Konami made a real statement with PES 2020 when they secured an exclusive deal for Juventus, and it looks like they’re going to hit the ground running with next-gen.
Latest News – Next-Gen Trailer REVEALED
Konami has made the decision to release this year’s PES game as “season update” rather than a full game, so that they can focus on their next-gen debut.
Well now, the game developers have given us a first look at what PES could look like on next-gen and boy, does it look good!
Check out the trailer below:
This next-gen title is being developed with an updated engine that will bring staggering improvements to all areas of the game.
Expect more realistic player models and animations, enhanced physics, photorealistic visuals, and much much more.
Konami has also confirmed that there will be large updates for both myClub and Master League.
Konami aims to begin testing of their next-gen title sometime in mid-2021, with an estimated release date later in the same year.
Season Update CONFIRMED
Konami has confirmed that they have made the decision to launch this year’s PES as a streamlined offering in the form of a “season update”.
This year also marks a quarter of a century since the very first PES title was released.
To commemorate this important milestone, and show gratitude to their fans, Konami has announced that this year’s PES will launch at an affordable anniversary price and will also come with several bonuses.
AC & Inter Milan licence lost
Following statements from Konami, it looks as if AC and Inter Milan will not appear on PES 2021.
It remains to be seen if Konami will replace the Serie A heavyweights with a new club.
Will there be a PES 2021?
We all thought that despite Coronavirus delays, Konami would still be releasing their next PES title as normal.
A classification for “Efootball PES 2021 Season Update” has been approved by the Australian government – suggesting that it will just be a facelift for PES 2020.
Due to Coronavirus delays, the postponement of Euro 2020, Next Gen consoles later this year plus the release of Unreal Engine 5, it makes plenty of sense for Konami to go down this route.
The “final” update to PES 2020 could be a bluff, but we’ll just have to watch this space.
“Final” Update for PES 2020
With rumours growing over whether we will even see a full version of PES 2021 – there has been a plot twist from Konami themselves.
In the Tweet showing off their latest Data Pack, it was referred to as the “final” Data Pack.
Some PES 2021 news may just be around the corner.
Release Date
There is no official release date for PES 2021 yet, but last year they stole a march on FIFA by releasing a couple of weeks earlier in mid-September.
Using the same approach, we would estimate any release, whether it be a new game or a “season update” to be Friday, 18 September 2020.
Fans now think this could come later due to the European football season likely to start later than normal, and the old PES 2019 servers closing in September.
Demo
According to reports we could expect to see a PES 2021 demo coming in a few months.
This is largely based on when the last demo was released for PES 2020, which was Tuesday, 30 July for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
If we take this date and predict from there, we could see the PES 2021 demo available anytime from Tuesday, 28 July.
That said, if PES 2021 is just an update of PES 2020, would there be any need for a demo?
Trailer
With E3 cancelled, there’s no knowing when we could get a look at the first PES 2021 trailer.
It was scheduled for 9-11 June, so perhaps Konami will go solo and release something of their own around that time – much like EA Play.
A whole new style of gameplay was the focus last year, an overhauled passing system and improvements to players likeness was the focus in trying to compete with being a more ‘realistic’.
Following the pattern from last year, we expect Konami to release further trailers and selected access in and around July 2020.
Licences
Pro Evo shocked us all last year and bagged the exclusive rights to Juventus.
For the first time, FIFA had to make up a name and they were called Piemonte Calcio in FIFA 20.
With Juventus blazing a trail to not just be licensed to PES, but exclusively so, who will be next?
Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Manchester United could level up their agreements, but trying to get around league licencing is difficult.
Spanish giants Real Madrid have been rumoured, as well as rivals Atletico – with players from both clubs featuring in MyClub’s Iconic Moment Series.
With the Inter Milan licence lost, Konami will surely be looking for a replacement.
Stadiums
PES 2020 had some of the world’s finest stadiums.
It included the Nou Camp of Barcelona, Manchester United’s Old Trafford and Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena.
What other iconic venues can we expect to feature?
Euro 2020 (or is it now 2021?) venues Wembley Stadium and the Krestovsky Stadium (home of Zenit St Petersburg) are arriving in PES 2020 via DLC, and with the tournament being delayed a year, expect them to stick around for 2021.
Football game community website FIFPlay have commenced a PES 2021 Stadium vote.
The current front runners are Elland Road (Leeds United), Vodafone Arena (Besiktas) and Sukru Saracoglu Stadium (Fenerbahce).
PES 2021 Cover Star?
PES has always been genuinely competitive with FIFA when it has come to cover stars.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi have both adorned the cover multiple times, but the recent tendency has been to have multiple stars or teams on the cover of Konami’s soccer title.
Miralem Pjanic, Serge Gnabry, Scott McTominay and of course Lionel Messi were a useful quartet, but who could we see this time?
FIFPlay PES 2021 cover vote
FIFA community website FIFPlay has already commenced a vote on who should be the PES 2021 cover star.
There are no surprises in this poll with the two biggest names splitting the vote. Cristiano Ronaldo leads with 36% of the vote, to Messi in 2nd with 21%. Heung-min Son is 3rd with 8%.
RealSport’s PES 2021 Cover Stars prediction
Based purely on speculation we expect Konami to secure the rights to big teams across multiple leagues and repeat PES 2020 by having four stars from four partner clubs.
Barcelona – Lionel Messi
Bayern Munich – Robert Lewandowski
Juventus – Paulo Dybala
Manchester United – Bruno Fernandes
Master League career mode
PES 2020 made some great strides with their Master League career mode that made it much more competitive with FIFA.
It is good to see this kind of investment in a career mode within a context where pay-to-win gaming is growing in My Club and FUT.
However, Konami has the opportunity to take advantage of EA’s focus moving to FUT and filling a void in the management side of gaming.
Hopefully we will see greater depth in player development, personalities, management styles and perhaps tactics.
Gameplay
With Andres Iniesta on-boarded to help out the development team on PES 2020, there were clear improvements to gameplay in the passing, dribbling and shooting department.
That said, Pro Evo can feel like a football match from the 1950’s in terms of style of play.
Very deep defences and plenty of long balls mean that the midfield is almost redundant, and crosses are very difficult to score from.
An overhaul to the game’s meta means you’ll get more reward for utilising star man Lionel Messi.
New Game Engine?
PES 2020 already made strides in the visuals of the game, and this was one of the points it was commended for.
The expectation with a new gaming engine this will come again even further.
Kei Matsuda of Konami has previously mentioned that they do plan on using a new engine for the series “in the future.”
He did not specify if that was applicable for PES 2021, but he was clear it wouldn’t be planned until there was a new generation of consoles that could maximise the rationale behind updating.
The change could be to Unreal Engine 5.
Unreal is currently used on PES Mobile.
With it highly unlikely that next-gen consoles could run with Fox Engine, a switch to the next Unreal Engine is an organic and sensible switch.
As we move to 2020 we can start to look at what this year holds for gamers.
With the PS5 and Xbox Series X just around the corner, it looks as if Konami are going to put all their eggs in one basket and focus on PES 2022 for next gen consoles. .
Next Gen
With both the PS5 and Xbox Series Xboasting impressive specs that will help bridge the gap to the PC, it is looking more and more possible that cross-platform play will be possible on next-gen consoles.
Both the new PlayStation and Xbox are expected to hit during the 2020 holiday period, with some speculation that they will arrive in late November.
This means PES 2021 will first be available on the current generation of consoles, PS4 & Xbox One, and should be playable on PS5 and Xbox Series X by backwards compatibility or Smart Delivery.
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