The word on the street is that Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 is going free to play. And by "street," I mean the Australian government's videogame classification website, which just yesterday slapped a "G" rating on something called Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 Free To Play.

PES 2016 fared not horribly in our October review, although we knocked it for being a poor port that lacked the quality of its console cousins. You can judge that for yourself, to an extent, through the demo available on Steam. But if the Aussies are correct, another no-money-down option may soon be available.

Konami hasn't commented on the listing, but it appears that the free-to-play edition will exist alongside the regular release, since they're rated separately on the Australian classification site. It's also possible that it will be released only in certain regions of the world, similar to EA's FIFA Online 3, as there is currently no listing for a free-to-play version on the ESRB website.

Then again, it seems unlikely that Konami would rate the game in Australia if it didn't plan on making it available elsewhere. I've emailed Konami for more information, and will update when I receive a reply.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 is, reportedly, great. Pro Evolution Soccer 2016's PC port is, reportedly, a load of balls. (And, as this is a football game, not in a good way.) Like last year's entry, it seems to have more in common with the last-gen, PS3 and 360 versions of PES 2016 than the shinier PS4 and Xbox One releases, and as you can imagine, the Steam page houses a load of negative reviews.

If you'd rather not spend 40 notes on an unnecessarily ugly footie game, you can now step gingerly onto the pitch with a demo of PES 2016, found on Steam here. It's possible to review demos on Steam, and again that page is chock-full of "mostly negative" missives, complaining about the nasty low-resolution assets, and the seemingly misleading screenshots plastered all over Steam. For some reason (possibly to save on the download size?), PES 2016's demo is locked to the 'Low' graphics setting—surely Konami would want to present their game in a good light?

There are seven teams available in the 1.5 gig download, plus a couple of stadia: Juventus Stadium and Arena Corinthians. Relatedly, Konami is reportedly stopping development of any big-budget game that isn't PES. Perhaps they could use the money to make better-looking PC versions of Pro Evo?

Ta, RPS.