eFootball bafflingly beats out FIFA for Commonwealth eSports Championships

By Hirun Cryer
published

Rocket League and DOTA 2 complete the line up

eFootball 2022
(Image credit: Konami)

The Commonwealth Esports Championships has unveiled its games line up for later this year, and Konami's eFootball series has made the cut over FIFA.

This is an absolutely wild turn of events. The Commonwealth Sport Twitter account just announced the three games would that feature in the Championships yesterday, revealing that DOTA 2, Rocket League, and eFootball would comprise the line up of titles that competitors will battle it out over in August.

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Opting for a soccer game and landing on Konami's much-maligned game is quite the head-scratching decision, to say the least. When eFootball debuted in September 2021, it was beset with bizarre bugs, ugly player models, and abysmal Steam reviews. The new venture for what used to be Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer series performed so badly out of the gate that the developer actually apologized for it in the weeks following launch.

Additionally, Konami then delayed the arrival of eFootball's launch update to Spring 2022, and even refunded players who had purchased any premium packs available for the soccer sim. The entire launch period went disastrously for Konami, and we ended up giving the new game a 1.5/5 star rating in our final eFootball review last year in October. 

To put this game forward to the Commonwealth Esports Championships for August is incredibly intriguing. One naturally wonders whether EA just wasn't interested in partnering with the Commonwealth Games for the event, hence the introduction of Konami's eFootball game, or whether the sports organization truly had its heart set on the newer soccer sim from the beginning.

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Hirun Cryer
Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.