The full launch of eFootball 2022 has been pushed back from November to next year, with Konami seeing no other way to fix the number of problems with the sports game. The replacement for the publisher's successful and long-running Pro Evolution Soccer series, eFootball 2022 faced criticism as soon as it released despite shifting to a new free-to-play mode. This led to eFootball 2022 becoming the worst-rated game on Steam when it became available in September.
The main issue with Konami's successor soccer title is the sheer number of glitches, bugs, and broken gameplay mechanics plaguing it. This massive list of complaints has made fixing eFootball 2022 a daunting proposition, and as a result, fans have been left having to make do with smaller updates that address specific problems, such as character model animations getting stuck during gameplay, while Konami works on bigger fixes.
Now, Konami has revealed that it is delaying the launch for eFootball 2022's biggest update, with PC Gamer confirming that players who have pre-ordered DLC and the season update are being given refunds. The developer recently released a brand new update to fix many issues, after Konami promised to improve the eFootball experience following its disastrous launch, but has now announced that it is delaying the v1.0.0 update from November 11 until Spring 2022. That's a significant delay and comes with little warning for players and fans of the series. In a statement, Konami said that "we have concluded that more time is needed to deliver the product in the quality that will meet the expectations of our users and have decided to postpone the delivery." The studio also apologized to players and thanked them for their patience as production staff continue their efforts.
This is not the first delay for the game despite the fact that it has only been available for a few weeks. Konami previously delayed a major eFootball 2022 patch in October. This delay was meant to fix some of the many issues that the game’s players have been complaining about; in particular, this patch was focused on improving the ball's pass speed and behavior, as well as cutscenes, movement, and facial expressions.
The delay of the full release update for eFootball 2022 will do nothing to reassure fans of the series, especially considering just how bad things were when the game released. However, this is likely the best decision for Konami and the game, hopefully allowing the team time to actually fix the major problems and not have to rush out a product that might have made the issues even worse.
eFootball 2022 is currently available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Android, and iOS.