Sadly it’s not the very best football this particular game has played, but improvements to first touches and to control at sprinting pace do a lot for it. The needle has swung both ways with data packs, then, and in many ways you can view eFootball PES 2021 Season Update as a full stop on that ongoing saga, a kind of bells and whistles edition of Data Pack 9. Then further updates absolutely ruined it again, to the degree that superstars earning a squillion pounds an hour seemed incapable of taking a first touch.

Yes, it was nice to stay up-to-date with Neymar’s hair but more importantly these data packs tweaked the values underpinning its football, and they fine-tuned them to near-perfection. Where things started to get really interesting for PES 2020 were in its data pack releases. Foregoing all that variety and presentational sparkle is the trade-off you make for better football on the turf, and the equation doesn’t change a jot with this release. “FIFA, meanwhile, not only has all the licensed kits, names and badges you could ever hope to skip past on the team select menu, but a narrative-driven Volta mode and the mighty FUT, among others. At least PES 2021 (or eFootball PES 2021 Season Update, as it’s absurdly calling itself this year) is straight with us about it. Which is what both galacticos of the football franchise world have been accused of, year on year, since time immemorial. This is, in no uncertain terms, a collection of updated squads, kits, and whatever Paul Pogba’s latest misadventure with peroxide might be. Menus? Okay, there are some new background pictures, but you can see what I’m trying to say. You see, while Konami chips away at its vision for next-gen football arriving next year, PES 2021 arrives as an unapologetic stop-gap release, priced significantly lower than usual (including an additional 20% discount for PES 2020 owners) and offering distinctly fewer new features than you’d expect, even for a franchise with such a relentless annualised release cadence. But is this year's PES actually worth buying? It’s a more complicated question than it seems. Two words that succinctly sum up football fans’ years of frustration with both PES and FIFA, and describe what might ironically be the most meaningful innovation in football games for years - or at least lead to it.

Pes 2021 lite