If you’ll cast your mind back to the origins of free-to-play PES successor eFootball, publisher Konami promised Master League would return one day.
That was almost five years ago, and it’s finally been brought back in some form today – albeit as part of a week-long event, available until 16th April. Needless to say, fans are not happy.
Master League Sprint, designed to celebrate the game’s billionth download, will test your squad building skills as you recruit players and deal with injuries.
Fake players from the original single player mode like Castolo and Minanda will return, so Konami clearly knows what it’s doing here.
But this isn’t the full rags-to-riches campaign fans have been itching for, and it’s getting a poor response on social media. The fact that it will only be available for seven days is further salt in the wounds.
One fan said on X (or Twitter): “You managed to destroy the best game mode, which was Master League. You only used the name Master League in a ridiculous and mediocre event just to say that the game has Master League.”
If we’re going to be gentle on Konami, we wonder if it might be using this event to test the full-blown addition of Master League at a later date.
But realistically, we just don’t think the publisher has any interest in bringing back the predominantly single player mode in this live service game.
Here’s the reality: eFootball is powered by its gacha mechanics and the sale of eFootball Coins. There’s very little money to be made in Master League as a result.
The company does seem to understand the importance of the mode, though; alongside this Event, it’s also launching a manga named ‘That Time I Got Reincarnated in PES’, which has been drawn by Kiminori Wakasugi.
According to the press release, in this story the “protagonist is reincarnated into the world of Master League”, which is a really fun premise. It’ll be serialised on K MANGA and you’ll be able to access it from within the game – or via the following link.