You can edit pretty much everything between seasons in a career.

Completely different games - one is realtime, all 11 vs 11 players each contributing to the play (Axis), the other provides a pre-simulated play then shows a visual encapsulation graphically (PSF). Axis has far more depth for franchise play (*when it works* - and has issues), PSF simplified and more slanted to historical replay (but does offer franchise (career) options, with *some* level of strategic components - just not a detailed simulation of gm responsibilites here.

A person can find enjoyment in either one, both having strengths and weaknesses.

Anyway, personally, I would tell you to *wait* on any purchase right now.

The new edition of PSF is coming out next month, which will undoubtedly be better than current (Axis not releasing this year and now dropping the annual release to go to a two year development cycle (yay!)

There is also Maximum Football that may interest you as well if you want 3D real-time football (picked up and re-vamped and reconstructed on a brand new Unreal engine by a AA company - but will be college football to start (adding pro later)). It is releasing within the next 5 weeks too (check steam store).

BTW, discord is the place to be for both Axis and Maximum (where main user base and developers frequent), and Steam forums for PSF (which is where you'll find Kerry and the main user base right here).

Redwolf said it best but I will reply too:

PSF 2025 is set to release in September, and it's worth waiting for. This version will bring significant improvements, including the highly anticipated League Expansion feature. Unlike Madden, PSF offers meaningful updates each year, and this upcoming release is expected to be exceptional.

I haven't extensively played Axis Football, but from my experience, PSF offers a much deeper sandbox experience. The outcomes in PSF are simulated before the play and then presented in a retro graphic style, which adds a unique charm to the game.

PSF shines in terms of customization. Whether you prefer fictional leagues, historical simulations, or modern-day rosters, PSF lets you tailor the game to your preferences. And to answer your question—yes, you can edit player stats, uniforms, and other elements even after starting a franchise/career. This flexibility is one of the game's strong points.

PSF gives you the freedom to engage with the game as you like. Whether you want to focus on managing a single team or jump between different teams and take on a broader "god mode" role, PSF accommodates your playstyle.

Thank you for the replies, this helps!

I forgot to ask, was Trading enabled for at least in the off-season? I see it was supposed to be worked on. If I can never move people between teams, that's not good.

PSF has no player trading (Kerry worked on a system that enabled human players to simply "force" trades between teams (no ai logic), but idk if he finished or if it will make the next edition of the game (?))

Right now, all player movement is from a free agent system - randomly selected as a league based on optional numbers settings with the ability to protect one player selected per team (consider it a franchise tag). Free agent players go into a draft system where teams take turns selecting them. There are no financials or contracts in this game.

There is also player movement from the waiver wire (players cut due to roster limits after the rookie draft). They also go into a draft selection process as above.

The free agent system is optional and can be turned off completely if desired.

It's very basic, but accomplishes player movement between teams in a career.

That's right, I wasn't able to complete human-driven trading of players this year. Please check back next year, as I've completed the design and expect to have that completed as one of the first features for next year's version (along with some other cool things that I've discussed with the beta testers). Thanks!

redwolf9 summarized it great. There is definitely player movement, not trading between teams yet but there is quite a bit of player movement with free agency/cuts/waiver draft. You can select to have from 2 to 5 free agents per team each season, so placing a franchise tag on 1 if you choose means the others end up in the free agent draft.

So say I want to trade my experienced tight end for a promising rookie on another team. How would I go about making this exchange the way things are currently set up in this system? (I fear I don't fathom all the rules of waivers etc)


Then say i think the rookie is rated incorrectly, how do I change his ratings once I get him, if desired?

Well, there are no trades as of yet, like Kerry said above he wasn't able to get it in this years version.
The way the post season works is fairly straight forward and linear. After the season ends, you have:
1 - a retirement phase, which is new this year in that you will be shown a list of players planning to retire and you can select any or all of them to not, they will hang around another year. It's only a user mode right now, no AI logic behind it yet for AI controlled teams.

2 - Then you look at your roster and see who the free agents are, and you can select 1 to apply a franchise tag.

3 - Now comes the free agent draft where for a couple rounds the league drafts from the available free agents pool.

4 - The 7 round rookie draft.

5 - Next you cut down rosters

6 - The waiver draft of the pool of players who were cut

7 - Next finalize rosters(final cuts)

8 - Team Drills(try to improve overall team areas like "Red Zone Offense" "Ball Control" etc

9 - Mini Camp(use a number of points to try and improve selected players)

10 - At this point you can edit your league and players

11 - Start new season

Thanks for the reply!

Gosh, I just thought: can you use the editor to move players around, either in the season or before a season, onto another roster? It's not a real trade but it would be something.

Originally posted by cws1:

Gosh, I just thought: can you use the editor to move players around, either in the season or before a season, onto another roster? It's not a real trade but it would be something.

I have done this in past versions, reversed a trade that happened in real NFL history just for fun.
I did it by editing individual players. Not sure if you can still do this but I don't know of any reason why you couldn't. I did it before the season began.

As I recall I needed to make changes to individual players in the base league editor, and of course I needed to stay within the number roster spots for each position. For example you could "trade" QBs by editing a QB on one team then edit a QB on another team and save the changes. But you can't edit your way into a HB for a LB unless you edit two additional players as well so it is effectively a HB & a LB for a HB & a LB.

That's true, you can use the csv, great idea! I would imagine you could also edit in the editor. Thanks!