The OG Football Manager game is making a glorious return, and it creator jokes it’ll may be the only Football Manager game coming this year

Football Manager 2026 has yet to be announced, but fans are eagerly awaiting its release following the surprise cancellation of FM25. If you’re looking for a new (kinda) FM to sink your teeth into, the OG Football Manager game is making a glorious return.

First released in 1982, Kevin Toms’ original Football Manager is coming to Steam on August 14^th, the same day as the start of the Premier League season. A faithful recreation of the original, players will be able to experience a simple, barebones experience without any of the bells and whistles of modern FM games.

Original Football Manager makes a daring return

Releasing under the new name of Kevin Toms Football Star Manager (that’s right, no apostrophe), the game is the “original retro-­styled football management game remade and re-released in 2025”. A modern take on the game that started it all, this “faithful recreation” is described as a “retro, lightweight football sim” that values “fun and speed over depth and detail”.

Players will be able to manage clubs across four divisions, utilise the transfer market, set tactics for games and balance club finances. You can customise your roster with kit edits, view match highlights with charming 8-bit graphics and much more.

“Rebuilt and restored for modern systems by the man behind the genre with absolutely none of the features you’ve come to expect from modern gaming,” the trailer jokes. “Grab your laptop, find a comfy chair and get ready to experience the original, the best, and the only Football Star Manager of the year”.

While FM as a whole has evolved a lot in the four decades since Toms’ original, the series does still share a lot of the same core DNA. As Sports Interactive still toils away at creating some absolutely game-changing features for the future of the series, maybe it is time to sit back and re-experience the very first game in the series.

Kevin Toms Football Star Manager may not be for everyone, but it’s exciting to see the series’ original games return in some form. Unfortunately, no price has been confirmed for the upcoming remake, but we hope it’ll be nice and affordable before Sports Interactive takes a huge chunk of change from us later this year.

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Lewis White

Lewis White is a veteran games journalist with a decade of experience writing news, reviews, features and investigative pieces about game development with a focus on Halo and Xbox.