Free games don’t always meet with enthusiasm, this is particularly evident in the Free2Play announcement by eFootball. The new title marks the end of the name Pro Evolution Soccer and the new beginning as a free-to-play title that also features cross-play between PC, consoles and mobile platforms.
These are a lot of stimulating terms in an announcement that also affects a large and loyal player base of the second big name (besides FIFA) in virtual football. The fans are mostly negative about the news.
This trailer is about:
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PES 2022 is now called eFootball – Trailer reveals Free2Play game
The counter of likes and dislikes creates a stark contrast Video: Stand at the time of this article’s publication around 37,000 upvotes against only 5,900 downvotes. This indicates that many eFootball supporters may not be verbal. At least that’s our guess as to how this big discrepancy could come about.
A similar situation recently occurred with Ubisoft’s new shooter Tom Clancy’s XDefiant, but there it is also clear from the like / dislike rate. Why a large, silent majority seems to like eFootball cannot be conclusively clarified.
Reddit is full of criticism of eFootball: One malicious meme chases the next on the PES channel, players express their disappointment with the Free2Play model in long explanations and proclaim the end of PES as they knew it.
On too Twitter outweighs the negative criticism: The graphics shown in the trailer are not well received and are described by fans as a downgrade. In general, the mood on social media is very heated.
The Free2Play title eFootball will appear in autumn 2021 initially for PC as well as Current and NextGen consoles, later also for iOS and Android (with controller support). According to the roadmap, the game should enable crossplay between all platforms. The soccer game is being developed from scratch by Konami using Unreal Engine.
For the release, only local gameplay with a number of football clubs should be possible, later online modes will be added. FC Barcelona, Juventus, FC Bayern Munich and Manchester United were named as starting teams.
Later, Konami plans to add additional content and also sell modes as DLCs. The roadmap also provides for organized e-sports events for professionals and hobby players in the future. One official homepage already exists.
