Football Manager 2026 Release Date Announced

[miami_fan]

New Match Engine, New Interface, The Women's Game

Football Manager 26 launches from 4 November | Football Manager 26

[Ghost Econ]

The FM 26 first looks are pretty concerning. They all seem to say it looks much better but is a buggy mess. Not looking great after having cancelled the last version. How terrible was the version they took pre-orders for last year?

[RainMaker]

No international management either. Seems like they did a rebuild that should have taken 3 years and are now condensing it into 2.

[Arles]

International management was pretty awful in prior versions. It was a mess to find "actual" players and they setup an out to where you could take the 6th England forward who was 1/25 kenyan and convince him to be your best player.

I'd rather them get rid of it and work on many of the other aspects that needed improvement instead of adding another layer of lip stick. I applaud them removing it to conserve resources. That's pretty rare for bigger companies.

[flere-imsaho]

I've yet to hear of anyone who enjoyed International Management in FM.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Ghost Econ

The FM 26 first looks are pretty concerning. They all seem to say it looks much better but is a buggy mess.

I was expecting a buggy mess. It's a huge underlying change to all the code. Hard for it not to be a buggy mess, to be honest.

[Arles]

FM posted this:
“Official FIFA tournaments debut in #FM26, with a revamped International Management module arriving in a free future content update ahead of FIFA World Cup™ 2026.”

[RainMaker]

I might be the only one who enjoyed it. I liked doing some of the challenges with small countries. Cool that they'll be adding it back in later though.

[GrantDawg]

It was hard to believe they wouldn't hwve it in a World Cup year.

[Ghost Econ]

If the beta takes on the sub-reddit are accurate, it's almost criminal they tried to take pre-orders on the '25 version because all reports make this release seem like a pre-alpha.

[miami_fan]

I downloaded the beta and have only taken a cursory look at things so far. I am not sure if the UI is something I hate because well change, something I hate because I just hate it or I hate because it is just something I have to get use to. A few too many clicks for my tastes so far and I am not a fan of bookmarks in my non gaming life.

[RainMaker]

Is it worth getting? Haven't checked the subreddit but people on YouTube seemed to like a lot of the new changes they made. The presentation definitely seems improved and there are a lot of new tactics that can be applied.

[whomario]

It's hot garbage right now. I actually like the 'premise' of the UI* and it's easy to see the promise. But it's incredibly bugged. I played multiple FMs and other games in similar 'beta' releases and yesterday in 3 hours had more major issues than i remember to ever have. Not being able to enter matches, leave matches, substitutes crashing, players disappearing on tactics screens etc...

* Though the complete lack of customization is both an issue and l imo an indicator about how finicky it is. Like, not being able to adjust text colour. Or removing something like the 2D preview during matches (takes me completely out of it compared to the previous way of watching a match, meaning it simming and then dropping you into the action).

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Is it worth getting? Haven't checked the subreddit but people on YouTube seemed to like a lot of the new changes they made. The presentation definitely seems improved and there are a lot of new tactics that can be applied.

I have lower expectations than most with betas in general. I understand why it upsets others, most crashes and glitches during the beta don't upset me nearly as much as it does others. I just take that as part of the deal for early access and discounted price. I have even lower expectations with the complete change that was being made with this version. I was never a "FM needs to have FIFA like graphics" person so that was not a major concern for me. I was not fazed by SI not releasing a game last year. Communication could have been better etc. but ultimately, I did not suffer any loss by not having a new game. I understand that such a major change was not going to be perfected in one edition and other things might suffer while the focus went to drawing in the console crowd. Not that I don't think it will get better but I don't think game one of this version is going to be as polished as game 20+ of the other version.

With that perspective, I would say that the push and pull between creating a game that looks good and creating a game that plays good is obvious. Right now the looking good side is winning by wide margin. It looks great and things might improve more when I get my new laptop in a few weeks as far as seeing the full potential of the presentation. The players look and move like human players do. I love the new tactics setup. I think it will eliminate my need to play friendlies in 2D to see if the tactics are being properly executed. I agree with whomario in general. The potential is clear with where it could go. But the actual gameplay, the football manager parts of Football Manager? Yeah, that part is lagging behind the looks good side.

I think a lot of the initial reactions I have seen matches what my underlying feeling for the game so far. I can't remove the twenty plus years of experience of this game not being a mess upon rollout even in the beta from my head. This is not Madden. I expected Madden to have issues. Even now I will wait a couple of weeks before I play my three or four games of Madden for the year with my son just to make sure things have been ironed out because I expect Madden to be buggy upon release. For me, the fact that THIS game is incredibly bugged is frustrating given how smooth the roll out has been the last what five years(?) have been. Like I said I expected the game to have issues given the major changes. But I recognize that I still expected FM26 to have a similar rollout as FM24, FM23, etc. I should have set my expectations for the creation of a brand new game type of rollout because so far this feels like a brand new game with the Football Manager name. This is more like Football Manager I than FM26 IMO.

[Arles]

I'll definitely get it once it is fully released, but I like miami_fan's post. This seems like a pretty substantial change and I would be patient through the beta. In most prior versions, aspects of the engine got really tightened up between the Beta and a couple months in. I'm not sure if it was 24 or 23, but I remember on beta/release there was a corner setup that scored at an extremely high clip (2-3 a game). By a few months in that was removed.

[flere-imsaho]

++ to miami_fan & Arles.

[Icy]

I have played it and as Arles and miami_fan are saying, right now it's a mess.

I'll start with the bad:

- The new interface looks to me like a console/mobile game port. I guess it's because the use of Unity libraries, but it's awfully close to other Unity games like Tennis Manager 24 to the point I could have said that it was designed by the same team but at least in Tennis manager is well implemented and finished. I'm not the only one to have pointed this out, I saw another guy in SI forums saying exactly the same I was thinking and also compared both games.

- The current UI in FM26 is buggy and laggy, with screen changes taking up to 2-3 seconds sometimes to load and populate the data. There is a weird blend of screen with many clickable sections that show redundant info, pop up screens, use of scroll bars when there is tons of available screen space, etc. The screens are not resposive, so a wide monitor just shows more empy space on the sides. Again looks like more thought for mobile/consoles with fix resolution and screen size.

- Many features have been removed, from international management as said before that doesn't affect me at all, to the unexplainable removal of all the data analisys tools like heat maps, passes maps, etc that you could use to analize your tactic. In a game about being a coach and in 2025 when everything is about data including sports management in real life, there is no excuse for it's removal. I guess it will be back and the only reason is lack of time to implement it properly.

The good:

- The new tactics are really good (except the UI again). We have back again the with ball and without ball tactics, so you can set for example a 4-3-3 in attack that morphs into a 4-4-2 in defense (like R.Madrid for example). The roles have been simplified and are more like real life without the fanzy names.

- The match presentation is much better. Not EAFC graphics of course, but that was not the goal, but it's much more eye pleasing than in the past.

Recap:
As weird as it looks to me, the game feels rushed even after having an extra year of development. I have no idea about what happened in the studio, but it's like if everybody in the front side was fired after the FM25 cancellation and a new UIUX team started from scratch and had to rush it all to meet the deadline. Also like if this new UIUX team had never played FM or even sports management games before and just worked on a new UI for a mobile/console game.

On the other hand, the SI team is doing an incredible job fixing bugs and changing stuff for the Nov 4th release date. So there is hope of FM being again the incredible game it was, but I'm not sure if it will be during FM26 lifetime or if this is just a really early unfinished version and the groundbreaking game will be FM27 with more time to develop it.

Of course they couldn't afford to delay it one extra year, but this is an unfinished and rushed out product and the fans are raging out as it was not expected with an extra year of development. Hope SI will survive this transition year and FM27 will be the game we all were dreaming about.

In the mean time I think I'm going back to play modded FM24 and maybe try FM26 mobile once is out as this interface fits it more than the PC game.
Sad days as FM is the game I dedicate more time every year for the past 30+ years and that defined the sports sims genre.

[Bobble]

Originally Posted by Icy

In the mean time I think I'm going back to play modded FM24

Should I expect that FM24 will drop in price? I don't want to put $60 in FM26 in this state, nor do I want to put $60 on the previous version from 2 years ago.

[sovereignstar v2]

No, it will disappear from Steam like all of their old games do. Which is to say you should pirate it if you have the means to.

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Bobble

Should I expect that FM24 will drop in price? I don't want to put $60 in FM26 in this state, nor do I want to put $60 on the previous version from 2 years ago.

It was at half price or heavily discounted already, don't know right now. A quick google search found that you can buy it at around $20 in some websites. Totally worth it.

There are also some great community mods that change a lot in FM24 to make it more difficult and realistic, skins to play stats only without ratings, etc. It will take a while to have the mods coming to FM26 as with the move to Unity the custom skins are not supported (but there are some guys with Unity knowledge already modding it a bit).

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Icy

I have played it and as Arles and miami_fan are saying, right now it's a mess.

I'll start with the bad:

- The new interface looks to me like a console/mobile game port. I guess it's because the use of Unity libraries, but it's awfully close to other Unity games like Tennis Manager 24 to the point I could have said that it was designed by the same team but at least in Tennis manager is well implemented and finished. I'm not the only one to have pointed this out, I saw another guy in SI forums saying exactly the same I was thinking and also compared both games.

So I have put FM26 down until release day. As I said before, no biggie for me, I just want a good game and I am not engaged enough to be a good beta tester.

This comment about the UI looking like a console/mobile game reminded me of the other issue that I know I had and may color the opinions of other long time players. I did not need FM to look, feel or play like a console/mobile game. I am not going to argue about the merits of changing to Unity or anything like that. The change is the change and I am sure if executed correctly will lead to a better product and growth of the game. That is way above my pay grade. I just know I was comfortable with the graphics/presentation etc. as is and if changes to the tactics page, inclusion of the women's game and improved A.I. could be made without moving to Unity, I would have been happy. I am pretty sure I read that it would not be possible. Again, I am not qualified to argue yea or nay. However, I am sure there are those that are angry that the game has be "broken" for things that they never needed or wanted from FM.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

However, I am sure there are those that are angry that the game has be "broken" for things that they never needed or wanted from FM.

I think the anger is a combination of all the stuff that's broken, all the stuff that's missing entirely, and the overall perception that the game has been dumbed down heavily.

I saw a list yesterday (was from a few days back) on Twitter that listed all the things that simply aren't there any more, a sizable number of them were things that were (afaik) commonly used to help to determine signings (player A vs player B) and such, and to analyze your own tactics. (like the heat map)

Combine that with things that are just comical to be broken -- like not showing goals allowed in GK career stats -- yeah, I get the damned console version for free with gamepass and am already considering deleting it (I pre d'loaded) without even bothering to boot it up.

I can only imagine the anger that players for whom this is their #1 game must be feeling.

This feels like it could be fatal honestly.

[bhlloy]

I saw the same post, and at least 5 of those things were fundamental to how I enjoyed playing the game or information that made the game feel immersive and more than just a sim. Many more were nice features. That’s on top of having to learn a completely new UI that by all accounts is a disaster and a work in progress.

I won’t be buying for the first time since… 2006 probably? Maybe before? Why would I? The only areas they’ve invested in, I don’t watch the 3d games and I couldn’t care less about the presentation. If they make the next version have feature parity and it’s solid then we will see.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

I saw the same post, and at least 5 of those things were fundamental to how I enjoyed playing the game or information that made the game feel immersive and more than just a sim. Many more were nice features. That’s on top of having to learn a completely new UI that by all accounts is a disaster and a work in progress.

I won’t be buying for the first time since… 2006 probably? Maybe before? Why would I? The only areas they’ve invested in, I don’t watch the 3d games and I couldn’t care less about the presentation. If they make the next version have feature parity and it’s solid then we will see.

I wonder what sort of odds we could get on betting whether the next iteration will have microtransactions and a MUT option built-in.

[bhlloy]

More than likely. They will have to make up for the lost revenue of a year without the game and the dip in sales somehow.

[Icy]

To be honest I just think they ran out of time and couldn't port to Unity all the old FM features that we are missing, not that they decided to remove them on purpose. Most of them should be back in future versions.

I really think FM26 is just the bare bones of future FM but they couldn't afford to have another year without a game release.

I have mixed feelings about the situation. As a lifelong fan of the series I'm angry, dissapointed, frustrated and sad. As owner of a tech company that understand about product, deadlines, teams etc and judguing from the outside without knowing more than what is public info, I'm both puzzled about the whole product and PR management for the last 2 years but also have to sympatize with the people after having interacted a lot with some of the humans behind SI Games during the years.

I just hope the public punishment won't be big enough to collapse them as we all fans would lose a lot if at some point SI gets closed down. I also hope that what we have now is not where the game directions is going but just the result of the hurry to release something this year.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Icy

I really think FM26 is just the bare bones of future FM but they couldn't afford to have another year without a game release.

As it stands today, I can't see them making it TO a future FM release unless the next 6-12 months are nothing but a steady stream of restoring the missing elements AND fixing the broken elements.

And given that the current state is 2+ years worth of work, I can't see enough happening.

This is "there should be a number of people unemployable in the industry if they were part of this" kind of clusterfuckery.

[Arles]

I have recommended FM to four bigtime European soccer fans since 2022. To a man, they all said it was too complex. My fear has always been that the inevitable future for FM was more of a FM Touch and less overall complexity.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Arles

I have recommended FM to four bigtime European soccer fans since 2022. To a man, they all said it was too complex. My fear has always been that the inevitable future for FM was more of a FM Touch and less overall complexity.

Abandoning an existing audience - especially a fervent one - in pursuit of a hypothetical one has always been a dicey proposition to me.

Of those 4 people you mention, how many were just dying for a non-complex version of such a product in the first place?

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

As it stands today, I can't see them making it TO a future FM release unless the next 6-12 months are nothing but a steady stream of restoring the missing elements AND fixing the broken elements.

And given that the current state is 2+ years worth of work, I can't see enough happening.

This is "there should be a number of people unemployable in the industry if they were part of this" kind of clusterfuckery.

I think it is more like 4-5 years of work from my understanding. They started working on this initially to be like FM2022 or 2023. I don't know gaming programing, but it seems like this has just become common with new games. It is this strange situation where small, one man shops can use something like Unity to come up with interesting games, but big companies get totally lost trying to get something functioning.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Abandoning an existing audience - especially a fervent one - in pursuit of a hypothetical one has always been a dicey proposition to me.

Of those 4 people you mention, how many were just dying for a non-complex version of such a product in the first place?

The OOTP approach. Dedicated audience of people who wanted to simulate Major League Baseball and historical seasons to then completely revamp the game so that it was nearly impossible to do that. They've steered back on the right track lately but that was like a 5-10 year run of complete trash.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

The OOTP approach. Dedicated audience of people who wanted to simulate Major League Baseball and historical seasons to then completely revamp the game so that it was nearly impossible to do that. They've steered back on the right track lately but that was like a 5-10 year run of complete trash.

I wasn't even thinking of gaming as the primary example, I was thinking of watching NASCAR shoot itself in the foot like it was an Olympic sport.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Arles

I have recommended FM to four bigtime European soccer fans since 2022. To a man, they all said it was too complex. My fear has always been that the inevitable future for FM was more of a FM Touch and less overall complexity.

I'm still playing 2021 Touch because I don't have the time to commit to the full-fat version.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I'm still playing 2021 Touch because I don't have the time to commit to the full-fat version.

Hey, I get it ... I think I actually played Touch more than Regular whenever I last played.

But based on the list I saw earlier this week, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of useful shit missing from even the last Touch version I spent time with.

edit for clarity: Could I be misremembering? Sure, I'll admit to that possibility. But to be as far off as that'd make me, I'd have to be significantly merging the two versions experiences in my head and I don't think I played them anywhere near the same amount to be making THAT much of a recollection error.

[Passacaglia]

If you don't want it to be complex, just get genie scout or whatever it is (that's what I do)

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Hey, I get it ... I think I actually played Touch more than Regular whenever I last played.

But based on the list I saw earlier this week, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of useful shit missing from even the last Touch version I spent time with.

Yeah, I'm in alignment. I was mostly responding to this from Arles:

Originally Posted by Arles

My fear has always been that the inevitable future for FM was more of a FM Touch and less overall complexity.

FM Touch was a great product in that it still had all the "engine" behind the scenes, but cut out some of the heavier micro-managing stuff without breaking too much immersion (detailed training schedules, detailed player & media interactions, etc...).

But I 100% agree that if the new version is a Touch-esque "face" but with much less "engine" behind it, then it's just another FIFA-esque simulation knock-off. Which would be sad.

[flere-imsaho]

My bigger concern out of all of this stems from a couple of quotes in an Athletic article from a few months ago:

The first of these was a result of collective human error, as multiple people forgot about a bug-fixing process that is necessary to publish a game.

“We were then expecting it to take about two weeks to do all the work of converting the C++ code into C#. Some of it took two weeks, some of it took nine months.

I've long been sympathetic to SI and Miles for continuing to manage what has to be a pretty convoluted code base by now, but these two quotes suggest some pretty unforgiveable things. Anyone who's worked in software development for any length of time would think the same.

Multiple people forgetting about a bug-fixing/QA process means there's something seriously wrong with company process and possibly also culture. That falls on Miles 100%. I can speak from experience, as I started my career in Release Management, which is the process he's talking about there.

And the idea that it would only take 2 weeks to convert the code base from one language to another? Absolutely crazy.

I'm Miles' age, and I've been playing CM/FM as long as he has. I remember being on USENET with him and others when some collaboration (usually on scouting) was done. Quotes from the article paint a picture of a man who thinks the enterprise can't survive without him, but who also may be struggling with making all of this work. I think that's unfortunate, because CM/FM has brought a lot of joy to a lot of lives. But it's also unfortunate if this ends up being his legacy. Worse, I think he thinks his legacy will be fixing it and moving on. But in reality, his legacy will be delivering a strong foundation to the next generation of his successors (or not).

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I think that's unfortunate, because CM/FM has brought a lot of joy to a lot of lives.

And that's really a thing here IMO.

I'm not the most forgiving sort when it comes to getting the job done, ya either do or ya don't basically.

But no matter who or what is responsible for last year and this year with this game franchise, it's still just fucking sad to see the state of things. This ain't just some regular ol' game, this is the bellwether for an entire gaming segment, the role model, the pinnacle.

And now it's ... this ?!?!?!?

Damn

[flere-imsaho]

[bhlloy]

Well said. This sucks because it’s the pinnacle and the last real survivor (with apologies to OOTP) of a genre we all enjoyed and loved, the reason we are all here on this forum. To see it go the way most of the game industry has now gone really, really blows.

[RainMaker]

I guess my only surprise is they haven't implemented some Ultimate Team system for microtransactions like every other game.

[sovereignstar v2]

Not Ultimate Team, but they got into microtransactions early with FM Classic/Touch. I remember being able to add money to a game without the editor as far as back as 2012

[sovereignstar v2]

I haven’t paid much attention to the series recently, but I was semi-amazed to see that Miles is still in charge. I think there is something to be said about leaders sticking around too long

[Arles]

I think they still have a chance here. I don't mind cutting down on the excess data (I don't think I ever used the passing heat maps). My hope is that they would focus more on the team construction and less on tactic analysis. In every prior FM, there were 4-5 "great tactics" most people used by month 3-4. I'd rather make that more player dependent and make the player acquisition both more difficult and easier.

What I mean is make it harder to buy younger players with high potential, but easier to sell your own good players. For instance, if I'm league 2 and get a great 26 year old striker who helps me get to the championship, I should be able to sell him at 28 back to a league 1 or 2 team. Instead, in prior versions, the game would sour on him if he's not a top Championship striker. I've always felt is was easy to get from Conf to Championship because I could always poach strong 26-29 year old players out of favor a league higher. It shouldn't be easy to buy good players in their 20s for cheap at any level.

[sovereignstar v2]

They could easily get me back on board by offering the ability to play as the Director of Football. I rarely want to be the manager/coach in other sports sims and this one would not be an exception if given the choice.

[Arles]

Agreed. Just let me advise on a tactic and lineups - and let me focus on building the team, the budget and selling players. I don't need to talk with the media each week, do halftime team talks, set training, etc. Let the manager handle that. If I get an email, it should be from an agent or player on a new contract

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Arles

Agreed. Just let me advise on a tactic and lineups - and let me focus on building the team, the budget and selling players. I don't need to talk with the media each week, do halftime team talks, set training, etc. Let the manager handle that. If I get an email, it should be from an agent or player on a new contract

I agree as well. I saw someone suggests this on the FM sub reddit he got pummeled. I don't know why people care so much about how other people play games, but being able to do this without coaching sounds great. Of course the problem you will run into is how terrible the AI handles players. You can fire the manager, but it will still really be the same poor AI.

[Fidatelo]

I'll second (third? fourth?) that sentiment. I've tried several times in the past to get into CM/FM but the heavy focus on coaching and tactics always kills it for me. I don't know a lot about soccer and I don't want to have to understand the intricacies of each alignment and how it matches up against the opposing team just to have any form of success. I even went so far as attempting to read Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics one time but only made it about half way through before I sat back and was like "what am I doing with my life right now?".

[Ghost Econ]

I think the problem is the AI is so bad at managing all the little things that even is you select the options to only really play as a GM with minimal coaching/training, you won't win enough to survive.

[sovereignstar v2]

The AI would be frustrating, but at least things would be even Steven manager-wise. If you were DoF you would try to get ahead of the curve with good scouting and savvy negotiating. Things like press conferences and set pieces would be a wash (done at similar level of CPU clubs).