Featured Image Credit: Konami
Topics: Konami
With scores in the twenties across the consoles on review aggregator Metacritic, critics and players alike were disappointed by Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer rebrand.
Released September 2021, eFootball was slated to take down FIFA as king of the football simulators, however, it was nothing of the sort. Criticised for its technical issues, predatory microtransactions, and lack of teams and game modes, it quickly became the worst rated game in Steam history. People assumed that it was rushed, and now it looks as if Konami has confirmed it.
Want to see eFootball for yourself? You can see more in the video below.
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In a statement to VGC, Konami has confirmed that eFootball was not ready when it was released. The company, which is considered one of Japan’s “Big Five” game developers, blamed a number of things for the disastrous launch including - the use of a new game engine, the struggle in supporting the new generation of consoles, and its pivot to a free-to-play model.
The statement continues “Resultantly, the game received harsh feedback about the quality. Since eFootball’s launch back in September, however, we have prioritised improvements and corrections based on the feedback and opinions we received.”
A new update coming 14 April is said to improve a lot of technical issues and weaknesses in the gameplay which players reported. The spokesperson praised the community for giving such detailed feedback and claimed the company is taking people’s comments “very seriously.”
When asked if the game was complete on release, the spokesperson dodged the question. However, from their response it seems likely that the company wanted to ship it in September no matter the state it was in. “We didn’t have any plans to postpone the release because we ultimately had a strong desire to deliver the new eFootball 2022 game to users as soon as possible.”
While the update does reportedly improve the game considerably, we will have to wait a few days for more feedback from the fans if it has turned eFootball into the game they were hoping for.