your locker after— wait, is the mic on?
  • It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans: The New Goreleans Zombies' stadium fully embraces the French Quarter aesthetic, and features giant animatronic skeleton statues playing trumpets.
  • Jack of All Stats: The official manual lists Mutant-Humans exactly as this — being perfectly balanced for all positions. They're also listed as a Master of None, which means they don't excel in any positions either.
  • Last Lousy Point: The Achievements are generally pretty straightforward to unlock. Win the Mayhem Bowl all 5 times in Dynasty mode, kill 1000 players, score cheap kills, etc. Nothing that can't be unlocked through consistently playing. However, there is one achievement that requires specific strategy and a little bit of luck: the Clusterf@#k achievement. A clusterf@#k happens when you take possession of the ball (either through interception or fumble) during the opposing team's two-point conversion after a touchdown, and then running the ball across the field and scoring a touchdown yourself.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: Every team has their own theme song provided on the soundtrack, which plays during the menu in dynasty mode, and more importantly anytime you score points in the game. The gameplay will continue moving forward and usually only less than 10 seconds of the start of the song has a chance to play, so expect to hear the start of that song a lot.
  • The Mafia: The theme of the the Snuffalo Thrills. Their team logo is a 20's era gangster firing a tommy gun. At the end of each endzone are moving turrets shaped like the team logo that fire machine guns at the opposing team (which slows down progress of movement). The sidelines are filled with snowmen wearing fedoras and mean looking faces.
  • Make My Monster Grow: The Ginormous dirty trick makes a player on the defense — usually one of the hard hitters — giant, increasing size and strength.
  • MegaCorp: The official manual states that six mega-corporations sprang up to take control of the world after World War 4. Four of them are acknowledged in the game as game sponsors (and team owners).
    • The Microhard Mutilators are owned and named after the Microhard Corporation. They created the BruiserBots.
      The Microhard Corporation. They get it right every other time!
    • Comcrack is a frequent sponsor of the broadcasts.
      Comcrack: They're not happy until you're not happy.
    • Monsatan Industries makes "Genetically engineered food that is to die for." They ultimately transformed the Human race into the various monsters they are due to creating and selling tainted livestock.
    • The Hexxon Oil Corporation owns the Hexxon Oilers and are often sponsors of the game broadcasts.
      Hexxon: We drill it, spill it, and kill it, so you can fill it.
    • Scroogle is an internet giant who proved instrumental in promoting the Mutant Football League during its initial conception. Not too much else is mentioned about them.
    • EVLSN was implied to already be a mega corp before they helped create the MFL along with Scroogle. Apparently they provide most of the world's entertainment programming, even beyond sports.
  • Mighty Glacier:
    • BruiserBots are officially described as slow, extremely resistant to damage, and immune to fire.
    • Monster Orcs have the highest HP, hit pretty hard, and are extremely aggressive to make late-game hits, but are countered by their complete lack of intelligence and relatively slow speed.
  • Monster Clown:
    • The Karcass City Creeps have a clown not unlike Pennywise for their team logo.
    • After winning 3 wins in a row in Dynasty mode, your team captain comments that coulrophobia is a pretty serious thing.
      Team Captain: With three wins in a row, if the rest of the league isn't afraid of us, they're at least aware of us. Fear will come, Coach, and to help, I've supplied everyone with clown masks. We may be a league full of orcs and skeletons and stuff, but clowns are illegal for a reason.
  • Mushroom Samba: The Strawberry Fields dirty trick is the result of the defense spiking the offense's water, resulting in slowed movement, reversed controls, a wavy effect and psychedelic colors like an acid trip. The commentators can sometimes be affected as well.
    Junior: Okay this isn't funny guys I swear to drunk I'm not God but seriously stay in drugs, eat school, and don't do vegetables!
    Bricks: Uhhhh, Junior's having a flashback, Grim, what do we do?!
    Grim: Down him talk so he out it comes of.
    Bricks: Uhhh... Yeah! You're right!
  • Neck Snap: The most brutal form of ending a play will involve the tackler grabbing the ballcarrier from behind and snapping their neck. Only a player with full or high health is likely to survive the damage it inflicts.
  • Obvious Rule Patch: At the start of the game's lifespan, the easiest cheese strategy for Dynasty Mode was, by a very wide margin, to just make a terrifying defensive line with Free Agent players and slaughter the opposing team. While this is still workable, the AI has gotten some updates to make this more difficult, sometimes to the point of visibly cheating by having players slide out of the way of your blockers mid-animation.
  • Original Generation: The majority of the teams are parodies of established NFL franchises, but the game does have some original teams.
    • The Galaxy Chaos are an all-Criminal Alien team. They're agile and fast, and play on a Penal Colony on an asteroid in outer space that has reduced gravity.
    • The Tokyo Terminators consist entirely of BruiserBots, which makes them great at catching passes and above average toughness, but generally lacking in most other skills. Annual roster updates usually leaves them with a team ranking of around 65.
    • The Orc's of Hazzard are an all-orc team (with the exception of megastar Mutant-Human runningback Iron Jaw Magilicutti.) "What they lack in intelligence, they make up for in stupidity". Orcs are the most aggressive and second-hardest hitting race in the game, but are also some of the physically slowest, making their linemen very hard to survive against, but generally easy to pass over.
    • The Full Metal Mayhem are objectively the best team in the game with a ranking of 95. All their players are themed around legendary Rock & Roll singers and generally have the right races to take advantage of the best positions.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: "Monster Orcs" are fat green-skinned creatures that vary greatly in size. Fluff states they're tough to coach and each generation of orcs is less intelligent than the last, "like a VHS copy of a VHS copy of a VHS copy." In Dynasty Mode, it's extremely expensive in both XP and cash to increase their Intelligence stat, which determines reaction time, field awareness, and self-preservation instinct. On the field they're typically slow but strong and sturdy, and are thus mostly linemen on either side of the ball, but a handful are nasty linebackers, bruising receivers or tough running backs.

    Tropes P to Z 
  • Painfully Slow Projectile: The Terror Bay Mutantneers' home field has cannons that fire shots across the length of the field from the wrecked pirate ships behind the endzones. The cannonball is just slow enough that an attentive ballcarrier can avoid it, and it's always fired directly in front of the ballcarrier, so juking left and right is necessary to avoid taking what will usually be more than half a player's health. Less intelligent players on the roster aren't as likely to notice them coming.
  • Permanently Missable Content: When the first version of the game was released, certain teams would need to be unlocked by winning a game as another team. This would result in an achievement marking the unlocking of that team. When the Dynasty edition was released, all teams (except the Original Generation teams) already came unlocked. By the developer's own confirmation on the Steam forums, it was no longer possible to obtain four specific team unlock achievements, and they are only still listed to honor anyone who actually did earn them.
  • Potty Failure: Players will taunt the other team whenever a quarterback sack results in a safety.
    Player: Yo, somebody get that QB some Charmin, he just dropped a deuce in his own end zone.
  • Punny Name: EVERYTHING in the game is some macabre play on words of a real world team franchise or player.
    • Legendary wide receiver Jerry Rice is now Scary Lice.
    • John Elway is now John Hellway.
    • The Indianapolis Colts are the Insane Cults.
    • The Dallas Cowboys are the Malice Hellboys.
    • The only exceptions are that the states of Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, Texas, Florida, and Georgia still exist, and some of the stadiums take place in real world locations that thematically fit the game. The Leaveland Burns still play in Ohio, Cracksumskull Jugulars are in Florida, and the Sin Fransicko Forty Nightmares play at Alcatraz (in the state of Crazedzonia).
    • The development team keeps track of the NFL seasons, so the 2021 playoffs saw extensive coverage of the Sinsonasty Mangles making their way to the Mayhem Bowl, a team that wasn't playable at the time.
  • Quicksand Sucks: University of Chimera Stadium, the arid desert home field of the Cardinal Sins, has pools of quicksand as field hazards. This is the local spin on the ever-present hazard in most stadiums. Falling into one will injure the player and take them out of the game for a little while.
  • Raised by Orcs: Star runningback Iron Jaw Magilicutti of the Orc's of Hazzard was abandoned in the Bayou as a baby and was literally raised by Orcs. He thinks he is one himself, despite actually being a Mutant-Human.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: The developers release roster updates to correspond to changes among the player ranks in the NFL every year, sometimes mid-season.
    • The game was initially released in 2017 before the Oakland Raiders moved to Las Vegas. Since then, the game has patched the Croakland Invaders into the Lost Wages Invaders.
    • The 2020 season saw Tom Brady being traded from the New England Patriots to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, so the roster update would see Bomb Shady transferred from the Nuked London Hatriots to the Terror Bay Mutantneers.
    • The 2021 season game update had Ratspew Splattered transferred from the Motor City Maniacs to the Los Scandalous Damned just like his real life counterpart Matthew Stafford was traded from the Detroit Lions to the Los Angeles Rams.
    • The 2021 season saw a Super Bowl showdown between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals. This forced the developers to come up with the "Sinsonasty Mangles" as a team name for one of the teams that didn't exist yet. MFL loves to play out their own version of the Mayhem Bowl, but the Mangles ended up falling into a wormhole that swapped them with a team from the Earth-666 dimension, the Leaveland Burns.
  • Refuge in Audacity: The game doesn't shy away from crossing the line by poking fun at numerous events, especially when your team captain is reflecting on the state of the game at halftime.
    Team Captain: Leads can vanish quicker than flight MH370 did, so don't get complacent. Run up the score on these suckers!
    Team Captain: Looks like this could go either way. Anybody got a crowbar? Too soon for Nancy Kerrigan jokes?
  • Required Secondary Powers: The Warp Speed dirty trick makes your ball carrier run down the field at blazing speeds. A player scoring a touchdown may comment that the speed is fun, but the chafing is a real bitch.
  • Retirony:
    • After a Quarterback Kill:
      How sad! He was only a few days away from retirement! Does this mean I get to collect his pension?
    • After a referee gets killed, Grim might comment that this was his last game before retirement.
      Brickhead: Ehh, he's retired permanently now. At least they'll save some money on the retirement party.
      Grim: Good point.
  • Robot War: In the aftermath of World War 4, what was left of the United States government teamed up with the Microhard Corporation to create a robot army to help quell the Hellspawned Demons who broke out of hell to ravage the surface. This backfired spectacularly and the robots turned on their masters. It was only thanks to a technovirus that destroyed all but the BruiserBots that it was able to come under control.
  • Rousing Speech: If your team is going up against a statistically stronger opponent, your captain will try his best to raise spirits.
    Team Captain: Mutants, did Antonio bow to peer pressure when they told him a blond mustache would look stupid... did Affleck step down when they ridiculed his Batman? YES, those were brutal and humiliating defeats... probably like we will suffer.
  • Rubber-Band A.I.: Discussed and mocked when the score is pretty even at the half.
    Team Captain: It might be close now, but wait for the AI to take over in the 4th and ruin it. Oh wait... that's the OTHER video game.
  • Sand Worm: Certain fields have them as an environmental hazard. If any player moves too close to their burrows, expect to see them get gobbled up and killed by a giant worm that pops out and snatches them up (and fumble the ball in the process.)
  • The Secret of Long Pork Pies: At the beginning of a game where your team is clearly favored to win, your captain implies that the dead players are sent off to be processed.
    Team Captain: Yes, there's a chance they can beat us. There's also a chance Monsatan Mystery Meat won't be featuring these guys in their next line. Both chances are pretty low.
  • Security Blanket: After scoring a safety:
    Defense: Why is it called a "safety?" I had to smash some guy, and now he's crying into his blanket over there... Ooooh. I get it now.
  • Shock and Awe:
    • The Thunderclap dirty trick is a One-Hit Kill via lightning bolt to the ball carrier.
    • The Zap Attack dirty trick zaps any defenders who gets close to the ball carrier, damaging them and leaving them stunned for a few seconds.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: One of the dirty tricks available gives the carrier of the ball a shotgun, which lets you blow the heads off anyone that tries to stop you. Very rarely will a player actually survive getting shot, but they will be injured for a while.
  • Shout-Out:
    • One of the free agent quarterbacks is a Mutant-Human named Nuke Dukem.
    • One of the Dirty Tricks is called Flame On! and lights the ball carrier on fire.
    • The "Strawberry Fields" Dirty Trick that multiple teams use, including the Heavy Metal-themed Full Metal Mayhem and the Mile High Chronic.
    • If the ref survives a ref attack, we get this:
      Referee: Bad boys, bad boys. Now THIS is what we're gonna do. 10 yard penalty, [team name]!
    • "Whoa! He just went off the rails on a Crazy Train and murdered that guy!"
    • After the opposing player gets killed by a Thunderclap Dirty Trick: "And that's how you shock the monkey! Thunderclap!"
    • "The head bone was connected to the neck bone. Now? Not so much."
    • The Tokyo Terminators have quite a few throughout the roster.
    • Ronnie Rotton of the Deadlanta Vultures references Robbie Rotten from LazyTown.
    • During the zombee referee halftime show, grabbing more ammo sometimes gets this line:
      Grim: He grabs a gun and keeps shooting like Keanu Reeves!
      Brickhead: I like his new look with the beard.
  • Sigil Spam: The only thing preventing all hell from breaking loose at the stadium of the Lost Scandalous Dammed are the magical runes floating around, popping up, and covering everything around the stadium.
  • Slipping a Mickey: Your team captain does this during the pre-game when your team is expected to lose.
    Team Captain: Hey, everyone in this building thinks we're going to lose, but GUESS WHAT - I roofied their Gatorade, so WHO'S LOST NOW!?
  • Spikes of Doom: Some home fields have spikes that extrude from holes in the ground at fixed intervals, dealing significant damage to any player/s they hit as well as physically blocking anyone from running past them. They come in a variety of arrangements and placements, such as a strip of spikes running across the entire 50 yard line, or a square pattern by the sidelines near the endzones. The Motor City Maniacs' stadium, Gored Field, is littered with spikes; since the field is a blacktop with yellow markings, they seem to represent police spike strips. The Sin Fransicko Forty Nightmares play in Alcatraz, so the spikes represent prison bars.
  • Spiritual Successor: Invoked.
    • The game was created by the lead developer who created Mutant League Football, and is officially acknowledged as its successor.
    • The Monster Orcs are the successors of the trolls from MLF, slow and strong but very stupid.
  • Stockholm Syndrome: Invoked in Dynasty mode. Having a player get kidnapped by pirates will tell how the player actually took to piracy pretty easily, and it'll be a PR nightmare if a Sports Killustrated model is spotted looting a cruise ship or setting fire to an oil rig.
  • Straight Man and Wise Guy: Grim Blitzrow and Brickhead Mulligan, the sportscasters. Grim is the straight man who knows the ins and outs of the game of football and usually initiates most of the commentary. Brickhead Mulligan is a retired MFL player who has very clearly lost a lot of intelligence from taking a few too many hits to the head.
    Grim: OHH! After a hit like that, he may not be able to comprehend math!
    Brickhead: What's math?
    Grim: Exactly.
  • Stunned Silence: If the Sinsonasty Mangles lose a home game, Bricks comments on how it's sad for him to see the team he used to play for lose a game, but it's been so long since he's been in the city, that at least he can go enjoy a visit to see his favorite gorilla at the local zoo. Junior is at a loss for words at how out of touch Bricks is with current events.
    Bricks: HARAMBE!
    Junior: ...
    Grim: Don't even say it, Junior.
  • Take That!:
    • The game is rife with modern-day commentary, usually expressed through the trash talking after a play.
      (QB sack) Man, that quarterback moved like he just had a few drinks with Bill Cosby.
    • The description of the Tokyo Terminators mentions that "Fans of the Terminators are total weeaboos, but can you blame them?"
    • Brickhead mentions that exploding Samshlong Galaxy phones are one of the leading causes of death among the MFL players.
    • A few jokes made at the expense of Game of Thrones, specifically how everything just completely fell apart in the final season.
      Player: Destroyed him so hard you probably think I was a writer for the last season of Game of Bones.
      Referee: 10 yard penalty on the Blitzburg Steelheads for liking the ending of Game of Bones.
      QB Sack: This quarterback is what you call a Game of Bones player — Good for three seasons, and now he's just painful to watch.
    • The 2022 season update for the Hexxon Oilers describes their current roster as "more disappointing than the new Space Jam."
    • At the start of a home game for the Brainwashington Cadavers, Junior points out that "Cadavers" is a pretty stupid name for a sports team. The only name he can think of that would be even worse is naming your team the "Commanders".
    • The description for the 2022 Deadlanta Vultures gives credits to their cornerbacks, "who keep the opposing receivers from getting the ball like the Supreme Court keeps people from getting rights."
  • Take That, Audience!: Your team captain might insult the player for winning a game during the 2nd season in Dynasty mode.
    Team Captain: They say a million monkeys on a million typewriters will eventually write Shakespeare. One with a controller managed to win a game in their second season. Yay!
  • Teeny Weenie: Brickhead Mulligan gets made fun of if the ball is less than a yard away from the first down line.
    Grim Blitzrow: It's 3rd down and the size of Bricks' wiener.
    Bricks: HEY!
    Grim: Sorry, partner."
  • Totally Radical: A Defied Trope when Grim uses the word "Epic" to describe a touchdown play.
    Junior: Don't call things 'Epic', Grim. Kids aren't gonna think you're cool.
    Grim: Junior, I don't WANT kids to think I'm cool!
  • Trash Talk: There's a LOT of trash talking. Anytime a quarterback is sacked, the sacker will gloat. Anytime someone runs into the endzone, they'll gloat about scoring, and even depending on what dirty trick buff they used to help them score. Sometimes they gloat if they get a particularly nasty tackle.
  • "We're Live" Realization: Can happen to the MVP after the game:
    MVP: Being the MVP makes me want to go risk everything by distributing cough syrup across state lines and starting an illegal gargoyle fighting ring. You in? Huh? What camera?
  • Wrestler in All of Us: One brutal and flashy way of putting a stop to the ball carrier is for the tackler to lift them over their head and piledrive them into the turf. Expect to see larger races like BruiserBots and Orcs to pull this off more often. Other moves include body lifts, cyclone whips, snap mares, and calf brandings.
  • Xenomorph Xerox: Criminal Aliens are clearly inspired by Xenomorphs and are sometimes just referred to as such. They have elongated heads, spindly bodies, attack with their pointed segmented tails, are immune to acid attacks, and even leave behind a small acid pool to damage other players when killed. "Xenomorph" is even a proper surname of certain players among the all-Criminal Alien Galaxy Chaos team.
  • You Put the "X" in "XY": When a player scores a touchdown, we get this:
    Player: I put the 'D' back into T-D.
  • Your Mom: There's a few of them.
    After a hard tackle: Man, you went down faster than your mama at the Christmas party!
    Defense recovering a fumble: Much like your mom, if I see loose balls, I'm all over them!

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