PES 2022 Has Exclusive Rights to Five Serie A Teams

Style over substance is a term thrown towards the FIFA franchise as of late, with more focus going into FIFA Ultimate Team every year, more than the rest of the game. Meanwhile, PES 2022 has slowly picked up the pace, and even after the game took a year off with only a season update available for 2021. PES 2022 is now attacking one of Europe’s biggest leagues, Serie A, to take away the rights to five major clubs. This means a lot more fake kits, badges and club names in FIFA 22.

Who Else Has Signed Up?

Atalanta is the latest club to sign on the dotted line and give their rights exclusively to the Konami-developed franchise. They join Juventus, Napoli, Roma and Lazio as teams who have committed exclusive access of their Badges, Kits and Stadiums to the Japanese developer. PES 2022 has other licences available through partnership deals with clubs like Barcelona, Liverpool, Celtic and Arsenal, so gone are the days of completely unrecognizable team names like Old Firm Green and Tyneside.

Napoli sold their rights back in April 2021

What This Means For FIFA

This is a blow to FIFA 22 as Atalanta players and their likeness may feature in the game, but it will likely be for Bergamo Blues or whatever fake name EA come up with. It also has a knock-on effect on FUT too, as the cards will display the fake team badge, which takes the shine off any card, as seen with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and the Piemonte Calcio badge FUT card has emblazoned on it.

Overall this seems like Konami is attempting to crack a specific market with PES 2022, the Italian football fan/gamer. By rounding up some of the biggest exclusive licenses in the league, they’re hoping to take a big share of the market away from FIFA. Will this work? Only time will tell. 

Is Konami done recruiting teams? Are there more exclusive rights deals coming to PES 2022? All we know about the next game so far is the Konami has made the switch from the Fox Engine to Unreal. Having tried it out with the development team, they saw a positive reaction and have decided to make the switch official for the next instalment.