The Update That Makes eFootball a Full Game Has Been Delayed to 2022

Konami has delayed the 1.0.0 update for eFootball from November 10 until Spring 2022 – effectively pushing back the launch of the full version of the game.

Announced on the eFootball website, the developer says that it “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 current version of eFootball has been described by Konami as “basically a demo”, with 1.0.0 set to add the game’s Creative Teams mode, multiple new ways to play (including normal online matches), new player types, microtransactions and more. That update was also set to add mobile versions of the game, but Konami now says it will “announce details of further updates and schedule for the mobile version later.”

Effectively, the launch of the intended, full version of eFootball has been pushed back – another difficult moment in what has been a truly disastrous launch.

Today’s announcement also saw Konami cancel pre-orders for its Premium Player Pack, a £32.99/$39.99 payment that couldn’t be used until the 1.0.0 patch was released. All players who had already paid for the pre-order will be refunded automatically, but Konami says it “may take some time to be completed.” Players who did pre-order will also have to delete and reinstall the game.

In more positive news, a patch that aims to fix some of the many bugs in the current version of the game will be released today, November 5, and Konami says, “We will continue to improve and update our game.”

While bug fixes will be a welcome addition, they certainly don’t address many of the problems in the game, which we said “has a lot of work left to do on the pitch to make people actually want to play it in the first place,” in a damning review-in-progress.

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].