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Unless you’re blessed enough to not use social media, then you’re probably all too aware of the catastrophe that is the FM25 rollout. First having its release date delayed by a few weeks, and now by a further four months, fans are unsurprisingly not very happy with developer Sports Interactive. We’ve been promised the world, and all we’ve seen of the game so far is a few screenshots of the game’s new UI. But while the furore is being channelled towards FM25, another issue is starting to creep into view, and I’m sure it’s already a headache SI is not looking forward to dealing with; what’s to be done with FM26?
Every year, SI comes out with a new FM game that, along with a full database update to keep squads and players up to date, has a sea of tweaks and new features to give players a reason to upgrade from the previous year’s game. This year, of course, the flagship switch to the Unity engine appears to have led to a pretty hefty delay to the game. But, assuming FM26 was initially scheduled to release in November 2025, that would give SI only eight months to develop and release FM26, on top of continuing to support FM25 post-release.
Not enough time
While this may be enough time to put FM26 together and ship it, it certainly won’t be enough time to develop a game that has enough tweaks and new content to make it worth upgrading from a game that won’t even be a year old. Of course, if SI chose to follow through and release FM26 in a year’s time, they almost certainly wouldn’t get away with charging full price for it.
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Many players are already willing to stick with a version of the game that’s two, three, or five years old, so it’s unlikely that they would be willing to splash out another £40 after only eight months. Instead, FM26 would have to be heavily – and I mean heavily – discounted to make it worth buying, and even then I would be surprised to see players receive it with any particular warmth. That’s why, as much as it would only compound SI’s embarrassment, their best option right now is to simply cancel FM25 and focus on FM26 instead.
Support for FM24
First things first, SI needs to commit to supporting FM24 in the meantime. SI should provide a full update to the FM24 database providing players with the option to use the starting database for the 2024/25 season. FM already updates their database each year following the January transfer window, so adding in a couple of extra updates to FM24 to at least give them a taste of FM25 seems like the least SI could do to tide fans over for the next year to begin earning back players’ trust. With FM24 put in a position where players can reasonably play with a fully updated database, SI will have the opportunity to focus entirely on developing FM26.
Of course, this would undoubtedly be a huge financial blow for Sports Interactive. As a studio that relies on putting out yearly instalments, the hit to revenue that comes from missing even one release will surely be phenomenal. But a game that releases yearly is only as successful as the fans who buy it yearly are willing to make it, and SI’s handling of FM25 has lost the trust of many of its most dedicated supporters. If FM25 was supposed to be the start of a new era for the series, then cancelling it and focusing on putting out something truly worthy of that title next year is the best option for the future of Football Manager, and in my eyes, the only way they can regain the trust of its players.
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