The Football Manager is probably the best football game for strategy fans on Steam. In 2024, there was no new release for the first time in 20 years. The already delayed Football Manager 2025 will not be released at all; the developers are already focusing on Football Manager 2026.
This news was created in a breaking manner and has been adjusted several times.
Which game is it about? Football Manager is a series of football games for strategy fans. The 2024 version is the highest-rated football game on Steam.
Starting in 2004, a new title in the series was released every year, which was then played for 12 months. But in 2024, for the first time, they skipped a release. Football Manager 25 was postponed to March 2025.
Now the developers announced on the official website that Football Manager 25 will not be coming at all. Instead, they want to focus on the development of Football Manager 2026. Pre-order customers are to receive their money back.
Fans will probably have to make do with Football Manager 2024 until autumn of this year.
Developers were dissatisfied with the state of Football Manager 2025
This is what the developers say: In the official statement, it says that the user interface and overall player experience of Football Manager 25 were still not where they should have been after 2 delays.
Publishing the game and fixing it afterwards would not have felt right.
An additional delay was also out of the question, as they would have been too late in the football season for fans to be expected to buy another game that same year, Football Manager 2026.
This decision is meant to ensure that the title for the coming year “meets the goals and quality we all expect” (via footballmanager.com).
Football Manager 25 was supposed to be “the biggest technical and graphical leap” for the series. They switched to Unity and also wanted to change some established elements. This was to lay the “foundation for a new era”.
However, this apparently resulted in a number of unexpected challenges that could no longer be tackled.
Pre-ordered? Here’s how to get your money back: Those who pre-ordered Football Manager 25 from a retailer recognized by publisher SEGA will automatically receive their money back “in due time”. If you pre-ordered a physical version, the refund will be handled by the respective store.
Players of Football Manager are known to invest an extreme number of hours into the games. So many that some even travel far into the future. You can read more about it here on MeinMMO: Player Takes It Too Far in Football Manager, Playing 10,887 Hours Until 2546 – World Record
