

Over the next decade the series truly blossomed as Pro Evolution Soccer, with a particular golden age on PS2 (Pro Evolution Soccer 3 is a 10/10 and that's a fact) that coincided with EA and FIFA losing its way. In the late 90s, ISS and particularly ISS Deluxe were simply the best, and had enormous character in their unofficial takes on the footballing greats: I'll never forget those pixel-art recreations of Roberto Baggio ('Galfano'!) and Fabrizio Ravanelli, nor the gorgeous feel and pace of those games. The decline of PES or Pro Evo has been so tough to watch. I hope eFootball works out for Konami, and I hope it's fantastic. You will, however, be able to customise and share teams as PES has always allowed. There's also what looks like a battle pass called a match pass, but no mention of series features like M圜lub (PES's FIFA Ultimate Team) or the career mode yet. The roadmap shows there'll be 9 clubs to play as in exhibition matches, with other modes arriving later and presumably as paid-for DLC. The platform approach means eFootball will just be constantly updated rather than having new versions, with larger updates happening simultaneously with the start of major football seasons and tournaments.Īt launch, however, eFootball looks like it'll be a little sparse.

Notable is that Konami has abandoned its own in-house FOX engine for eFootball, which is clearly capable of producing magnificent games but feels like it's been somewhat under-utilised.
