Football Manager 26 is much more than just a sequel for fans of the series. The development process, which began with FM 23, soared with anticipation, with FM 24 being dismissed as a “midseason” lacking new features and the focus shifting entirely to the new game engine in FM 25. However, FM 25’s initial delay and subsequent cancellation led to a two-year hiatus. This long wait increased the burden on FM 26 and the fan expectations to enormous heights.
So, can Football Manager 26 possibly live up to this immense anticipation?
What does the Football Manager 26 Beta promise?
First, to be fair to the game, we need to make a point. This review focuses on the experience promised by the full release on November 4th. Therefore, we will intentionally refrain from discussing the bugs in the Beta process in detail.
Football Manager games are released into Beta access two weeks before release. As fans of the series know, this version has been called “Advanced Access” for a while. In Advanced Access, we can test the ready-to-play version of the game, barring a few bugs. This year, the name change to “Advanced Access Beta” signals that something is amiss. Indeed, the Beta was unexpectedly buggy, with animation, interface, and crashes. Therefore, SI Games released an update immediately after the Beta’s release, fixing the bugs. Releasing a comprehensive update so early in the Beta process suggests the studio was aware of the issues but couldn’t get the fixes ready for release.
The moment you launch the game, you’re greeted with much more than just a skin change: The game has been redesigned. While the FM series revamps its interface every year, this year’s change is so drastic that it completely erases muscle memory.
Online discussions indicate that those experiencing this difficulty are not in the minority. SI Games’ approach is clear: If you’ve played the series for over 200 hours, it will take 10-20 hours to get used to the new interface; if you’re new, you’ll get used to it quickly. This claim is half-true. Yes, even after 40 hours, having poured tens of thousands of hours into the series, I still haven’t fully gotten used to it.
So why did SI Games make such a radical change? The answer lies in the studio’s new vision: closing the gap with the console version.
Football Manager, by its very nature, resembles an email client or an Excel spreadsheet; playing the series without a keyboard and mouse is quite painful. To open the game to new audiences and improve the console experience, SI Games chose to make the PC interface more like the console interface. The result? Features that used to be accessible with a single click now require additional clicks. This change is a nightmare for an FM player.
The studio seems to have anticipated this problem, as in addition to social media tutorials, they’ve added a help section called FMPedia and a “Favorites” bar similar to those found in browsers. However, trying to adapt to these features while grappling with the already complex new interface only exacerbates the existing problem rather than solving it.
Perhaps the biggest change this year, after the interface, is women’s football. This issue sparked a heated debate between the core group and SI Games. SI Games found a middle ground by stating that women’s football would be presented as a completely separate section and could be disabled if desired.
We say “found it” because SI Games appears to have reversed its decision. There is no option to disable women’s football in the game.
This poses a serious performance concern for a game that simulates thousands of additional players, leagues, and matches in the background. Every additional load on the player database negatively impacts simulation speed. The inability to disable this feature has already led modders to create mods to remove women from the game.
Database, licenses, and performance
Speaking of the existing database, we should also touch on the innovations in this area. While women’s football has been added, it’s not yet available in every league (such as the Turkish Women’s Football Super League). In fact, women’s football, which has caused such controversy, appears in very few leagues.
There are significant gains on the licensing front. The Premier League, the most played league in the series, is finally fully licensed, especially for FIFA events. River Plate from Argentina, Slavia Prague from the Czech Republic, the Danish A-Liga, Barclays Women’s Super League (WSL), Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga, Serie BKT, Serie A Women’s Athora, SOMPO WE League, A Lyga, Club América, Swedish Elitetan, and the UAE Emaar Super Cup are also fully licensed.
Many major leagues and cups, such as the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and the Welsh Premier League, have been added to the game under license.
Performance is where FM 26 shines. The switch to Unity in the game engine is evident. The game’s installation time is noticeably faster than previous games in the series. The recommended limit is still 125,000. Despite this, when we loaded approximately 444,000 players on an i5-14400f system, the installation was very fast. This performance increase is also reflected in the time elapsed between days. SI Games should be commended for this.
FM 26’s greatest technical achievement lies in its match engine. The “Gegenpress meta,” which has persisted for years and has even propelled relegation candidates to the championship, is finally over. In short, Gegenpress is no longer the key to absolute victory.
Match results are quite consistent and logical. Whether you click “See Results” or watch the match, illogical scores are minimized. By the way, yes, you no longer need to use an additional skin to simulate a match in the game. SI Games offers this feature by default with Football Manager 26.
Card penalties during matches are more equitable. If future updates don’t change the engine’s settings, we could be looking at the best match engine in the series. However, there’s a serious problem here: injuries. There’s a significant increase in the injury rate during the season compared to previous games.
While Football Manager 26 makes significant strides forward in some areas, it regresses in others. Tactically, the game has evolved. It’s now possible to set different formations for “possession” and “possessed” players. However, this improvement has been overshadowed by the interface changes. Player selection on the tactics screen is very lacking in detail, and features like setting set pieces and team captains are clunky due to the interface.
The biggest blow, however, comes to the training system. This area, which the series’ veterans used extensively to develop young players or adapt them to new positions, has almost disappeared. With FM 26, delegating training to an assistant seems to be a necessity rather than a convenience. Individual training sessions are now more complex, a victim of the interface. As a manager, your control over the youth teams is also virtually nonexistent in FM 26. This feature is scattered throughout the menus, rather than in a single tab as in previous installments.
Another interesting change is in the off-field staff profiles. You can no longer search for someone with a Physiotherapy skill of 20. Statistics have been replaced by verbal expressions like “Elite,” “Awesome,” “Very Good,” or “Sufficient.” For a game that operates on numerical equations, this choice will be challenging for veteran players. Fortunately, player profiles remain numerical.
While the graphics have improved compared to previous games, they remain inadequate. The graphics engine during matches is reminiscent of FIFA games from 10-15 years ago. This is reflected in the “horrible”-looking Regen (newly generated player) faces. It’s disturbing that this issue hasn’t been resolved in the new installment of the series.
The manager creation screen is more detailed. You can now specify your manager’s specialties and background. These changes directly affect your character’s “verbal” statistics. Football Manager 26 lacks the 3D facial scanning feature, which has become a humorous element in the manager creation screen. Furthermore, while the new customization menu offers more clothing options, the hairstyle options are more limited.
One of the most positive aspects of FM 26 is the change in the dialogue system. No more boring and repetitive press conferences. You answer a few questions in the post-match press conference via a “messaging app” interface. Among the features removed from Football Manager 26 are moves like “throw a bottle” and “punch the table,” the usefulness of which is questionable.
Communication with management is problematic. We had a very successful season in our test, but despite this, the management only accepted one of our more than 30 requests. Furthermore, the repeated rejection of requests for coaching courses, worth several hundred euros, due to “cost,” demonstrates the game’s instability in this area.
SEGA and Sports Interactive officially announced that Football Manager 2025, which had been delayed twice, will not be released.
Meanwhile, the locker room atmosphere and facility compatibility have become more realistic and challenging with Football Manager 26. It’s no longer possible to instantly fix a terrible atmosphere by achieving good results; you need to maintain consistent success and communication.
Football Manager 26 is taking the series into an interesting tailspin. Despite the many features added to the game, it’s clear that it was released before it was ready due to various pressures. The vision SI Games wanted to bring to the series is quite questionable. The new installment of the Football Manager series, which has been consistently present for nearly 20 years, introduces a multitude of innovations at once. The negative aspects of the game far outweigh the positives in the rankings.
Positive Features
- Improved and optimized match engine
- Significant performance gains thanks to the Unity engine
- Added depth to the tactics screen
- Improved graphics
- New licenses, including FIFA and the Premier League
Negative Features
- Unpractical and complex new interface
- The tactics screen is weakened by the interface
- Training and youth systems are neglected
- Higher-than-normal injury rates
- New player faces with horrific-looking Regen
- Unable to turn off women’s football
Our rating for Football Manager 26 is 6/10, as it remains unparalleled in the genre and offers a generally popular structure.
So, what are your thoughts on Football Manager 26? We look forward to your comments on the new interface and features.
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