Gareth Bale named cover star (and pre-order incentive) for PES's Euro 2016 expansion pack

Wales and Real Madrid superstar Gareth Bale has been revealed as the cover star for PES 2016's Euro 2016 expansion pack – and the most appealing incentive for those who decide to pre-order.

In addition to being a free download for those who own PES 2016, the Euro 2016 package will also be available to purchase as a standalone game, exclusively for PS4 and PS3 – and those who pre-order it in this form will be rewarded with a raft of MyClub (PES's answer to Ultimate Team) content.

Said pre-orderers (is that a word? It is now) will earn one of six 'ambassador agents' – i.e. world class players – for their team, chosen at random from Bale, Kingsley Coman, Ignazio Abate, Alvaro Morata, Mario Gotze, and Riccardo Montolivo.

They'll also receive seven additional players taken from those selected for the Euro 2016 tournament to use in their MyClub dream team, and 10,000 GP to spend for ten consecutive weeks – so 100,000 GP in total.

The bonuses won't be available for those who take the free download option. "They are incentives for anyone buying the packaged edition," a Konami spokesperson confirmed to GamesRadar.

The Euro 2016 disc also includes the base PES 2016 game, so is a no-brainer purchase for anyone who's waited this long to sample Konami's latest sports effort. Curiously, only 15 of the 24 teams heading to the tournament are licensed. Ireland, Russia, Switzerland, Romania, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Belgium and Hungary all miss out on official kits.

The free expansion pack will be downloadable for PES 2016 across multiple formats from 24 March, with the bespoke Euro 2016 version in stores (physical and digital) for PS4 and PS3 from 21 April.

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Ben Wilson

I'm GamesRadar's sports editor, and obsessed with NFL, WWE, MLB, AEW, and occasionally things that don't have a three-letter acronym – such as Chvrches, Bill Bryson, and Streets Of Rage 4. (All the Streets Of Rage games, actually.) Even after three decades I still have a soft spot for Euro Boss on the Amstrad CPC 464+.