PES Series Becomes eFootball, Goes Digital and Free-to-Play

The series formerly known as Pro Evolution Soccer is undergoing a rebranding of sorts. Now it’s called eFootball, and it’s coming to not only consoles and PC, but to iOS and Android sometime later this year. The series is now going free-to-play and digital-only for the first time in its history. No longer will it be released on a yearly schedule, but it will instead be a football platform bolstered by yearly release schedules.

The newly branded eFootball site reads: “It all began with the implacable determination to create a revolutionary soccer platform. Our ambition was to recreate the perfect soccer environment, from the grass on the field, to the players’ movement, all the way to the crowds in the stadium. To this end, we decided to create a new soccer engine with a newly built animation system and revamped game commands.”

According to an IGN report on the name change, the developers were encouraged by the success of PES Mobile to shoot for the free-to-play platform and had been planning it for years to coincide with the new console generation’s launch. Series producer Seitaro Kimura assures fans that the new game will be just as appealing as anything in the PES series: “We’re still making games on consoles first. We then take that exact same experience and make it available for mobile devices… We’re still making games on consoles first. We then take that exact same experience and make it available for mobile devices.”

The site also says that the intention with the game is to create a seamless platform that supports cross-play on all platforms: “To ensure that all soccer fans can enjoy the ultimate head-to-head action, eFootball is available Free to Play on multiple devices! Furthermore, in the near future, it will become completely cross-platform, allowing everyone to join the fun without being held back by their device of choice.”

Source: IGN