PES 2021 has received plenty of praise despite the game just being a “Season Update” on PES 2020.
The game this year comes at a cheaper price with only a handful of subtle new additions, as Konami already begin preparations on PES 2022 for Next Gen consoles.
We spoke to Lennart Bobzien, European PES Brand Manager, ahead of PES 2021’s release.
What was the thinking behind going for a "Season Update" for PES 2021?
LB: “Our development team is hard at work on a next-generation football title that aims to truly embody our core concept of "The Pitch is Ours".
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“After much careful consideration, we made the decision to launch this year's PES as a streamlined offering in the form of a "Season Update", ensuring that our development team have the resources they need to make our next-gen debut something really special.
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“We are still confident that PES 2021 will offer fans more than enough thrills to tide them over until our next-gen title is ready for launch.”
Why should fans and first-time players play PES 2021?
“PES 2021 offers strong, award-winning gameplay that provides our fans a football experience that you will not get with any other football video game.
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“We saw more people trying PES for the first-time or revisiting it with last year’s game following significant updates. We can still reach more people with PES 2021 who are looking for something fresh.”
Last year was such a big one for PES, could this be seen as a bit of a step back?
“I would consider this year as the right decision to move forward with the development of the PES series for the future.
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“The uniqueness of the PES brand is its realism, gameplay and authenticity and with the new generation of consoles we want to make sure that we can deliver this as our fans would expect this from us.”
We’ve already seen a tease for PES 2022. What can you tell us about the plans for Next Gen and next year’s game?
“We felt it was important to be transparent about the future of PES, but our focus for the time being is on PES 2021.
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“Rest assured, our development team is working very hard on next-gen development, listening to fan feedback and we are looking forward to sharing more in the coming months.
We’ve seen the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5 this summer, how excited are you to be working with Unreal for PES 2022?
“The Unreal Engine allows our development team to look at our game from completely different angles and gives the team more opportunities to bring PES to a whole new level.
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“We will talk more about exact technical details at a later stage, but it’s worth stressing that we’re rebuilding our next-gen title from the ground up.
This is an incredibly exciting time for the PES franchise and we’re doing all we can to make sure it’s something our players can be proud of.”
PES 2021 Season Update arrives on Tuesday, 15 September on PS4, Xbox One and PC via Steam.
READ MORE: Everything we know about PES 2021
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