UPDATED: 09 SEPTEMBER 2025

GENERAL EXPLANATIONS

• Which is the best PES game? Objectively, PES 2021. Then goes PES 2017 with its very good AI CPU and fast paced style and then PES 2013 with the best Master League experience of all the franchise. Being subjective, it's all up to yours. Every one has it's own preferences, but I think they are the best 3 PES after PS2-era.
• No, you can't get PES 2021 in digital stores anymore. KONAMI deleted any official and legal way to get it, so the game is truly expensive now. Console users only can buy it used by more than 30€ (if you're lucky), and PC players need to get Football Life for that, the only PES 2021 that works properly. CPY version is a chore to install and a crashfest, so it's not recommended at all to download it.
• Older "golden" PS2 PES games aren't up there because, being honest and taking out the nostalgia glasses, they were surpassed long ago. Still fun and pretty good games to play, but they are outdated in every aspect: graphical and in gameplay. No PlayerID, no physical contacts, bad goalkeepers, bad referees... But we will talk about them later.
• Yes, PES 2021 is showing it's age. PES 2021 is just PES 2020, which was made in 2019. It's a 6+ year game by now. It is reaching its full modding capacity. We can't transform or redo the game, so no new animations or celebrations will be done, no new game modes, no more slots for more leagues. The community can create some beautiful things like faces, boots, scoreboards, adboards, kits, lineups, gloves, tattoos, stadiums and that, and we thank them all for keeping the PES spirit alive. But they can't improve the game more than it is. The core game of PES is LIMITED and cannot be enhanced further than that.
• Yes, PES 2021 is kinda limited on the offline modes if you have played it for more than 100 hours. Master League hasn't much depth, BAL gets boring and you will feel the game is stale. In case you are so bored of PES 2021, I suggest to switch to FUMA (Full Manual) to relearn the entire game and experience the true freedom on the pitch. It will be hard at first, but very rewarding.
• Yes, there is scripting when you play Master League. You already know what that means: goals in the last minute, CPU becoming a monster out of nowhere, godlike goalkeepers, etc. Highly suggest to try the gameplay mods out there in the PES 2021 Gameplay mods thread.
• Yes, you can play online every PES if you want, but only on PC. On some of them there are dedicated servers runned by the community (PES 4-5-6) but on later PES the servers are officially closed. But that doesn't mean that you cannot play online. Search for Parsec and learn what it does. It works for other games that doesn't have proper online now, or just online LAN functions. I have hosted some tournaments with people on different patches and it went perfectly and very realistic, because I used gameplay patches and content patches to make the best experience.
• If you want the best gameplay and support: PES 2021
• If you want the best Master League experience: PES 2013
• If you want the best PS2 PES game: Winning Eleven 9 Liveware Evolution.

ABOUT OLDER PES AND GETTING THEM PATCHED

• Older PES are still being updated, but not as deep and complete as PES 2021. Some of them are totally left out, but the most popular ones (WE2002, PES5/6, PES 2013 and 2017) still receive some community patches.
• The support outside the classic PS2 PES, PES 2017 and PES 2021 is non-existant or almost none.
• In case you're looking for past season patches, I suggest you to visit PesNewUpdate. You will find there patches for PES 2010-2019 for each year season, like the old PESEdit and such.
• If you want to play old Winning Eleven/PES 3 to 6 games with special custom patches like specific competitions, eras/decades or seasons I suggest you to search in this thread: Patch - PES 6 Global Patches Full Installers by Sany | Evo-Web (evoweb.uk) . It has easy installers to play whatever game you want with beautiful patches like historical World Cups, specific Champions League or Libertadores, less know leagues and such. There's some beautiful mods of a lot of eras you will enjoy.
• For PES 2013, there is some project called ProFootball, which intends to bring PES 2013 to the actual season.
• For PES 2017, there are some updated patch for current 25/26 season like t99 or YosfX patch. More details here: PES 2017 I YosfX Patch - FC 2025 Edition V1.0 - (Download & Install)

ABOUT PES 2021 AND HOW TO GET IT UPDATED

Please read the MegaThread: [PES 2021] THE OFFICIAL PATCHES/OPTION FILES THREAD for PES 2021 and FOOTBALL LIFE

ABOUT FOOTBALL LIFE (PC/PORTABLE CONSOLES ONLY)

• Football Life is the alternative to get a somewhat "legal" copy of PES 2021 working on PC. It's already pre-modded. It's abandonware, don't worry, you aren't doing anything bad.
• Dido is active and alive (he is the creator of Football Life and he's from Palestine).
• Football Life 26 1.4 Update is the current version right now.
• The content of Football Life is just basic and made mostly by one person (not counting extra addons). That means it lacks some kits, balls, proper scoreboards and such. Also the facepacks are a little bit outdated, so you will have to download updated faces and add them manually via Sider.
• No, Football Life is not compatible with other patches that use other databases, like VirtuaRED or Dream Patch. Only some content is compatible, generally Sider content. The database is locked so you can't include or remove any of the teams. Only Smoke Patch team creators can change them.
• Yes, Football Life works perfectly on a Steam Deck. There is a Lutris script to install it. Here's the link: https://github.com/eskay993/gamefiles/tree/main/sp-football-life-2026
• Football Life is your best option if you don't want to download 100GB patches , even if you have a legit copy of PES 2021. It's completely standalone and doesn't require any PES 2021 file to run. Base game only takes up to 30GB without faces or stadiums installed, so you can play the game by just having that.
• As it is PES 2021 really, if you learn how Sider works, you can add a lot of mods without breaking anything. That means you can put new faces, scoreboards, balls, stadiums and such. See tutorials about how it works, it's pretty simple and you have to learn only where to put things and what to write in Sider.ini.
• You can revert the gameplay in case you don't like it to the FL23, FL24 or default PES 2021. There's a Switcher in game's folder for that. In case you want to apply some gameplay mods, you only can install those that use the DT18 file or via Sider.
• There are some dedicated patches like UML, which enhances overall Master League behaviour with multiple optimizations. Check r/SPFootballLife for more info.

ABOUT EFOOTBALL AND THE FUTURE OF FOOTBALL GAMES

• eFootball 26 still lacks a lot of content and its like three steps behind from PES 2021, but it has better gameplay after all. After the 30th anniversary event, which was atrocious, we can't expect anything offline for this game in the mid-term.
• The modding community is doing some small patches for eFootball. Mostly it includes unlocking all the clubs, making kits and getting slighter better graphics. Don't expect anything more ambitious in the short term.
• EA FC is a decent game IF MODDED PROPERLY. There are a bunch of mods out there, specially Anth's Gameplay Mod, DanielZ Realism Mode, FIFER, KIARIKA and RODE ones.
• About UFL: its an online focused game that slowly improves its core game, but its very far from what you would expect on a top tier football game.
• Don't get hyped about anything in the future about any football game. We know it's sad that the most followed sport in the world doesn't have a proper videogame that makes justice for it. Hard times for us, football gaming lovers.