A tweet from Pro Evolution Soccer Brand Manager Adam Bhatti confirmed the inevitable. The latest entry in Konami's long-running football series, Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 has been announced for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
This time around there appears to be a difference. Last year's game was a faster, almost arcade-like experience. PES 2017 touts the tagline "Control Reality", with Konami's webpage showing off features such as Precise Pass, Real Touch, Corner Kick Strategies, and Natural Player Movement. But one bullet point that caught our fancy is Adaptive AI.
"For the first time in a football game, the AI will learn how you play! Player and team behaviour has always been a staple of the PES series, and for PES 2017 Adaptive AI will change sports games forever," the website reads.
With adaptive AI being a selling point for games since the time of 1990s fighting game Rise of the Robots, it will be interesting to see how PES 2017 makes good on this feature. One of our biggest grouses with PES 2016 was its inconsistent defensive AI that made the game a tad frustrating. Hopefully this, along with the series' trademark deficiencies such as poor menus and shoddy tutorials receive a revamp as well. Although nothing on Konami's page says anything about that. Neither is it mentioned if you can expect parity between the PC and current generation consoles, which was a bone of contention for the PC gaming community the last time around.
Nonetheless, you can expect PES 2017 sometime around September, as was the case with PES 2016. Perhaps earlier than FIFA 17 - a game EA has been surprisingly silent about.
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