Formerly known for gaming giants likeMetal Gear SolidandSilent Hill, Japanese developerKonami has massively scaled back its console gaming productionto focus on other avenues like mobile games and pachinko machines. The company did actually recently release a new title, a soccer simulation calledeFootball 2022,on September 30th.
eFootball 2022is a free-to-play rebranding of Konami’s long-runningPro Evolution Soccerseries that was first released in 2001 for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. While the franchise has often lagged behind EA Sports’ high-budgetFIFAtitles in terms of graphics, team licensing, and UI,Pro Evolution Soccerhas always had its diehard fans that preferred its more deliberate pace and simulation approach. This newesteFootball 2022version and its corresponding rebranding have players simply scratching their heads, however.
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Moving away from Konami’s in-house Fox Engine it had previously used for thePro Evolution Soccerseries and other titles like the excellentMetal Gear Solid 5,eFootball 2022instead is built on Epic’s popular Unreal Engine. While switching engines isn’t uncommon for franchises, it seems this engine change has brought about a multitude of problems. Steam players and Twitter users have reported a number of serious issues with the soccer-sim, such as poor AI, lackluster ball physics, and various graphical oddities like disfigured player faces, elongated limbs, and more.
All of these problems have led toeFootball 2022becoming the lowest-rated game of all time on the Steam platform according to Steam250, which is a website that uses an algorithm to determine rank order based on the number of player votes and the game’s approval rating. At an approval rating of 9% over 13,500 reviews,eFootball 2022is currently beating out other abysmal titles likeUmbrella CorpsandFlatout 3: Chaos & Destructionfor the worst game on Steam.Konami has even issued an apology regarding the current quality ofeFootball 2022.
While bugs certainly hurt a game’s playability, there is more going on ineFootball 2022than just glitches. The various negative Steam reviews are criticizing the title for its unreadable menus, lack of content, and terrible player and ball movement. It seems everything that was enjoyable about the previous franchise has regressed horribly, leaving players wondering why they should even bother playing, even at the low price of free.
Of course,eFootball 2022isn’t the only game to launch with terrible bugs and problems.Cyberpunk 2077infamously had so many issues at launchthat the game was even pulled from the PlayStation digital storefront for a while. Still, eFootball 2022 must be in a particularly poor state to be crowned the lowest-rated game on Steam. At the very least, the game is planned to be an ongoing, live-service game with plenty of updates, so Konami may correct the issues eventually.
eFootball 2022is available on Android, iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
MORE:5 Reasons Why Pro Evolution Soccer Is The Best Soccer Game Series (& 5 Reasons Why It’s FIFA)
