It's easy to see why Konami thought it needed a new name to go with it – even if the clunky 'eFootball' will be a hard title to swallow for many long-time fans.
While recent years have seen the likes of Call of Duty embrace free-to-play and live service approaches for specific modes, this marks one of the industry's longest-running franchises adopting an entirely different release model.
It might even be one among the biggest shifts for an established game series, full stop. Last year, it was big news simply that the series was taking a year off to switch to Unreal Engine today, we know it's also getting a new name, going digital-only, becoming free-to-play, and will be playable across new-gen and last-gen consoles, PC, and mobile. It's not an overstatement to say that PES' shift into eFootball is the biggest moment in Konami's footballing history since, well, beginning to make football games.
