It's just a decision from Konami. They don't want modding since they are not focusing in off-line, but rather in online. This is eFootball, not PES, it's name already tells you that they seek becoming eSports, not a football sim. That usually brings problems in terms of modding since community work is not needed (they don't need real competitions or leagues, neither teams, if there's not an off-line, or ML mode, or even a league mode like for seasons without all the transfers and team management, only having matches) so they despise any effort community might want to do related to this. Not to mention gameplay changes, which are even more despised when there's not a real off-line mode that you might want to play on your own. Clearly, they don't want any kind of interference from their final product, and this is killing eFootball, because even FIFA has both it's online and offline modes, and there are tools to mod the gameplay and make something closer to simulation. Even they added a "sim mode" and a "tactic mode" which is not even close to what's needed, only a set of sliders, but is a step ahead and if you couple it with mods, the results are pretty amazing.
PES always had the advantage over FIFA of being more simulation leaned already in it's base, but also the fact that mods could make the game even more simulation, and had that hardcore base that prefered to play PES rather than FIFA cause it was way more realistic with a few mods. So Konami knew that they had a more realistic gameplay and they decided to move it into the online mode. But guess what? Yeah, 0.9 was realistic but was not so well built in certain regards, and besides of that, their focus on being a esport and trying to compete with FIFA in that regard meant they had to be less realistic in order to be more plain and predictable, since that's what you look in a esports. Less random things so you can have more controlled meta. And even when there's a meta in real football aswell, is way less predictable than in a esports because well... physics. You can't change physics irl but you can do so in a game. So instead of wanting a more realistic meta, less controlled, and adapt to it, and create a new way of seing esports, online players asked for a more controlled game, and Konami delivered... but in this process lost most of its hardcore base players, which only play the game because of the fact it's free and somewhat more realistic than FIFA in terms of online, but still many of us have decided not to play the game so much and rather buy FC because of the off-line modes and modding capability. And guess what else. With the introduction of UFL and GOALS, that might have a slightly different scope on meta, maybe one of the two a bit more realistic than eFootball, they might loose even more players. The online community is gonna be very divided, and there's not such a big market there because of that division.
I see that EA FC is getting a rise in terms of sells because they worked out a lot their animations in EA FC 25, plus sim mode added. Even if it is not what we hardcore fans want, the fact we can actually mod it to our likings, as we used to do with previous PES, is getting us slowly getting away from eFootball because modded EA FC is the closest thing we can have to old PES. We might only want to play eFootball if we want to play online because EA FC online is still very arcady, but with new options coming in, or even with EA FC eventually adding a less arcady mode for online, eFootball will be doomed for good. eFootball completely gave up on the things that made PES still have some fanatics and some community behind them (realistic gameplay, modding cappability and off-line modes), and they all went to FC cause it is the only game that now provides that. Instead, Konami decided to compete in a market which each time has more competition getting in and eventually, they will be simply another of the many online football titles in the market, with no special appeal for a certain playerbase. Without any trademark feature within eFootball, they will be unable to shine over their competitors, and the only game that will actually be able to hold their position and shine over their competence will be, ironically, EA FC. The pioneers of online mode, that have a fidelized online community only because of the facts they were the first ones in doing so, will be now the standard-bearer aswell of off-line modes, making them, oficially, the best football game on the market, cause it will be the only one covering all the specters of the market, online arcade, and offline simulation through mods. This is a RIP for eFootball. The game needs desesperately to get some personality if they want to survive once UFC and GOALS come into the market and polish the game.
Bring back fox engine or develop new engine that allow modding without dev/pub support. Atleast with Fox we can do it easily. Compare with Sider Era, PES 15/16 looks barbaric to add mods but man, eFootball modding is more like a stone age.
