Real Madrid are the European champions, spurred on by an enigmatic English midfielder. Arsenal actually have a decent team as well. Kylie Minogue is one of the world’s biggest popstars. Labour are in Government, and the Tories are in chaos. People are very worried about war in the Middle East.
And Sports Interactive have delayed the release of their new football management game until March.
Wait a minute. Have we gone back 22 years?
FM25 DELAYED
Last week, Football Manager 25‘s release date was pushed back until March 2025 – news which has rocked everyone in the Football Manager community. Users on the SI forums are demanding human sacrifices, Tweeters and Redditors are blaming all FM’s problems on women, and content creators are moving to OnlyFans to replace four months of lost advertising revenue.
But it wasn’t a huge surprise, given everything we’d known about FM25’s development so far. The first two Development Updates basically consisted of Miles Jacobson explaining why several features and game modes (including international management) were being REMOVED, with precious little in the way of good news.
Then we had the announcement that the game was being delayed from its usual early November release slot to the end of that month. That was disappointing… but fair enough, given how much work has needed to be done to move FM onto Unity’s game engine.
The alarm bells really started to ring when FM25 was officially announced on 30 September. SI opened the door for pre-orders before revealing any real concrete information about the new games. Even the few ‘work in progress’ screenshots looked like botched Photoshop jobs – infamously suggesting that Evan Ferguson was a wing-back, and that Fran Kirby was 6ft 2in tall.
Mind you, we did get a roadmap – albeit a roadmap that, had I followed it, would have driven me into a ditch deep in the Worcestershire countryside. SI said they’d reveal more about women’s football on FM25 on the week beginning 7 October, and literally everything else was TBA.
Monday 7 October passed with no news. Then Tuesday passed. And Wednesday.
On Thursday afternoon, we finally got news… but not about women’s football. The entire game had been delayed until March.
GOOD COP, BAD COP
SI had admitted that progress on FM25 had been too slow for their liking, timelines were tight, and they were in danger of compromising standards by rushing the game out.
I do sympathise with the developers here. Perhaps they have underestimated the challenges of essentially rewriting the game from scratch, and that they’ve had to work hours to try and get it to a playable state in time for Christmas. It’s also worth reminding you that we unfortunately live in an age where video game developers are losing jobs at an alarming rate, while video gamers have become more demanding and entitled than ever.
At least there are still some companies who are honest enough to admit that they need more time to work on their product. As Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto famously (never) said, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”
However… this is still extremely disappointing news. Some people higher up the SI hierarchy – and perhaps also at their publishers SEGA – do deserve some strong criticism over this fiasco.
Back on 30 September, SI were accepting pre-orders for a game that customers knew NOTHING about… besides the fact that it would definitely maybe be released on 26 November. And that SI would undoubtedly probably tell us about how they were implementing women’s football into FM in due course.
To then pull the rug from under their feet a week-and-a-half later and say, “Nope, sorry, you’ll have to wait until March,” is poor form at best. At worst, it’s disingenuous of SI to try and take advantage of their more loyal (or dare I say gullible) customers.
Then again, who in their right mind would pre-order a video game without having a clue what it’s going to be like to play, let alone when they’ll be able to play it?
But if SI’s executives had even the slightest suspicion in late September that the game would need an extra 4 months’ work to be brought up to scratch, why didn’t they announce the delay THEN?
Also, it’s not as if work on FM25 began as soon as Football Manager 2024 was released 11 months ago. Project Dragonfly was launched in January 2020, with the aim of releasing a new-era Football Manager game by the end of 2021. Yes, we all know what happened in the interim, but this game has basically been in development for 3 to 5 YEARS – and it is still nowhere near ready!
Something has clearly gone horribly wrong at Sports Interactive.
So much of the marketing around FM25 – starting with the doom and gloom of the Development Updates – has left a lot to be desired. It’s certainly not ideal that Miles Jacobson essentially IS the marketing development as well as the Studio Director. In what other game studio would the lead developer post about new features exclusively on their personal social media accounts?
There have been so many increasingly poor decisions at Sports Interactive that even Todd Margaret would look competent by comparison. I’m not the kind of person to go all AFTV and say, “It’s time to go, Jacobson!!”, but it’s hard to see how SI maintain their long-term credibility without major changes at the top. At the very least, they should hire PR and marketing people who actually have experience in PR and marketing!
Also, what the hell is THIS?
Is that a volleyball? Or the new Formula 3 logo? Or Mickey Mouse doing unspeakable things to himself? Whatever it is, it’s probably the worst rebrand seen in football since Leeds United’s infamous ‘salute’ badge!
HISTORY REPEATING
I’ve mentioned this a few times before, but this delay is not unprecedented at Sports Interactive. Let’s go back 22 years…
Championship Manager 4 was also a big technological leap for SI, building on the success of Championship Manager 01/02 by adding a brand-new 2D match engine and many new leagues. Originally slated for release on October 2002, CM4 was delayed multiple times and did not see the light of day until March 2003 – and even then, it was still horribly broken and bugged.
Indeed, you can go back another four years to find an even earlier example. Championship Manager 97/98 was released in October 1997, but fans had to wait until March 1999 to get their hands on Championship Manager 3 – the first game in the series to run natively on Windows rather than MS-DOS.
Back in CM4’s development hell, SI placated their loyal (and frustrated) players by offering a free data update for CM01/02. This allowed them to play CM01/02 with 2002/2003 season data, albeit with the caveat that the game would still technically start in the year 2001.
In an ideal world, SI would do the same thing for FM24, especially as we now have to wait a bit longer for FM25. If their licencing agreements allowed, they could release a new 2024/2025 season update for FM24. Even if this is released as paid DLC, I’m sure many FMers would happily hand over a few quid to get their Football Manager fix until the new game is ready.
Of course, nowadays, Sortitoutsi have a huge data update that allows you to play FM24 with all the latest transfers, promotions and relegations. The only issue is that you still start in the 2023/2024 season, but it’s extensive – and most importantly, it’s free.
And back in 2002, there wasn’t really a huge CM community making wide-ranging data packs that could be updated daily. Indeed, Sortitoutsi was launched the following year – “Sort it out, SI” being a popular forum catchphrase during CM4’s delayed and buggy life cycle.
Some people have argued that SI should just release an FM24 update, give up on FM25 entirely, and move straight on to Football Manager 26. To be honest, SI cancelling FM25 is a surefire way to cancel FM26 as well.
SI are in a perilous position where their business model depends on one hugely successful game, which has to be released every year. If FM25 never came out, licencing agreements would be breached, developers would lose their jobs, work on FM26 would be significantly handicapped – and there’s a good chance SEGA would cut SI loose, if not shut the entire studio down.
That’s the unfortunate reality. SI have to release something by the end of the financial year in March to satisfy their SEGA paymasters – and it’s not as if anyone’s working on a new Eastside Hockey Manager anymore.
And now that they have delayed FM25 to the latest possible month, SI know that they must deliver. If FM25 turns out to be a great and polished game that refreshes the Football Manager experience for the modern era, the longer wait will be worth it. But if it’s STILL an erratic, bug-strewn mess…
SI have tested our patience over recent years, with Football Manager not seeing many major improvements since around 2017. FM24 was billed as “inarguably the most complete version to date”, when in reality it was just another unfinished mess. FM25 needs to be a significant upgrade, otherwise SI will burn through what little customer goodwill they have left, and their reputation as a hitherto reputable developer may never recover.
WHAT NOW?
Seeing as FM25 is now in the mud, I’ve decided to cancel my planned Early Access… no, excuse me, Advanced Access save with VfB Stuttgart. When the game eventually comes out, and IF I decide to buy it, I will move straight on to a long-term career managing Arsenal Women.
I will still do a Stuttgart save IF SI release an official 2024/2025 update for FM24. But let’s be realistic and assume that will not happen.
I’ve pondered returning to an old save. I could have one last crack at getting Millwall promoted on FM24, but that only be more trouble than it’s worth. I’ve even considered reviving my FM22 career and try to win the Champions League with my homegrown Arsenal team… but seeing Erling Haaland in a Manchester United shirt now will just break my poor brain.
I’ve also got plenty of save ideas that I’ve hinted at in the past but never turned into reality: Romford FC, Hornchurch FC, Sligo Rovers, FC Košice in Slovakia. I now live in Telford, so I’ve also started thinking about managing AFC Telford United. Even a potential return to either Lyn or Győr has been on the cards.
Instead, I’m returning to my original idea for a long-term FM24 save. I’m going to Sweden.
Specifically, I’m going to manage Nacka FC, who have quickly risen from the bottom of the Swedish football pyramid and now play at the 4th tier – in Division 2 Södra Svealand.
[I can’t find any photos of Nacka FC on Getty Images… so, er, here’s Eurovision icon Cornelia Jakobs, who was born in Nacka.]
Okay, so you’re probably thinking this feels a bit like my Wieczysta Kraków save, where I failed so miserably and burnt out after half a season. But while Wieczysta were bankrolled by a millionaire, recruited several international players and were HUGE favourites to win the Polish 4th tier, Nacka have more modest resources and more realistic expectations.
It also helps that the Swedish league season is quite short, which suits my slower playing style. I reckon I’ll can play through an entire season in two weeks – so by my calculations, that’ll give me 8 to 10 seasons until FM25 is finally released.
I have no grand ambitions to lead Nacka to Allsvenskan glory and into the Champions League within a decade. I just want to find a save that can rekindle my love affair with Football Manager. Win, lose or draw, this will be a much less stressful FM experience… or at least that’s the plan.
Will there’ll be any Nacka save updates on Fuller FM? Eh… we’ll see. Let’s wait until I can at least complete one full season without wanting to strangle any virtual goalkeepers first!
Thanks for reading this post. I wish it had come in happier circumstances. Feel free to leave your thoughts on FM25’s problems below, or contact me on Threads @Fuller_FM.
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