Which means PES 2021's gameplay is pretty good! Beautiful, at times, even. Some of the stadium lighting is particularly sharp.

At times PES 2021, like PES 2020, looks fantastic. But only the most hardcore of PES fans will notice any difference. The goalkeepers are perhaps a touch more reliable. It feels all players take a heavier first touch, so you always have to be mindful of how you receive the ball. Perhaps there are subtle tweaks to the shooting. Perhaps the players are ever so slightly more responsive than they are in PES 2020. I've seen some say they feel the gameplay is much improved, but I found it hard to tell much of a difference. It's hard to tell where exactly PES 2021 takes its PES 2020 gameplay cue from.

In the year since, many of these wrinkles have been ironed out by patches, and so PES 2021 fares much better at launch. PES 2020 had serious gameplay issues when it came out, many of which I covered in our review. It's last year's game although, thankfully, not last year's game as it was when it launched. The upshot is PES 2021 is not really worth writing home about.

Availability: Out now on PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Pes pc review