Premier League in FIFA 20 or in eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020: Which is the best option?

For this whole millennium, there are only two football games that matter, FIFA and the recently renamed eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer. While they both had their ups and downs, in recent years, FIFA is the clear winner when it comes to sales. 

On the other hand, Pro Evolution Soccer has seen more improvement when it comes to gameplay, which not only rivals FIFA, but even comes on top. As the next iterations of both games are coming in September, we are checking out what it means for Premier League fans. 

According to data published a few years ago, FIFA was outselling PES by a margin of 25:1. While that number sounds incredible and hard to explain, it all comes to down licenses. For more than a decade, Electronic Arts have an exclusive deal with Premier League, meaning that it’s only licensed in FIFA games. That’s not all, as in FIFA there are also, Championship, League 1 and League 2. None of them were licenced in Konami’s game so far, and there is no League 1 or League 2 even with fake names of the teams and players. 

While criticized many times for this practice, the Japanese company is adamant that there is not much they could do, but make exclusive deals with some of the clubs. For example, in the legendary PES 5 from 2005, you had licensed Arsenal and Chelsea teams, while this year Konami struck a deal with Manchester United. Still, that is not a massive blow for FIFA 20, as this club will still be fully featured there too. 

In the best-case scenario, eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020 will still feature a maximum of two real clubs, while the rest of the teams will have actual players, but fake team names and jersey. That could all be fixed with edit option (you can even download these edits), but you still won’t have the level of authenticity like in FIFA. In FIFA 20, all Premier League teams are licensed, and you’ll be getting even more with all stadiums, authentic chants, and original TV graphics. 

Also, unlike Konami’s game, all teams will have their players faces scanned.  As for the 3D games aspects, both games are at pretty much same level, so it goes to your personal preference. Also, FIFA offers more teams and leagues in general, which includes national women’s teams like England or current world champions, USA. 

FIFA will be ahead thanks to marketing, as stars typically promote it, like former USA captain Hope Solo did with Steve Nash.  As for the gameplay of this year’s edition, both games are promising a lot, but be aware that next-gen consoles are coming in 2020, so that best features might be saved for them. 

The conclusion is simple - if you are a Premier League fan, FIFA 20 will probably be the must-have, but still check out the new PES game, as it still might be a great alternative.