PES Renamed And Goes Free-To-Play

Well, that’s it, I think we know who finally won that little rivalry. Yes, EA might electronically mug you for every penny you have, making sure not to leave you with anything of value if they can get away with it. However, with the PES or Pro Evolution Soccer series being renamed to eFootball with that stupid iPhone thing of putting the capital one character in, we see who wins the war between the game franchises. That and the fact they’ve also now gone free-to-play, for reasons I still don’t understand one little bit.

If you care, I’m pretty sure you’d have at least heard the faint whispers of shock and awe at the announcement. I mean, it was kind of inevitable at some point. There was always going to be a free-to-play version of one of them. I just expected EA (of all publishers) to jump at the chance to get that free-to-play money as they make the entire thing a living nightmare to play. Of course, Konami is trumpeting this as “an all-new football simulation platform,” with their big change, outside of going free-to-play, being that they have done some work to animations. Yep, that’s going to change the tides of the metaphorical war of the only football game rivalry.

Yes, I might sound quite down on this for a very simple reason. Like the rest of the old people (anyone over 22) mourning the loss of PES, there was just something different about the series to its EA published counter-part. Now, the trailer (embedded above) explained very little that anyone actually cares about, and ends with “Free-to-play” as if that is something to be proud of these days. Because of that, I’m left disappointed. I have burning hatred towards the free-to-play term and genre. Why?

Well, at the bottom of that free-to-play announcement is “*some items are available for in-game purchase.” Though we might not know exactly what that is right now. It does not (and never has) instilled a sense that maybe the series is getting a second life. Even the roadmap for the game is disappointing, as you can clearly see some microtransaction coins sitting in the autumn update alongside a “team-building mode,” which one can only assume is akin to FIFA’s FUTA. I don’t mind the cross-generation and cross-platform matches, these things should be standard in the first place. I mean, Konami have already said that they plan on selling “certain game modes […] as optional DLC.“

Truth is, we don’t know much yet, since the game is going to be teased out for the next short while. The release date is expected to come this Autumn. The game will release on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and iOS, however, we don’t know if this will be staggered or not. Cross-platform play is expected to come later. The game will (of all things) feature a battle pass, called “Match pass,” offering all the microtransaction guff for one price.