Konami shook the world of football after announcing it would be competing against FIFA under the free-to-play eFootball banner. However, that announcement left a bunch of questions that the developer has now answered over on Twitter.
Last week, Konami made clear that eFootball will keep the Master League mode made famous by the Pro Evolution Soccer franchise as optional DLC, yet that did little to appease players more concerned with the implications of the game fully coexisting with a mobile version or the freemium model as a whole. At the same time, eFootball’s features are set to roll out across several releases
In a lengthy Twitter thread, the @play_eFootball account went over several of these subjects, clarifying that the “Early Autumn” phase can be likened to a demo that will be completely free-to-play, including the possibility of playing local matches against CPU opponents from the get-go which had been an area of concern for fans. More crucially, Konami made clear that console and PC players will not get downgraded eFootball graphics due to compatibility with the mobile version, as well as the option to turn on matchmaking filter based on location and platform
Although team and league licenses were not addressed, Konami mentioned that after the initial release PS5, PS4, and PC, users would be getting support for the customization options that for decades allowed PES players to circumvent the franchise's lack of licensing, such as option files and edit mode. Lastly, the concerns regarding myClub (eFootball’s take on FIFA Ultimate Team) were barely touched upon, only saying free and paid match passes would take the “lottery element” away from the eFootball.
Regardless of these clarifications taking some heat off Konami, there are still several issues left to be addressed since the lack of a graphical downgrade between PS5 and PC vs. mobile doesn’t account for how in-game animations will be handled. As seen with FIFA 22’s game-changing Hypermotion mechanics, crafting highly detailed and realistic animations requires sufficient hardware that will see PS4 and Xbox One users miss out on these improvements, so it’s unclear how eFootball can work around this without making serious compromises on newer hardware, considering that the game still needs to be able to run on a smartphone.
Despite all that, the appeal of making the world’s most popular sport free-to-play might be enough for many to forget eFootball’s potential shortcomings, maybe so much so that EA can consider adopting the freemium model for FIFA in the future.