PES 2019 will have nine new league licenses, seven revealed

Konami have announced that they have acquired seven new league licenses for Pro Evolution Soccer 2019. Officially, this is Konami fulfilling their commitment to increase the number of licenses in PES, but there may be other implications.

Konami will also announce two new league licenses in the future, but they have revealed seven newly acquired licenses so far. They are Danish Superliga, Portugal's Liga NOS, Belgium Pro League, Swiss Super League, Scotland's Ladbrokes Premiership, Superliga Argentine and the Russian Premier Liga. The Russian Premier Liga is also exclusive to PES 2019.

The company has expressed that they are "thrilled to have signed the rights for the Russian Premier Liga exclusively" since PES 2019 will be the only football game on the market where players will have full access to clubs other than CSKA Moscow, Zenit St Petersburg and Spartak Moscow.

Now, acquiring so many licenses "out of the blue" draws some questions as well, considering that Konami has recently, and in certain point of view prematurely, lost the UEFA Champions League license. One might argue that Konami are trying to recoup the losses that will present themselves in future titles due to lack of Champions League in them by rallying the fans of smaller clubs around the world, the ones that didn't have a spotlight in PES before.

For example, I imagine many people will be thankful for being able to play FC Krasnodar in PES 2019 Master League and eventually crush giants like FC Barcelona or Paris Saint Germain in international tournaments.

Konami evidently put their backs into PES 2019, as the game will be available on 4K HDR across all platforms as well as better graphics in general. This includes better crowd detail, as seen in the screenshot below.

Konami PES 2019 - Crowd looks fairly detailed

Grass textures will be further improved and the snow weather effect will finally make a comeback, so matches in Russia will look even more immersive. Konami will also, yet again, attempt to make a better transfer system for the Master League, hopefully with an ability to renegotiate more than once.