History VideoGame / MutantFootballLeague

The game is available on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, UsefulNotes/XBoxOne, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, and ports are being made for Android and iOS.

* AcceptableTargets: Invoked with more than a few jokes made at the expense of ''Series/GameOfThrones'', 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.

** One of the bogus penalties a bribed referee will incur is a 10 yard penalty for liking the ending of [[Series/GameOfThrones Game of Bones]].

*** Line Basher Omni DED-209 is a double reference to both the Omni-Droid from ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' and ED-209 from ''Film/{{Robocop}}''.

* HellishLA: 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. Brickhead comments that the hotel he was booked in was actually quite pleasant, because, despite the police tape blocking off the homicide investigation taking place inside his own bathroom, they provided free jelly with breakfast.

* MakeMyMonsterGrow: The Ginormous dirty trick makes a player on the defense, usually one the hard hitters, giant, increasing size and strength.

* StockholmSyndrome: Having a player get kidnapped by pirates in Dynasty mode 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.

* FourOneNineScam: 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.

** The entire premise of the Mile High Chronic. One of their dirty tricks is a [[MushroomSamba drug-induced]] [[Music/TheBeatles 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 ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'' before games as well.

'''Grim:''' You ever do that again, Bricks, I'll shoot you in the head!\\

[[/folder]]

* TheWikiRule: [[https://mutantfootball.fandom.com/wiki/Mutant_Football_Wiki Yep.]]

* {{Fartillery}}: The Orcs of Hazzard have a dirty trick called "Fart", which is a quarterback sneak that allows the QB to [[WiltingOdor completely stun any would-be tacklers]].

* HayseedName: The Orcs 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 ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' or famous country singers of the 70s and 80s.

** The Orcs 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.

* RaisedByOrcs: Star running back Iron Jaw Magilicutti of the Orcs 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.

* WrestlerInAllOfUs: 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.

* AcceptableTargets: There are more than a few jokes made at the expense of ''Series/GameOfThrones'', specifically how everything just completely fell apart in the final season.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: 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. [[TakingYouWithMe 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.

** 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 isn't playable in the first MFL game.

** 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 make it into the first game. 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.

-->'''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.

* SpiritualSuccessor:

'''Referee:''' Stupidity penalty on the New Yuck Tyrants for insisting that ''Music/{{Rush}}'' is better than ''Music/LedZeppelin'', that's 10 yards.\\

* BloodSport: 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 which leaves them unable to play.)

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: 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. [[TakingYouWithMe The QB can still take out a few linemen if he stays close to the line when he throws though]].

In 1993, Creator/ElectronicArts released ''Mutant League Football'' for the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis. 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, BlackComedy, 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 [[WesternAnimation/MutantLeague short-lived 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 UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague'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 new teams continue to be released as cheaply priced DLC.

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

* TheArtifact: 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 Los Vegas.

-->'''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!\\

* ButThouMust: 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 ignore 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.
* ChainsawGood: 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.

* InstantWinCondition: 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. Injuring the last two quarterbacks on the team will also result in forfeit during their possession of the ball.

** Thee 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.

* RobotWar: 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 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.

* ShockAndAwe: The Thunderclap and Zap Attack dirty tricks.

* XenomorphXerox: 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. "Xenomorph" is even a proper surname of certain players among the all-Criminal Alien Galaxy Chaos team.

->''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'''

In 1993, Creator/ElectronicArts released ''Mutant League Football'' for the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis. 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, BlackComedy, 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 [[WesternAnimation/MutantLeague short-lived 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.

* PunnyName: '''EVERYTHING''' in the game is some macabre play on words of a real world team franchise or player. Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers is now Airborne Dodgers of the Grim Bay Attackers.8 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).

* BloodSport: 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.

* BloodSport: 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 5 of the opponent's quarterbacks (or severely injure the last two which leaves them unable to play.)

* IsThisThingStillOn:
** After an inteception:
--->'''Interceptor:''' Great throw, buddy. I'll slip the cash into your locker after-- wait, is the mic on?
** 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?