hello,
First, I would like to express my gratitude for the general atmosphere created around Football Life by fans and football-game enthusiasts. This project is an experimental idea from my desire to keep PES alive, and the growing number of supporters shows that many gamers share that same feeling.
Regarding the recent update, I would like to address a few points that might be important for some users:
Information about update 1.3
This update may be one of the most important made for Football Life since version 2023. It contains multiple breakthroughs that upgrade the core game, including several critical changes. here are some details for the curious:
The PES 2021 engine was designed for year 2020 as a base year, since the game was released for the 20/21 season. For years now we used a Lua tool to display a different starting year (2021, then 2022, and later 2023 - 25). However this was only a cosmetic fix in career mode. Internally the game continued to calculate everything as if it was still 2020. Even if your career timeline shows 2025, the engine still behaves like it is 2020.
Because of this mismatch, the core game becomes more outdated every season. The first visible sign appeared immediately in season 21/22: the First Transfer Window OFF option stopped working, because the game still believed the correct window was in the past (2020). As we progressed toward 2025, other symptoms appeared: contract issues, team spirit behavior, player development, adaptation mechanics for both user and CPU… the game was heading toward a dead end.
Update 1.3 changes almost all of this. It modernizes the core systems and brings the game closer to what PES 2026 (Season Update) would have been if it still existed. I am not inventing things out of thin air, I am simply updating the game so it can keep up with the passing years.
Normally, a deep core update like this is delayed until the next season version (FL27), because career mode would require a restart. I always try to avoid that until a new season is released. But the improvements were too important to hold back for another year.
It was a major challenge to apply this update without ruining existing careers. Career mode should adapt quickly to the new system, though not all scenarios have been tested. The scope is large, but if any issues appear, we will fix them.
* Please note that starting-year career tools may no longer be compatible, as they rely on 2020 as the base year.
About gameplay in version 1.3
The gameplay changes in this update, while important, are still minor, however an issue forced a repack roughly 24 hours after release.
The problem was caused by the switcher, it was not working properly and generated the wrong dt18 file as the default gameplay. In practice, it mixed parts of PES 2021 gameplay into the file. The error was fixed in Visual Studio and the update was repacked with the correct files. The same issue also affected the Classic Players option.
changes in the gameplay are minimal, if you didn't already its highly recommended to download the repacked update SPFL26_130c.
For placebo effect and peace of mind :)
here is the correct dt18 bin version 1.3c
and this is the dt18 bin version 1.2
* both compatible, almost identical.
* size difference due to zlip difference, done on purpose as it helps with identification and diagnostics.
I hope to push this game to its maximum potential with the tools and knowledge I have. It is difficult, but it is fun and we are fixing long standing problems that have existed for years, which is always good news.
Hope you like it.
dido/SP