The premium player pack, for sale now on the PlayStation Store and Steam, offers six “chance deals” (plus two more if you pre-order). A chance deal item lets you sign one of 16 featured players with an “exclusive design”. These players include Lionel Messi, Neymar, Takefusa Kubo, Ansu Fati, Dayot Upamecano, Marcus Rashford and Jonathan dos Santos. You can “pre-purchase” this pack now, but you can’t actually use the chance deals until an update scheduled for 11th November. Meanwhile, the 2800 eFootball Coins the pack includes (the premium in-game currency) can’t be used until 18th November. eFootball launches on 30th September, although Konami has already described this early autumn launch as “basically a demo”. Last month, Konami confirmed some of eFootball’s new gameplay mechanics, animations and even kicks won’t be in at launch. In July, Konami announced it had renamed PES to eFootball and made it free-to-play and digital-only. eFootball launches worldwide first on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, and Windows 10 and PC via Steam, with iOS and Android to follow soon after. At launch, only local matches featuring the likes of Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern and Manchester United will be available, alongside cross-generation matchmaking (PS5 vs PS4, and Xbox Series X and S vs Xbox One). You’ll be able to play against CPU teams via local match. During this time eFootball won’t have microtransactions, which means everything will be free-to-play. Then, later in the autumn, cross-play between all consoles and PC goes live, alongside a team-building mode and online leagues, where you “take your original team and compete in a global, competitive league”. Then, in the winter, Konami will add mobile controller support, full cross-play matchmaking across all platforms, including mobile when using a controller, and pro and amateur esports tournaments. The 11th November update mentioned in the premium player pack suggests this is when eFootball’s version of myClub (the Ultimate Team equivalent) launches. Konami has said it will sell Master League and other offline modes as eFootball DLC.
