What just happened? Barely a week before it was set to release the 1.0 update for its latest soccer game, Konami has announced it's delaying the patch to next spring. This, along with its refunding of DLC purchases, compounds the problems with eFootball 2022's disastrous launch.
Konami said the game's 1.0 update, which was originally supposed to go out on November 11, will now arrive in spring 2022. At the same time it also finally released the 0.9.1 update on Friday, which was originally supposed to go up on October 28 but was also delayed. That update includes numerous bug fixes for the PC and console versions, but Konami says it will announce updates for the mobile versions later.
Konami is also automatically refunding pre-orders for the Premium Player Pack, which was only supposed to work after the release of the 1.0 patch. Furthermore, after a user's pre-order is cancelled, they'll have to re-download the game in order to keep playing. The Premium Player Pack is supposed to include 2,800 in-game coins and items to help players build their in-game teams. Konami currently has no details on when it'll launch or re-open pre-orders for the DLC.
Konami launched eFootblal 2022 in late September as a major reboot for its series of association football simulators, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year. Last year's eFootball PES 2021 was actually just a roster update for 2019's eFootball PES 2020 – Konami had essentially taken a year off to spend extra time developing the next entry which would replace its old graphics engine.
The result, eFootball 2022, is a free-to-play game that is meant to be identical across all platforms: consoles, PC, and mobile. Since launching, it has become Steam's worst-rated game of all time. Players have criticized how it uses mobile-level graphics for the PC and console versions, and how many of its features require separate purchases.