“‘ Tis the season to announce annual sequels”, goes the popular E3 carol, “fa la la la la, la la la la.” Today we open our door to discover Konami standing on our mat, wrapped up in this frightful May weather, eyes wide with expectation as they announce Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 [official site]. Will you listen to their song, or slam the door in the face and get back to sipping mulled lager with your family round the roaring open fan?

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Football was free when it first began in 1362, when youths had the right to play on the village common and would swipe a sturdy-looking head from the pikes by the gates on their way out, so why do we have to pay for virtual football now? It’s not even real!

Well, you won’t get the munch the eyes at half-time, but Pro Evolution Soccer 2016’s free-to-play spin-off has now launched on PC. PES 2016 myClub [official site] is its managerial, player-collecting sort of mode. Something. But free to play!

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After a balls-up at launch, Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 [official site] shipped with a load of out of date team rosters. A subsequent free ‘Data Pack’ released a month later failed to straighten this out, but Konami promised that Data Pack #2 would set things right. Now they’ve confirmed that’ll be with us next week next Thursday, December 3rd.

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Upon release, you might’ve spotted the odd discrepancy within the team lineups of Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 [official site]. Schweinsteiger still at Bayern and not Man United? RVP still at Old Trafford and not with Fenerbah e? PES 2016 shipped with out of date team rosters, see, and troubles with follow-up ‘Data Pack’ updates kept players waiting longer still. To make amends, Konami have detailed future content plans including giving free UEFA Euro 2016 bits to everyone early next year.

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Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 [official site] is not going down well. Once again, its graphics are somewhere between the PS3/X360 console version and the fancier one on PS4/Xbone, which is baffling considering how beautiful fellow FOX Engine game Metal Gear Solid V looks and runs on PC. Still, if you want a big old 3D footie game on PC, your choices are FIFA or PES, so… which will you go for?

As promised, a demo for PES 2016 arrived shortly after launch (sorry, I didn’t notice its launch on Friday because I was busy shouting at a referee) and can be found on Steam for your sampling satisfaction. Its graphics settings are turned down, mind.

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Our chums at Eurogamer are lending their trusted backing to recent claims that publisher Konami are beating a swift retreat from big budget land for a while, even though everyone and their D-Dog seems to be playing Metal Gear Solid V. Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 is out now and Metal Gear Online is still due for release, but if reports are to be believed everything else is getting dropped like a very expensive hot potato. … [visit site to read more]

I’ve been looking forward to the latest Pro Evolution Soccer [official site] game since reading a couple of extremely positive reviews of the PS4 version. The game arrived on Steam last night and I’m installing it right now but release day revelations are chipping away at my excitement. Last year’s PC Pro Evo was a hybrid version that felt closer to the 360 and PS3 edition of the game than that on current-gen consoles. The same is apparently true this year and while that doesn’t mean the game will necessarily be a load of cobblers, it does mean I’m unwilling to assume any positives related to the celebrated PS4 version will carry over.

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