PES Is Now eFootball and Free-to-Play

Konami is making some big changes to its Pro Evolution Soccer series. The publisher announced today that the game has been renamed eFootball, and will be offered free-to-play starting this fall. The title is also getting a “new soccer engine with a newly built animation system and revamped game commands.” The game will be playable on a number of different platforms. When eFootball launches in early fall, it will offer local matches with teams like FC Barcelona, Juventus, FC Bayern, Manchester United, and more. There will also be online matchmaking between console generations (PS4 vs. PS5 and Xbox One vs. Xbox Series X|S).

Later in the fall, eFootball will give players the chance to build their own teams through Team Building Mode. Around that same time, console and PC players will be able to play against one another. Eventually, eFootball will add matchmaking between all platforms. By the winter, mobile players will be included in the mix, when a mobile compatible controller is used. That’s also when amateur and professional esports tournaments will begin. A trailer for eFootball can be found at the top of this page, or in the Tweet embedded below.

It will be interesting to see how the shift to free-to-play works for the game! Sports games make a lot of sense for the format, and it’s possible other games could follow suit if eFootball is successful for Konami. The slow rollout should also give Konami time to make sure that everything works properly, rather than launching the game with too much, and seeing servers overwhelmed. For fans of the sport, hopefully eFootball will prove to be an exciting evolution of the PES franchise!

eFootball will release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, iOS, Android, and PC.

Do you plan on checking out eFootball when it launches later this year? What do you think of Konami’s changes to the game? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!