Overview
Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) is Konami's football simulation series. The first game launched in October 2001 on PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and in Japan it was called World Soccer: Winning Eleven 5. The series has its roots in Konami's own International Superstar Soccer line. Development passed through three periods: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (1995 to 2005), Konami Digital Entertainment (2006 to 2013) and PES Productions (2014 to 2020).
OtaHub's take
PES 2009 was the first game with the UEFA Champions League, and PES 2018 was the last to keep the UEFA licences. From PES 2020 (released 10 September 2019 in Japan) the series was called eFootball PES. As of December 2020, according to Wikipedia, the whole series had sold 111 million copies and had 400 million mobile downloads.
On 30 September 2021 Konami rebranded it as eFootball: free to play and running on Unreal Engine 4, a first for the series. The launch went badly: 92% negative Steam reviews, and Metacritic scores of 25 on PC and 34 on PS5. The mobile version arrived on 2 June 2022. The 2026 season came out on 14 August 2025, and eFootball Kick Off! on Nintendo Switch 2 followed on 3 June 2026. The official site still posts news daily.
Verdict
this profile covers the whole brand, from old PES to eFootball. Longtime PES fans can treat it as where the series lives on, free to try. Newcomers should know the 2021 launch was heavily criticized, and the current quality is best judged by trying the free version and reading recent reviews before spending money.
