eFootball

Pay-to-win is the complaint raised most often, and most of the reviewers raising it have 100 or more hours in the game. They describe weekly 150-to-300-player boxes where the few top cards cost real money to guarantee, a trickle of free coins ("Getting just 100 Coins a week (or every 4 days) makes saving up for a 1,000-Coin pack a month-long grind"), and each new promotion adding higher-rated versions of the same stars, so last month's purchases fall behind. Some add that bought cards later seem to play worse, and that there is no way to buy a specific player you want. One player put it bluntly: "This is not a football game. It's a casino." The complaint turns up in positive reviews too, as a bare "p2w" or as a caveat ("wish they bridged the gap between F2P and P2W").

Online players complain about delay between button press and action, lag spikes, "online service unavailable" errors, maintenance downtime and disconnects in the last minutes that count as a loss. Some say it happens even on fast wired connections ("Despite running a high-end 1 Gbps wired connection, the game stubbornly refuses to ever hit a full 5-bar connection status."). Reviews from North Africa and the Middle East, Southeast Asia, India and Latin America describe matches made almost unplayable by lag, and one long appeal asks for better servers and ping in North Africa and the Middle East. One player says cross-play gives console users a responsiveness advantage over PC.

Talk of "script" (with "momentum", "DDA" and "handicap") comes up about as often as lag, mostly from players with 100 or more hours in Divisions and events. They describe their highly rated players suddenly turning slow, passes misfiring, keepers failing, the ball rebounding to the opponent again and again, and late goals in added time, all at moments that seem to decide the match. Some make the same claim about offline play, saying league and event matches switch them to Top Player or Legend difficulty for the important games. One player who calls the game scripted wrote: "I don't mind losing to another player. I mind losing control of my own team." No review offers proof of a mechanism. Some tie it to the gacha and believe the game nudges results toward players with paid cards.

Former PES players keep asking for Master League, Become a Legend, edit mode, offline cups and a simple pick-a-club exhibition. "Master League was one of the single greatest game modes ever brought to consoling." Another: "Everything we used to love about PES, Master league, become a legend, offline leagues and cups, edit mode to fix club names, emblems etc are all gone." Reviewers say a week-long Master League event ran in April 2026, and some took it as a tease, accusing the developers of trying to "troll players by adding a week-long Master League event". Content beyond Dream Team is called thin: "Better gameplay than EA FC, but so dead of content I can't really play more than 2 weeks of It before getting bored again."

Separate from the "scripting" claim, reviewers dislike the basic handling: passes going to the wrong player or straight to an opponent, slow player reactions, players freezing after losing the ball, teammates ball-watching, inconsistent goalkeepers and automatic player switching. "Ill already have a player covered and right when i'm about to take the ball back it switches to someone all the way across the field entirely." Newcomers raise these in their first hours; veterans say they got worse with certain updates.

New players describe being thrown against maxed-out squads in their first online matches ("I just started the game and I am being matched with squads with all players 95+ rating."), or the reverse: PvP searches that quietly fill with AI opponents ("Played for over 2 hours against bots and just one guy, even in div 6 you don't have a player base?"). Event PvP matchmaking on Steam is also called slow or broken, with some saying the PC player base is thin compared with mobile.

Technical reports include black screens or crashes after the logo, the "Unable to implement live update data" error, dual-monitor problems, a Steam Deck crash that one player says began on December 22, 2024 ("Since december 22, 2024, the game has been unplayable."), Denuvo and kernel-level anti-cheat concerns, and update sizes of 20 to 50 GB. A few mention a frame cap or no resolution option.

Some reviewers say referees punish light contact while missing heavy fouls, and one finds it worst against the AI on Legend difficulty: "Red and yellow cards are given too easily." Others dislike foul replays they can't skip.

Some online players report opponents using network manipulation to create lag, and say reports change nothing: "You'll report a player for cheating and still keep getting matches with said player." Others complain about meta tactics (Long Ball Counter, five at the back) and opponents who pause or stall to waste time.

Several PC players say the game is nearly unplayable on keyboard and has no proper rebinding ("Impossible to play with keyboard, no settings for controls with keyboard..."), and PlayStation pad users complain that prompts show Xbox buttons.

A few reviewers say the Steam version misses coin sales, some packs and managers that mobile and console get ("there is a coins sales in mobile and console, but no sales in steam version"), and ask for progress from a mobile account to carry over to PC.

Some newcomers quit early over cluttered, mobile-like menus, pop-ups and a tutorial they must clear before playing a casual match.