Konami is refunding DLC purchases after disastrous 'eFootball' launch

Last month, Konami dropped Pro Evolution Soccer in favor of the new free-to-play eFootball franchise with the promise of decent gameplay on the cheap. Unfortunately, the launch was nothing short of woeful, with bad player models, numerous glitches and an uproar over a $40 DLC that couldn't even be redeemed until a big version 1.0 update originally scheduled for this month.

Now, Konami is saying that this update is being pushed way back to spring of 2022. As such, it's refunding players who pulled the trigger on that DLC and forcing them to reinstall the game. "If you have pre-ordered the Premium Player Pack and wish to continue to play eFootball 2022, you will need to re-download the core game after the pre-order has been cancelled. We apologize for the inconvenience," the company wrote.

To make the game more usable in the near term, Konami released an update (v0.9.1) "to fix numerous bugs sequentially on each platform starting today (November 5th)," it wrote. Left unsaid there is the severity of the glitches, which make for some pretty cringe reading. Choice ones include "the referee may be shown as being trapped on the surface of the pitch," "pitch grass is not shown three-dimensionally," and "players may get caught up in the goal net when performing a goal celebration close to the goal."

It's hard to be optimistic given the issues Konami has had with its football games, but the company did buy itself some more time. We now have to wait until spring 2022 to see if it can do anything to turn eFootball around.