Japanese publisher Konami has said that that the next version of its Pro Evolution Soccer (or is it eFootball PES?) franchise will be "pared back" to focus on a more fancy version in 2021.

In a post on its website, the firm said that this year's release – PES 2021 or eFootball PES 2021 – will be a "streamlined offering" providing a "season update" on the last game. Konami has promised that this will be an affordable offering, likely meaning it will cost less than $60.

The PES team's focus is now on next year's title, PES 2022 or whatever it ends up being called. That will boast an updated engine to make the most of the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X games consoles. This is taking so much work that the development team needed to focus all their energies on that title.

"The sheer scale of everything we are aiming to achieve for our next-gen debut has made it necessary to pare back our efforts in other areas of development," the PES team wrote.

"As a result, we have made the decision to launch this year's PES as a streamlined offering in the form of a 'season update'. That being said, we are still extremely confident that this year's game offers fans more than enough thrills to tide them over until our next-gen title is ready for launch."

Konami rebranded PES as eFootball PES in June 2019, with the firm saying later that year that it wanted the game to be a leader in esports.