Football Manager 2025 has been delayed until March – why? Is this a big deal? And has this happened before?

Football Manager 25, scheduled to release next month, has been pushed back to March.

This is the first major delay to an edition of Football Manager since 2002 and will affect millions of players worldwide. The 2024 edition of the game was played by seven million players within 100 days of its release. Football Manager content creators attract hundreds of thousands of subscribers on YouTube. And Sports Interactive, the creator of Football Manager, had revenues of over £66m in the financial year ending March 2023, according to Companies House.

This delay is a big deal for both fans and the company behind the game. The decision means that after extensive discussions with SEGA, licensors and partners, Sports Interactive concluded that more time was needed to ensure the game lived up to expectations and that this was not taken lightly.

So what happened – and what does it mean for the franchise?

How big is this news?

Football Manager has been one of the most popular football video games on the market for more than two decades.

Unlike the EAFC franchise (formerly known as FIFA), which is primarily played on consoles, Football Manager became popular as a desktop video game. Instead of directing players’ fortunes directly with a video game controller, players take on the role of an old-school manager – signing players, assigning and hiring coaching staff, and fielding the team – all they have at the start of the game little direct influence.

Despite its rather idiosyncratic character, it is not only very popular among football fans in general, but also has a loyal community of long-time players, online video creators and live streamers. Prior to FM25, the franchise broke records in consecutive years, with Sports Interactive reporting that FM24 had over seven million players.

The game allows players to play as football managers (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

With versions available on desktop, console and mobile, release dates for each platform will be confirmed at a later date.

Fans who pre-ordered the game have the option to request a refund. It has also been confirmed that Expanded Access will be available for PC/Mac before the new release date. More details to follow.

Why was the game delayed?

There were ominous signs surrounding the game’s September release date, as Sports Interactive pushed back the launch from early November to later this month.

The reasons given were…quite technical. Essentially, however, it involves switching from an in-house game engine to an external engine called Unity.

A game engine is a virtual environment with settings to facilitate video game development. Sports Interactive previously built the foundations for its game from the ground up, but is now moving to Unity, a game engine that supports gameplay across multiple platforms including desktop, console, mobile and virtual reality.

Unity is one of the most popular game engines available to game developers. It is the engine used for Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, Pokemon Go and Subway Surfers, among others.

However, this change turned out to be more complicated and lengthy than expected, leaving the developers too little time to deliver the quality that fans and developers expect. Football Manager declined to comment when asked The athlete However, a statement released on Thursday said: “We simply cannot jeopardize the delivery of this crucial turning point in Football Manager’s history by rushing to release it in November.”

It was also emphasized that FM25 represents the “biggest technical and visual advance in the series in a generation” and that meeting this standard will take more time.

The company was aware of the disappointment the delay would bring, but emphasized the strain on its team during the development cycle.

“It has been a difficult development cycle for the studio,” their statement said. “Many things progressed more slowly than we had predicted – even though everyone on the team worked incredibly quickly to get everything done. The timelines were already tight and, as many of your recent comments rightly pointed out, we were simply too rushed and risked compromising our usual standards.

“It put a lot of pressure on everyone across the studio.”

What is FM trying to achieve with the new edition?

When the move to Unity was announced, Sports Interactive gave several reasons why it made sense:

“Moving to Unity will give us much more power graphically across all formats, as well as powerful user interface tools.

FM25 will be switched to the Unity (Football Manager) game engine.

“Simply put: FM25 will provide a significantly better gaming experience – both on the pitch and in the supporting stadium environments, along with a significantly improved user interface that will significantly improve navigation through the screens and access to all available information,” Manager. “

It wasn’t just the game engine that changed, though: FM25 will also be the first of its kind to show women’s football and has also partnered with the Premier League to ensure all top 20 clubs are officially licensed. This means player pictures and club badges will be available.

Is there a historical precedent for this kind of delay?

Yes. Championship Manager 4 – FM’s predecessor, also developed by Sports Interactive – was scheduled for release in late 2002, but was pushed back to the following March. Like FM25, Championship Manager 4 was a revolutionary release for the company as it was the first version to feature a 2D graphical match engine.

At the time, a statement from Sports Interactive said the delay was due to “time needed to further optimize the game and make further improvements.”

Upon its release, Championship Manager 4 became the fastest-selling PC game of all time in the UK. Additionally, it was awarded a “Platinum” sales award by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, indicating that at least 300,000 copies were sold in the UK. However, some players complained that it was a downgrade from previous versions and bugs were an ongoing problem.

Was this a controversial development cycle?

Football Manager has enjoyed record sales success in recent years, but fans of the franchise have been more critical in the weeks leading up to the planned initial release of the latest installment.

The developers have removed the international management option for FM25, meaning players will no longer be able to manage national teams and compete for trophies such as the World Cup and European Championships.

A Sports Interactive statement released in early September said: “We looked very closely at international management in the FM space and concluded that what we wanted to deliver would not meet our original quality threshold.”

It remains a feature of the mobile edition and is set to return to all platforms for FM26.

What do industry experts think?

The reaction from the gaming industry was no surprise.

“It’s always going to be a challenge to change technology and port a product while trying to deliver a new version,” a video game manager with experience working with Unity tells us The athlete on condition of anonymity to protect relationships. “Porting from a custom engine to Unity will have its challenges. There is no magic button that converts all your code, libraries and graphics. There are different rules, file formats and ratios. This mountain of work is often underestimated.”

But there was also confidence that the change – even if it proves difficult in the short term – will have longer-term benefits.

“In the long term, Unity will offer many advantages as engine development is outsourced in practice, but the change is painful,” says the managing director. “Game code, assets, libraries, etc. don’t fit together one-to-one, so many, if not all, things have to be built from scratch. This job always looks a lot easier than it actually is.

Changing the engine would have long-term benefits (Football Manager)

“Unity is a good engine and makes life easier for developers. Additionally, it is easier to find developers who are familiar with Unity during the hiring process than it is to introduce new team members to a custom engine. This makes the setting easier.

“Plus, Unity regularly develops all engine upgrades, so you’ll always have a game that’s at the cutting edge of technology without having to hire or maintain a huge in-house engine team.”

What will be the commercial impact?

“Missing the holiday season has a significant impact,” says the same manager. “This is the time when players typically have disposable income, are asking for gifts, and have vacation time to play.

“March is not an impossible release window, but it is slowly approaching summer, which can be difficult. As the weather gets better, people tend to spend more time outside and less time inside playing games. In addition, consumer purchases are reflected less in games and more in rollerblades and similar things.

“I would imagine Football Manager is more popular during football season. March is approaching the end of the season (for European clubs) and many potential players may be disappointed with their team’s performance and take a temporary break from football. I imagine the closer we get to the start of the season, the better for sales.”

(Top photo: Football manager)