It’s felt like an eternity since Football Manager 25 was officially “unveiled” (for lack of a better term) back in October of 2024. Originally planned for a November release, the game was ultimately delayed until March 2025, causing concern for most of the fanbase. And now that January has come and gone without so much as a whisper from the devs, despite promises, things are starting to look quite bad.
To be as charitable as I can be, the delay is somewhat understandable. Developer Sports Interactive had big plans for Football Manager 25, which is set to introduce a brand new engine and women’s football to the game. But it’s not the delay that’s been troubling, it’s everything that’s happened since the game was delayed that’s been the issue.
So, what has happened since Football Manager 25 was delayed? Well, that’s the thing — nothing. Sports Interactive has gone completely silent, with the only announcements since the delay being that Football Manager 2024 wouldn’t be receiving a data update, but that it’d remain available on certain premium subscriptions services until 25 was eventually released.
After the title’s delay, Sports Interactive stated that gameplay footage of Football Manager 25 would be available towards the end of January. Well, January has now come and gone. And still, there’s no word on an exact release date for Football Manager 25, nor has any in-game footage (barring a screenshot or two) been made available to the public.
Instead, the most we know about Football Manager 25 — aside of its usage of the Unity engine and the inclusion of women’s football — is what it won’t have at launch. Due to its rough development cycle and the aforementioned engine swap, Football Manager 25 will be removing several features including international management, touchline shouts, Create-A-Club, and Fantasy Draft (at least, at launch) just to name a few.
Full disclosure: I’m a massive Football Manager fan. I haven’t missed a year of FM since I was introduced to the series back in 2017. And though the community can be a bit critical at times, I think most FM fans think that the product is overall good and one of the better examples of not just management sims, but yearly sports games as a whole. Very few games in the space provide as much depth or immersion as FM does.
But this entire debacle has only served to destroy a ton of the good faith Sports Interactive has built up over the decades since FM’s inception. Yes, delays happen. But as of now, we know next to nothing about Football Manager 25, or what state its development is in. And this is after SI and Sega began taking preorders for it.
I want Football Manager 25 to be great, as does every fan of this amazing series. But sooner or later, Sports Interactive is gonna have to be honest about the state of FM25 and whether or not it’ll even make the finish line.
Published: Jan 31, 2025 9:08 PM UTC