eFootball 2022

Yes, at least eFootball 2022 does now have a fully-fledged mode to take it past the point of being a demo, but it's still lacking so much more than you'd expect from a 1.0 version of a game.

It certainly isn’t a matter of a lack of talent at PES Productions. I don’t believe for a second the developers don’t know how to make a better game than this - we need only look at the last few PES games for evidence to the contrary. These are vastly talented, experienced, passionate people, working as best they can on a deeply flawed concept with a spectacularly poorly communicated plan. They don’t deserve chastisement on social media, though they’ll inevitably get it. But equally, eFootball 2022 still doesn’t deserve your time yet.

In PR terms, it's the world's costliest public beta. There's a lithe control system in the wreckage, but it'll take many updates to dig it out.

A disastrous start to the post-PES era. The only consolation? It surely can't get any worse from here.

Unfortunately, eFootball 2022 fell short of all expectations, good or bad. The soccer game drastically changed its proposal by joining a free format, but it seems to have not planned well how to take advantage of it. With a build worthy (or not) of a demo, the game has problems in visuals, gameplay, content and mechanics in general.

Ultimately, this installment looks rushed. This game possesses a shockingly high number of errors to be considered unplayable.

Given Konami's commitment to gambling games over the last few years, you'd think they'd be averse to making poor gambling decisions.

Launching a game, even free-to-play, in such a sorry state is a total lack of respect for the user, and in this case, for the history of the once best soccer franchise.

For free or otherwise, the content offered for eFootball 2022 currently does not rise to the name "Game".

While changing game engines is likely to prove useful down the line, the initial launch of eFootball as a F2P platform comes off as a mediocre, watered-down football experience far below the expectation of Konami.