eFootball 2022

Konami's eFootball 2022 represents a major reboot of their football franchise, replacing the long running PES series. The switch to free to play and a new engine brought both excitement and growing pains when it launched in September 2021.

What's New

• First Konami football game using Unreal Engine 4
• Available on PS4/PS5, Xbox One and newer consoles
• Cross platform play between different systems
• More responsive player controls and camera

Launch Reception

The game got roasted at release for:
Weird player animations (remember that face glitch?)
Clunky AI behavior
Missing features compared to PES
Konami's been patching things since, but FIFA still looks better.

Free But With Catches

Good news: It's completely free to download and play. Bad news:
You'll see lots of prompts for paid content
Some modes feel designed to push microtransactions
Core gameplay still needs work

Konami's betting that going free will bring in more players long term. For hardcore PES fans, it's been a rough transition, but there's potential if they keep improving it.