September has arrived which usually means the start of the Football Manager launch cycle. We should be getting hype videos, feature deep dives, and countless blog posts from Miles.
Instead we got one, confirming a delay to FM25. This year's Football Manager will be unlike any other. A massive change to the Unity engine along with sweeping UI/UX alterations means that Football Manager 2025 will be a bigger game than ever before.
But all this change is taking a toll on FM's hardcore player base already. And worries are starting to grow...
Trimmed Features
In this year of enormous transition, Sports Interactive has confirmed several features are being dropped from FM25, with an aim to improve and re-introduce some of them at a later date.
And boy have they trimmed a lot. Shouts are gone, player weight is gone, international management is gone. Create-a-club is no more, versus mode and fantasy draft will not be part of FM25.
Many of these features, especially the different game modes, are ignored by most players, but some are pretty basic. FM players love to look at a player's weight to see if they are getting a Peter Crouch or a Romelu Lukaku physique in their new striker. Shouts have been used religiously by most managers to motivate their team.
International management, while far from perfect, has been part of the managerial journey for a long time and something lots of players do alongside a club save.
All these features are coming out because SI claims they either were not working as intended in the first place, or cannot be converted to the new engine in a good enough state to make the release of the game.
Some, like international management, have been confirmed to re-appear in FM26 in a fresh way. Others, like shouts, are gone for the time being and may never return.
Is Football Manager 2025 Doomed?
This is a huge transition year for the Football Manager series. It's arguably the biggest single-year change since the 3D match engine was introduced way back in FM09.
Players who pour 1,000+ hours annually into FM, like myself, have every reason to be a little worried. But the doomsaying that has started on Reddit, Twitter, and other social media platforms is way too much.
FM has long been a game of spreadsheets with a huge learning curve but a deeply satisfying gameplay loop. That won't really change, SI is just updating how it is all being presented.
This alone has caused some issues for players, as change is always scary. But overall Football Manager is taking a necessary, and long-needed, step into the future.
The move to Unity will produce a more visually appealing match engine. The new UI should reduce clicks to all the key areas and present data in a more streamlined way.
The delay to the release, and especially the removal of international management, is frustrating. But the game is being rebuilt from the ground up in a totally new engine. SI is simply cutting things it doesn't have the time to get right so they can ensure the best possible experience for its players.
Football Manager has grown considerably over the last few years, with millions discovering the joys (and frustrations) of a more detailed football universe. FM25 is the step we've all needed after years of "samey" releases.
Sports Interactive deserves the space to make these changes, and the grace from fans who have got thousands of hours of enjoyment from the series, to bring into a new era.
I'm excited about Football Manager 2025, not worried. And you should be too.
Explore new topics and discover content that's right for you!
Football Manager