Despite a shaky start in 2021, Konami’s live service successor to football series Pro Evolution Soccer (PES), the online game eFootball, has now been downloaded an incredible number of times. Officially, it’s surpassed more than one billion downloads worldwide, Konami has said, and it’s having something of a celebration in its honour.
According to Konami, this cumulative download figure will be marked with a special in-game campaign and the “Master league Sprint”, which is inspired by the beloved Master League event from the predecessor PES series.
In addition, something off the pitch is also coming to help put a party hat on the occasion. A manga titled That Time I got Reincarnated in PES is also on the way, which will apparently tell the story of someone who finds themselves experiencing the Master League firsthand alongside footballers Castolo, Minanda, and more. How exactly this occurs remains a mystery – though it’ll be penned by Detroit Metal City’s Kiminori Wakasugi and published on K Manga.
As for this in-game event, it starts today and will last until the 16th April. Players who log in to take part will receive in-game currency, as well as a chance to obtain truly valuable players, including Ronaldinho Gaucho.
This, obviously, is great news for Konami. The company appears to be maintaining a grip on the football gaming space in the wake of EA losing the FIFA branding and shifting to EA Sports FC. It’s also an impressive milestone when you consider the shaky start eFootball had, with its 2021 iteration launching as the worst reviewed game on Steam.
My big question as a non football fan is this. How exactly will the protagonist of this manga be reincarnated into PES? The genre classic is getting run over by a truck or some over large motorised vehicle, so if I were a betting man, I’d wager a street game gone wrong could cause the shift. Who knows though, maybe Minanda will be driving the car?
