PES Loses Another Big License

Back in the day, PES was considered by many the king of soccer games. However, in recent years it has been surpassed by EA's FIFA, partially thanks to the latter gobbling up licences in the face of Konami.

Back in April, Konami announced that PES was losing its highly-coveted Champions League license, it's biggest license, and a license that FIFA didn't have (though has seemingly picked up). And now it has lost another one of its bigger licenses.

The Japanese company has announced that its licensing agreement with Germany's second-most popular club, Borussia Dortmund, has been severed.

What this means is that the club will not be appearing in PES 2019 as previously advertised, or in other words, its logo, players, stadium, and other features won't appear in the game.

According to a statement from Konami, it was the German club who prematurely ended the deal.

"Konami and Borussia Dortmund had a license agreement with respect to the use of Borussia Dortmund's logos, players, stadium and other features in KONAMI products until June 2020," said Konami. "However this agreement was prematurely terminated by Borussia Dortmund. Konami will not include Borussia Dortmund's logos, players, stadium and other features in 'PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2019'."

Despite losing another license, Konami assures fans it will continue to deliver an enjoyable experience through other deals.

"Please be assured that the PES series will continue to provide new ways to enjoy soccer through new partnerships with various clubs and leagues. Thank you for your continued support of the series."

For those that don't know: in PES, there are numerous teams, including most of the prominent clubs, it doesn't have a license for. So instead of the Red Devils being Manchester United, they are referred to as Manchester Red, with a different logo, kit, and players.

For years PES players have bypassed this issue with the ability to import jersey designs, customized rosters, etc. And now there's one more team they will need to add to the list.

PES 2019 is poised to release in North America and Europe on August 28th and 30th respectively. It will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.