Football Manager's "biggest technical advancement for a generation" arrives November, but lower your expectations

FM2025 is the first to be powered by Unity

The Football Manager series has been around for decades, each of its yearly entries gradually building upon its core systems until it became the mixture of deep simulation and banal press conference screens it is today. Football Manager 2025 is different: a fresh start for the series, built upon a new engine, which Sports Interactive are at pains to say will not immediately be as rich or robust as its predecessor.

It now has a release date: November 26th.

"FM25 is not a continuation of FM24. FM 25 is: 'This is the next generation of Football Manager' - and this is the first chapter in the new book of Football Manager, and will get expanded on," studio head Miles Jacobson told Eurogamer last month. Jacobson's comments mirror what was announced back in 2023, when Football Manager 2024 was described as "the last of its kind".

The biggest change is under the hood: Sports Interactive have traded their own proprietary engine for Unity, with the aim of upgrading the quality of 3D match engine, but also to speed up development of new features in a series that sometimes felt stagnant.

The implication is that Football Manager 2025 is a reset, or a short-term step backwards, to pave the way for greater and faster steps forward in future. In practical terms, it means Football Manager 2025 doesn't have some features players might be used to from recent iterations. No international management, no data chalkboard, no Create-a-Club, Challenge mode, Versus mode or Fantasy Draft.

What the Football Manager 2025 Steam page says it will have is the Premier League license for the first time, women's football for the first time, more playable leagues and nations than ever, a brand new UI, and the "biggest technical and visual advancement for a generation."

I'm genuinely fascinated to see how FM2025's release plays out. On a yearly update cycle, it's inevitable that there are certain big new features or upgrades that are going to be out of reach because they don't fit within the schedule. Eventually that catches up to a series. I've occasionally been frustrated by Football Manager's slow progress and the nature of its new features, too, where it sometimes seems to introduce cruft more than real innovation. A reset might not be a bad thing, but it's a risk.

Or players could just keep playing FM2024. Someone will make a database update, I'm sure. We'll find out which way things go come November 26th.