A rude awakening for the Football Manager community, FM 25 will ultimately never see the light of day. “Sports Interactive regrets to inform you that following many internal discussions and careful considerations with SEGA, we have taken the painful decision to cancel Football Manager 25 and focus on the next version”, explains the publisher. Bad news for virtual tacticians who were eagerly awaiting this new opus.
The revolution will wait
Football Manager 25 was supposed to open a new chapter for Sports Interactive's famous simulation. The opus was to take a new turn by switching to the Unity engine, the biggest change since the arrival of the 3D engine in FM09. The editor mentioned greater graphical power to improve the match experience, as well as new features, more management possibilities and especially the addition of women's football. So many new features that had already pushed the developer to postpone its release from November 2024 to March 2025.
“With the launch of FM25, we aimed to create the most impressive visual and technical leap in the series for a generation, laying the foundation for a new era,” the studio said. Sports Interactive explained that “a variety of challenges” and “numerous other unanticipated issues” led to the cancellation of this new release. “It has become undeniably clear that we will not be able to achieve our desired standard, despite the adjustments made to our schedule», adds the creator of the series.
FM25 will not be released on any platform
Among the main flaws, we learn that “the player experience in the overall sense” and “the game interface” are not at the desired level. Sports Interactive specifies: “We could have persevered and released FM25 in its current state and then corrected the problems later, but that is not the right thing to do. We also did not want to go beyond of a March release, as it would then be too late in the football season to expect players to buy another version of the game later in the year."
The cancellation obviously affects all versions, as FM25 will not be released on any platform. If you have already pre-ordered the game on PC or Mac, a refund is available if the pre-purchase was made through an approved official reseller. Sports Interactive also says that retailers will issue refunds "in a timely manner".
What does this mean for Football Manager 24 and 26?
With this difficult decision, Sports Interactive and SEGA are completely changing their schedule. The British studio assures that all efforts are now focused on the next release with the hope of meeting the expected level of quality. It continues to promise transparency with the Football Manager community, with announcements to come on the progress made.
While waiting for Football Manager 2026, fans of the series can still play FM24. Unfortunately, Sports Interactive confirms that there will be no update with the data for the 2024-2025 season. The studio assures that it is currently in discussions with subscription platforms to be able to extend the agreements around FM24.
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