eFootball 2023: all the news of Konami's football simulation update

eFootball 2023

In the world of football, more often than you can imagine, it can happen that a club with a legendary past, one for example like Manchester United, starts a long-lasting and indestructible negative cycle, capable of resisting the turnover of coaches, for no apparent reason. players and managers. No matter how many champions you manage to sign, these sporty spirals of total involution manage to insinuate themselves into the DNA of your team at every level, sometimes infecting their mentality, which is why it is always difficult to get out of it to re-embrace your ancient coat of arms.

eFootball, for several years now, has gone from being one of the absolute protagonists in the race for the best sports video game to occupy the last positions of the ranking, even touching on more than one occasion a resounding relegation in the minor league of sports games, the one that usually welcomes, with all possible respect, simulations of golf and ice hockey.

Just like United, Konami's production is desperately trying to get back on top to re-emerge from the swamp it ended up in following the move to the 2021 free-to-play formula, rolling out a series of updates that they are indeed expanding and improving the formula proposed by this chapter, but at the same time they are not successful in relaunching its ambitions.

Last April it was the turn of patch 1.0.0, capable of laying the very first foundations of a complete football experience, while in summer the game was updated to the new season with a patch capable of applying a wide range of interventions to the gameplay, as well as the source of some novelties in terms of licenses. Eager to find out all the details of this update to eFootball 2023, we put on our boots and hit the football pitches of Konami's title once again, just to have a look around on the progress of the works. Here, below, what we discovered.

The gameplay as the first objective

Even if the feeling has remained the same, the gameplay of eFootball 2023 has improved in many ways. one must necessarily be a detractor of the game to admit that eFootball is still today a project without a clear direction, a gigantic open-air construction site very far from the design drawings that had anticipated the start of the works. Embracing this sort of calm chaos, Konami has evidently chosen to favor an approach oriented to the progressive optimization of the gameplay, also because without going to retouch what was the formula of the very first eFootball there would have been nothing to use as a foundation for the construction of a convincing football game.

After the many interventions of last April, the patch 2.0.0 for eFootball 2023 concentrates its novelties between the four sides of the football field, applying an avalanche of improvements aimed at making more enjoyable the gaming experience, already significantly enhanced with the latest updates. The goal of the team was first of all to make the actions more fluid, significantly increasing the reactivity of the players and their ability to control the ball. Fans of the Konami series have always enjoyed the more measured pace of Pro Evolution Soccer, but it's good that the speed of the action is now, after the update, noticeably faster. An inverse path to that of the competition, as we underlined in the special FIFA 23 vs eFootball 2023, the match to elect the football game of the year.

The players of eFootball 2023 are now much more reactive and easier to play. govern that in the past the players are no longer dragged by inertia during changes of direction, they are significantly more responsive in every situation, and it is now easy to tackle attacking maneuvers with athletes who govern the ball without allowing themselves sudden inaccuracies. Of course, the gameplay is still characterized by a certain degree of unpredictability, but as we had already seen on the occasion of the 1.0.0 update, there are more tools to manage the maneuver, now that each step is faster and more precise. The interventions will not have revolutionized the feeling, but there is no doubt that, very slowly, Konami is gradually shaping the definitive football experience for fans of the series, at least in terms of the quality of the game.

A free demo, but always a demo

Dream Team mode is still the beating heart of the eFootball 2023 offer.We would pay any amount to be able to turn us into a fly, infiltrate Konami offices, head to the plan where the eFootball team works and find out why, after two years, there is still no shadow of a content that represents a valid alternative to the Dream Team mode. It is disarming to see how much better the gameplay and how much potential it can have, only to see the football team of the Japanese company nailed to the state of a trivial demo, even a bit sparse in addition.

With the transition to eFootball 2023 , we do not report any news whatsoever in terms of game modes, which are confirmed to be only Dream Team and Authentic Match. In the latter, the teams available to players have been significantly increased (but we will get to it in the paragraph dedicated to licenses), where Dream Team has seen some new packages introduced as the only, real novelty that have the sole purpose of pushing the community to spend your money in the in-game shop. It is evident that the studio does everything to make this mode the only real reason to download eFootball, and in this sense we expected something more, even if we must admit that despite everything its formula works properly.

The absence of the Master League, or any other valid offline content, weighs heavily on the budget of eFootball 2023. friends, a feature that should represent the basis of any football, will arrive only in October two years after the release of the title. For those who love offline gaming, there are only endless stretches of sand and a few bale of hay to roll here and there. The Master League, the historic PES mode that put us in the shoes of a coach, is still inexplicably absent from the call and, although some rumors insist on his imminent arrival, nothing suggests that it could really be like this.

Timid progress on the licensing front

Here are the very few teams available in the eFootball 2023 performances. eFootball 2023 update coincided with the introduction of some new licenses that will delight fans, at least those passionate about Latin football. From the 9 teams previously included in the game, we have passed to 26 officially licensed formations, most of them coming from the most important South American football stages. In Italy Juventus greets Konami to embrace the exclusivity of FIFA 23, but in his place the two interpreters of the Madonnina derby, Inter and Milan, join the roster of eFootball, in addition to Rome, Lazio, Atalanta, Naples and Monza.

If we were to limit ourselves to commenting only on the representation of Serie A in eFootball 2023, it would be bad enough not to have the many other teams in our league available for normal offline performances. But it is by turning our gaze to international competitions that the situation becomes truly dramatic: the Premier League candidates only Arsenal and Manchester United, La Liga only Barcelona, ​​the Bundes none other than Bayern Munich. Too much, too little for a 2022 football simulation, especially when we consider that leagues with unlicensed teams are actually present, but only accessible during very short time windows over the course of the season.

eFootball 2023 has some very deep gaps on the licensing theme The addition of the most renowned Argentine, Brazilian and Mexican teams, such as that of six new stadiums including the historic Azteca, does not mitigate the huge gaps that eFootball continues to show undeterred on the licensing front, whereas its reference competitor fielded a staggering number of official teams. It is clear that the competition between FIFA and eFootball is not played on the issue of licenses, but this is not an aspect that can in no way be ignored, in the analysis between the two products.

More and more finished

The faces of eFootball 2023 players have improved, but they are always not very expressive We told you on the occasion of the last update of the huge leap forward conquered by Konami from the point of view of the technical realization of eFootball and also with the arrival of the new season there are no particular news on the quality of the football show offered by the game, we were pleased to meet a gameplay finally purified from the many imperfections that plagued it in the past. Much of the work had already been brought home last April, but now the formula is even more refined, the animations are slightly more convincing, and the faces incredibly detailed, even if still devoid of any expressiveness, to the point that in motion it seems to dealing with scary mannequins.

The online infrastructure does not expose itself to particular critical issues, finding a match is still a process that can take a few minutes, but once inside the netcode it is excellent, despite the game offers total cross-play across all platforms. Konami wanted to concentrate on smoothing out technical imperfections of any nature, and from this point of view there is only to admit the incredible work done by the company, capable of transforming a small technical disaster into a working title from start to finish. end.

What do you think of all the news of Konami's football update to eFootball 2023? Will you try the game, using its free-to-play formula?

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