Konami will not include playable women in eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020 (eFootball PES 2020). This news comes by way of the series’ European brand manager, Lennart Bobzien. He confirmed this detail in an interview with GameSpot.
According to Bobzien:
I personally support the women’s game and have been following the World Cup closely. However we currently don’t have any plans to integrate women into eFootball PES 2020.
EA currently holds the rights to men’s and women’s versions of the FIFA World Cup, so this couldn’t appear in Pro Evolution Soccer. EA added the ability to play as women in FIFA 16, back in 2015. This option has never appeared in the PES series.
It’s also worth noting that women’s soccer is booming, with the England v USA World Cup semi-final reaching 11.7 million concurrent viewers on July 2, 2019. In other words, Konami can’t say there isn’t an audience for women’s soccer. Perhaps eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2021 will finally see the inclusion of women players, but if you want to get your women’s soccer fix, FIFA is your only option as it stands.
In keeping with PES 2020 news, we recently received word that Konami ended its licencing deal with Liverpool, meaning the team won’t be included in the upcoming game. Instead, a new partnership has been established with Manchester United.
The PES series was also in the spotlight, at least momentarily, as Pro Evolution Soccer 19 was originally supposed to be included as a PS Plus game for the month of July 2019, but was later swapped out with Quantic Dream’s Detroit: Become Human at the last moment.
eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020 will debut on September 10, 2019 for PS4 and other platforms, with a demo expected to release on July 30th.
[Source: GameSpot]
