It's been a rough road for Sports Interactive with Football Manager 25. After announcing the move to Unity in June 2023, there have been huge expectations from fans of the game.
However, troubled development with the new engine has seen features slashed and delay after delay. Here is everything you need to know about Football Manager 25
Latest News - Football Manager 25 DELAYED Until March
Football Manager 25 was meant to drop in early November. Then it was delayed until late November.
But after a week of silence, that date is once again moving, this time all the way back to March 2025.
In a statement shared on X, Sports Interactive states: "Many things have been moving slower than we had predicted." They went on to say: "We simply cannot compromise the delivery of this crucial juncture in Football Manager's history by rushing to release it in November."
Given the way rushed launches like those of Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Wars Outlaws have been met by fans this is a sensible decision, even if it means fans will have to wait for an extra four months before the new title arrives.
Football Manager 2025 Release Date
As we just discovered, Football Manager 25 is delayed until March 2025.
This news does come with confirmation that there will be a beta, or "Advanced Access" period prior to launch. No dates are given but this is typically two weeks before the official launch and reserved for PC players that pre-order the game.
The gameplay reveal for FM25 is now pushed back until January 2025. We can assume that the reveals of the game will then give us some firm dates for the actual release.
Welcome To The Premier League
For years now, the biggest league in the world has been called the "English Premier Division" in Football Manager due to a lack of an official license. This meant that Sports Interactive had to use fake badges, unofficial team names, and blanked-out player faces for the Premier League teams.
This situation even led to Manchester United raising a trademark dispute against SEGA and Football Manager in 2020. Players would get around the issue with the use of unofficial badge packs and face packs.
Well, that won't be an issue now, as Football Manager has the official Premier League license, which means there should be badges, faces, and kits from the 24/25 Premier League season in Football Manager 25.
Detailed replicas of each stadium might be a step too far, but we could see some iconic venues like Old Trafford with its corner tunnel, The Emirates, or Anfield in the game.
A Whole New Engine
FM25 will be a truly new era for the Football Manager franchise and perhaps the most significant leap forward since the introduction of the 3D match engine in FM09.
FM25 will see the series shift to Unity. This is the engine that gaming giants such as Genshin Impact and Cities: Skylines use as well as thousands of small mobile games.
The big thing that players should notice immediately is an improvement in graphical quality. While graphics have never been crucial to FM's core player base, the poor state of FM's on-pitch visuals is often cited as a reason why new players don't engage with the game.
But it's not just graphically where the changes will be felt. FM25 will have a "whole new UI which will dramatically improve the ways you are able to interact with the game" according to Studio Director Miles Jacobson.
This means minimum system requirements will be higher for FM25 than for previous versions. The specs are yet to be made public, but it could be quite a leap forward and require players who still use the 2D engine on old laptops to upgrade.
For the first time, the Inbox is also being shelved; now, players will use the Portal in between matches. "The Portal will be a richer window to the wider footballing universe. It’ll give you far better tools to develop your story through the Agenda and Messages sections, but also deliver you more insight into what’s happening elsewhere via News and Matches."
The new engine is bringing some of the biggest changes we've ever seen, and ditching the inbox is just one example.
Women's Football
After promising it way back in July 2021, FM25 will feature the women's game for the first time.
Sports Interactive has finally opened up about how the addition of the women's game will change your saves. Players can jump between men's and women's management in the same save, hire staff across genders, and build a reputation as a strategic mastermind at every level.
This degree of integration is fantastic to see, and will allow players to interact with the women's game at their leisure.
It is not yet known how many official licenses SI has for the women's game. It would be amazing to see the WSL, Liga F, Frauen-Bundesliga, and others jump at the opportunity to grow their audience.
It will be interesting to see what the uptake of the women's databases will be in the long run, but just like the addition of the J-League in FM24, it is great to see Football Manager being a truly global title, for everyone.
Feature Cuts
Football Manager 25 is being rebuilt from the ground up, but as a result several existing features are not returning for the new game.
The biggest feature being removed is international management. In FM25 you won't be able to lead your country to the World Cup. International breaks will still happen, with Haaland, Mbappe, and Bellingham all heading off to their squads and the games will still be simulated in the background, but active international management is being taken out.
The main reason for this is that in its current state international management is dull, poorly structured, and not played very often. SI is removing it with the intention of completely renovating the mode before bringing it back for FM26.
Draft mode, Vs Mode, Create-a-Club, and other secondary game modes are also not appearing in FM25 as part of the re-building process to allow SI to make these modes more user-friendly and encourage greater uptake.
Some gameplay features are coming out too. Shouts, an in-match motivational tool, have never quite worked as SI intended and so are being pulled from FM25 to also get a full change. Their return is not guaranteed for FM26, but something similar will hopefully come back in so we can all unleash our inner Mikel Arteta.
Player Ratings
While everything is changing in FM25, there is no expectation that player ratings, attributes, or how this information is passed onto players will change in any meaningful way.
We still fully expect the usual 20 attributes for each player to be presented, with no OVR rating like in EA FC or other sports titles.
FM25 wonderkids are still going to be given potential ability ranges while a players current ability should still range from 1-200.
Platforms
Despite the greater strain, Football Manager 25 should still be available on PC and Mac, PlayStation, and Xbox, along with an FM25 Mobile version for iOS and Android.
There should also be Apple Arcade and Nintendo Switch versions of the game, as there were for FM24.