PES will skip an official release this year, launching a budget “season update” instead

Pro Evolution Soccer finds itself in a very weird position in 2020. Last year’s entry saw it undergo a slight rebrand by sticking the term “eFootball” in the title, and now Konami has announced that FIFA’s biggest rival will be forgoing a new release this year in favour of a new seasonal update that will bring PES 2020 up to date with new players and kits.

This “season update” will be sold at a budget price compared to the amount standard PES releases typically sell for, with Konami claiming that it wants to pour all its development efforts into its next-gen debut: PES 2022. The news came to light via a post over on Konami’s official website, where it explained the decision to fans and how it hopes to take, “PES to a whole new level.”

[Information regarding the eFootball PES series]

Taking PES to a Whole New Level https://t.co/v5OX0AA4qe pic.twitter.com/sOLoOcak6B

— eFootball PES (@officialpes) July 15, 2020

The statement read: “As the industry stands at the precipice of an exciting new generation of consoles, we believe that now is the perfect time to share some of our plans for the future of the PES franchise with you. To that end, we are excited to announce that we are hard at work on a next-generation football title that aims to truly embody our core concept of ‘The Pitch is Ours’.”

The “season update” will be a pared-back offering, but Konami has yet to release a full breakdown of what this will entail exactly. We do know that it will require to be purchased. To that end, it seems that existing PES fans will have to make do with the game they picked up last year, as Konami remains fully focussed on coming out of the gate strong with a PES 2022 developed from the ground-up for PS5 and Xbox Series X.

PES’ biggest rival, FIFA, already stated its intentions to stick to its stringent annual release strategy as part of last month’s EA Play presentation. FIFA 21 is also yet to be given an official launch date.