eFootball 2022 is the worst game on Steam. We’ll show you why it’s so awful in our review. Read at your own risk!
About a year ago, Konami released the last part of the glorious Pro Evolution Soccer series, which regularly outshone its big competitor FIFA in the 2000s, both in terms of gameplay and ratings.
PES 2021 only appeared as a somewhat larger database update, but at the same time raised hopes: the developers wanted to take extra time to fully exploit the advanced technology of the next-gen consoles with eFootball 2022 and to reach the next level of football simulations on the basis of the Unreal Engine.
They actually achieved the latter with the release, but in a negative sense. eFootball 2022 immediately became the worst-rated game on Steam, with the whole internet laughing. Why the game is really as unbelievably bad as everyone says, we’ll explain in our review – so that hopefully you won’t get the idea to see for yourself. And yet the whole thing didn’t look so bad in the very first trailer:
Scary graphics
No matter how curious or curious-eyed you are, the free download of eFootball just isn’t worth it. For one thing, that’s because in its current state it’s nothing more than a rather buggy demo version. There are two game modes: in offline mode you can play friendly matches with only nine different teams, whereas in online mode there are over 200 teams available.
It’s just a shame that you have to commit to one variant and that it can no longer be changed. Currently, the only option is to create a new Steam account or wait for the end of the current event. Konami had already announced in advance that the most important modes, the Master League and MyClub, were still missing for the release. So this is still bearable somewhere.
What doesn’t work at all, on the other hand, is the game itself. Let’s start with the graphics: For years, PES was at least on par with FIFA when it came to player faces, and sometimes even significantly better. What went wrong with eFootball 2022 is hard to explain.
The view into the empty waxwork faces somehow triggers unease. The head of Bayern star Joshua Kimmich even has something threatening about it and exudes the same energy as the strange classmate from the fifth grade who was sent home from the class trip because he tormented the youth hostel caretaker’s cat. The butt-ugly bronze bust of Cristiano Ronaldo that hit the headlines a few years ago doesn’t look so wrong against all that.
If you want to take something positive away from the presentation, you can take a look at the six stadiums included at the start of a game. Allianz Arena, Old Trafford or Camp Nou actually look more atmospheric than in the current FIFA PC offshoot FIFA 22. In addition, there are some great songs to listen to in the menu, among others from the very good band Future Islands. But that’s about it.
Revolutionary bad gameplay
The PES heir takes a similarly deep fall as with the graphics when it comes to gameplay. One would expect that the experienced developers would at least be able to deliver a solid football game. But that is not the case.
Although the basic feel of the game shows a kinship with earlier PES games, it is in no way even close to being as good as its predecessors. The biggest criticism is the speed of the game. Sure, PES was always a bit slower than FIFA. But in eFootball, the players control as if they had just crawled out of bed hungover after a night of drinking. Every turn, every pass and every ball reception feels like hard work.
Every minute played grinds the soul of the long-time PES fan The actually agile professional athletes resemble a mixture of decrepit old men and bumper cars that are no longer able to react to your gamepad inputs. If the ball is more than ten centimetres away, they don’t want to take it. And don’t even dream of trying to set up a nippy Tiki Taka short passing game. Everything in eFootball is incredibly slow, ponderous, sluggish. The ball simply weighs what feels like ten kilos.
But there are those rare bright spots that remind you why you used to love Konami and PES so dearly. For example, when a deadly pass is played exactly into the striker’s path and all you have to do is net completely free in front of the goal. The new dribbling system, which features prominently in the tutorial – only a short explanatory video, by the way – also has its moments. With a little practice and a lot more luck, you can actually manage to elegantly dance past opponents. However, these positive moments are the great exception. When they do exist, they don’t feel intentional, but simply completely random.
Konami’s career ending?
Konami has done itself no favours by releasing this piece of trash. The damage is done and half the internet has already laughed their heads off at the borderline-debile facial animations of this meme machine. The whole situation feels like the final nail in the coffin of a formerly terrific series. At least they didn’t put the PES name on it here.
Meanwhile, the developers have acknowledged their mistakes and promised first patches to be released soon. It remains to be seen whether this total footballing failure can still be saved somehow. And even if Konami manages to turn things around and turn eFootball 2022 into an acceptable game in the next few months, it remains questionable whether anyone will still want to play it after this catastrophic launch.
If, on the other hand, you’re into pain, we recommend you take a look at our list of the worst Steam games. Among the ten software disasters listed there, you’ll find such bangers as Flatout 3 and Godus. But eFootball 2022 has them all in its pocket.
