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After several years of just tiny updates that felt like we were always getting the same game over and over again, Sports Interactive has decided to enter a new era for Football Manager.
The developers needed to take their time to actually deliver an enjoyable new experience, which was proven by the cancellation of FM25, skipping directly to the new Football Manager 26, which launches today for PC on Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store and PC Game Pass, as FM26 Console for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, as FM26 Touch on Apple Arcade (and from December 4th for Nintendo Switch) and as FM26 Mobile on iOS and Android for Netflix subscribers, which is the only version that hasn’t made the jump to Unity yet. We’re going to focus on the PC version and with a new engine and a completely different UI, itâs a very similar kind of revolution that happened when the franchise abandoned the old Championship Manager name, so itâs fair to say thereâs been a lot of curiosity surrounding this new chapter.
From the moment I began playing the game, that has been provided to us in its Advanced Access Beta, it became immediately apparent that veteran players can no longer rely on their muscle memory to get the job done, as the interface has been changed radically. The whole menus now look much more cleaner and less clustered with texts and menus, making the game appear less âthreateningâ to users who are just starting out. A lot of thought has gone into making everything feel more accessible, but this design choice has come with a great cost: now there are several key features that have become harder to find, as a direct consequence. It usually now takes a few more clicks to find what you were looking for, instead of having the possibility of seeing every little bit of data neatly in one screen. For example, now itâs not as easy to figure out who would need to rest before an important game, but even comparisons between the players arenât immediate anymore, requiring us to constantly check manually everything on our own.
The end result is that youâll most likely end up spending even more time in those menus, because our managing job has been much harder. Even suggestions from your assistant coach now arenât as clear as they used to be: sometimes you get some suggestion to edit your gameplan without even being told what exactly are the changes you should do, or the advice itself gets hidden between being told about live-results that nobody really cares about.
The game feels designed to work better as a controller but, at least in my experience, it does the exact opposite: the controls feel incredibly awkward, making it even harder to access every menu option. Personally I think these kind of control schemes need to be heavily reworked in the future, but perhaps they will actually work as intended in the console editions of the game, depending on how much different theyâll end up being.
As for new stuff, there isnât really that much to talk about, as FM26 overall still feels like a Football Manager game with a few extra steps, but there is an important change to tactics that I feel shouldnât go unnoticed. Managers now can actually set two different formations, based on when your team is in possession or not: for example, you may decide to turn a 4-2-3-1 into a 4-3-3 when your team doesnât have the ball, something that reflects the changes that happened in modern football in the latest years. Youâll also be able to search for players during market sessions that can easily fit the two different roles needed, something that I really appreciated.
To help with that, Football Manager 26 also decided to revamp their TransferRoom integration, allowing you to easily check which teams may need the players youâre trying to sell and, viceversa, allow you to post requests as well. The biggest and more noticeable change is definitely on the graphical side: while the games arenât obviously as realistic as other competitors, the games now look a lot better than what they used to, with more realistic movements by the players as well. I also appreciate the return of the âInstant resultâ button, something that was missing in the latest iterations and that could only be added back by downloading custom skins. You can even decide to use it during the match, as a way to just let the game decide whatâs going to happen in last few minutes. Or maybe youâll just want to use it as a âragequitâ option when things go wrong.
Another big addition comes with us being able to manage women’s teams, for anyone interested in that. Both men’s and women’s championships can coexist in the same save, so it may be interesting to see players switching sides whenever theyâre looking for a new challenge. They’re treated as separate entities, so you can’t be a manager for both men’s and women’s teams in the same club. While the Mobile edition already contains the International Management module, it’ll be added next year in advance of FIFA World Cup 26 alongside the team kits of all 48 participating nations for PC, Console and Touch releases. FIFA World Cup, FIFA Womenâs World Cup and FIFA Club World Cup will all be featured in Football Manager due to a new multi-year partnership between FM and FIFA.
Final thoughts
Football Manager 26 is a clear reminder that changing a winning formula isnât as easy as pushing a button. With a new engine and a new interface come completely unique challenges, that still need to be tackled on quite clearly. FM26 isnât a complete disaster like some veterans would want you to believe: at the end of the day, for better or worse, itâs still Football Manager. In fact, I would have preferred if it actually tried to implement more changes. As a quick example, I was excited to try out the new Press Room conferences only to find out that, despite a new graphic, theyâre exactly the same as they were in the predecessor, with questions and answers that arenât realistic and seem to exist to simply waste your time.
That being said, if you enjoyed the previous Football Manager games, thereâs a high chance youâll like a new career in FM26 too. As long as youâre willing to spend a hour or two to figure out how the new UI is supposed to work. Oh, a final warning: thereâs no longer an option to throw a water bottle to your players after a very poor performance. A feature removal that saddens us all.
SEGA provided us with a PC copy of Football Manager 26, which we used to capture the screenshots.