EFootball PES 2020
eFootball PES 2020 is a football simulation video game developed by PES Productions and published by Konami for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Android and IOS. The game is the 19th installment in the eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer series and was launched worldwide on 10 September 2019, and was launched in Japan on 12 September 2019. The new game features a name change with the addition of 'eFootball' within the title, symbolizing a push in the online gaming space with a focus on eFootball Pro tournaments. Lionel Messi returns as the cover star of the standard edition, since his last appearance on the cover of Pro Evolution Soccer 2011, alongside Pro Evolution Soccer ambassadors Serge Gnabry, Miralem Pjanić and Scott McTominay, each representing one of the game's partner clubs. Ronaldinho was featured on the cover of the legend edition.
The mobile version reached 300 million downloads by June 2020.
Club partnerships
Barcelona
A renewed agreement between Konami and Barcelona, was announced signalling a continued relationship with the Spanish football club. Together with this announcement it was also confirmed that a special Barcelona edition will be released.Manchester United
and Konami announced an agreement which would see the club, its stadiums and players recreated within the game. The current squad have also been created using a full-body 3D scanning process, providing players of the game with ultra-realistic avatars.Bayern Munich
After the announcement of the demo — which came out on 30 July 2019, FC Bayern Munich was announced as an official partner club. Players will have the full experience with authentic kits, full 3D scanned players and, exclusively, Bayern's home ground, Allianz Arena.Juventus
signed an exclusive partnership with the game, which will see it includes the club kits, player names and stadium with realistic likeness in game and also making it the first time in 25 years that the FIFA series will not hold the licence for the club.Arsenal
On 28 June 2019, Arsenal announced a 3-year extension to their partnership with Konami, which would see a highly detailed recreation of Emirates Stadium, as well as access to club legends and first-team players.Game modes
Included for the first time in the PES series, there is a new game mode called Matchday Mode. Players around the world will help their team to glory one match at a time in the new Matchday mode. Konami will choose an important match or derby game each week, players will then be able to decide which team they want to represent on Matchday.Master League has also received a number of revamps, most notably containing a story-like progression, with all-new cutscenes taking place in staff meetings, training sessions or press conferences, as well as objectives to be accomplished based on replies given by the player on those cutscenes.
Data Pack 7 was released on 4 June 2020. The update was related to UEFA Euro 2020 and the content included the official kits and player likenesses for all 55 officially licensed UEFA teams. Update also includes 5 out of 12 venues of 2020 tournament, as well as the official match ball.
On 15 July 2020, it was announced that eFootball PES 2021 Season Update would be released, due to PES Productions focusing development efforts on the forthcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.
Teams
Competitions
Eighteen leagues are fully licensed in the game. All the teams in these leagues feature real players, kits and logos, although a minority of the players in the Brazilian leagues still appear with generic names. Three new league licenses were obtained: the Italian Serie A, Italian Serie B, and the Brazilian Campeonato Brasileiro Série B.Konami have retained the licence for the AFC Champions League, remaining in the game since its introduction in PES 2014. With this, debutants for 2019 AFC Champions League, Gyeongnam, Daegu and Johor Darul Ta'zim also appear for the first time in this franchise.
The English Premier League, EFL Championship, Spanish La Liga and Segunda División will appear as unlicensed leagues in the game. These leagues will, however, feature real players. Serie A have all clubs licensed, except Brescia.
Thai League 1 and Chinese Super League top league are included.
Commentary
- English Language: Peter Drury and Jim Beglin
- French Language: Grégoire Margotton and Darren Tulett
- German Language: Marco Hagemann and Hansi Kupper
- Greek Language: Christos Sotirakopoulos and Yiorgos Thanailakis
- Italian Language: Fabio Caressa and Luca Marchegiani
- Spanish Language: Julio Maldonado and Carlos Martinez
- Portuguese Language: Pedro Sousa and Luís Freitas Lobo
- Argentine Spanish Language: Rodolfo Depaoli and Diego Latorre
- Brazilian Portuguese Language: Milton Leite and Mauro Beting
- Chilean Spanish Language: Claudio Palma and Aldo Schiappacasse
- Mexican Spanish Language: Christian Martinoli and Luis García Postigo
- Japanese Language: Jon Kabira and Tsuyoshi Kitazawa
- Chinese Language: Wang Tao and Miao Kun
- Hong Kong Chinese Language: Vince Ng and Keyman Ma
- Arabic Language: Fahd Al-Otaibi
Reception
On December 2019, Arsenal midfielder Mesut Özil was completely removed from the Mandarin version of the namesake game in Mainland China, after a fallout on his tweet about condemning the Chinese government crackdown on Uyghurs. According to NetEase Games, they stated that his comments "hurt the feelings of Chinese fans and violated the sport's spirit of love and peace. We do not understand, accept or forgive this."
Awards
Trivia
- Hong Kong Football Association officially held an e-sports tournament during the coronavirus pandemic, which was mainly contested by the footballers from the 10 clubs of 2019–20 Hong Kong Premier League despite none of the clubs was appearing in the video game. The edit data of the league from the community editing team, WEHK, was used.