SI had been busy though, not only with the next FM but with another exciting project as well: The Football Manager Documentary. Featuring contributions from some of FM's creators and famous fans from the worlds of football and entertainment, "An Alternative Reality: The FM Documentary" will examine the game's enduring appeal and how it has seeped into and influenced the culture of the world's favorite game and is made by Film Nova, one of Britain's leading independent sports producers.
FM Documentary is a 70 mins movie that was screened in cinemas around UK (and in selected places around EU) for the first time on Tuesday, October 7th. The FM15 new features video, made its debut on that day as well (after the documentary at cinemas & on Twitch).
Miles Jacobson:
Our target is having at least a thousand new features in the game every year... but we'll only do that if there are good ideas that we still want to keep adding in.
Published: 25 September
Updated: 27 October
We'll be updating this page whenever there is new information to be added.
Significant FM 2015 highlights:
Revealed with the FM15 feature announcement video
- A completely redesigned user interface
- In-depth managerial style when starting new save
- 3D Match Engine biggest face-lift since introduction in FM 2009
- 4 brand new player roles
- New Player Preferred Moves
- Quicker and smarter searching
- Enhanced player interaction
- More questions and wider variety of media interaction
- More freedom for Classic mode
- Updated regulations and insight for finances
- Improved manager history and profile
- More in-depth and diversified job interviews
- Mentality and new coaching styles for training
- Players growing mustaches for Movember charity
- Twitch.tv integration
More confirmed & speculated features
- Voice chat and video to come in further patches - confirmed
- Largest database ever including over 600.000 players and staff - confirmed
- Evolution for default logos - confirmed
- More realistic transfers and contracts - speculation
Other features we can expect
- Steam cloud-save technology
- In-Game Editor as paid download
- Steam Workshop integration
Timeline of FM15 information
And now a list of confirmed facts which were revealed in various dates.October 27
- More FM15 exclusive features unveiled through the inSIder newsletter.
- Pre-Beta FM15 Match Engine Footage was revealed in a separate video.
- Classic Mode key new features have been showcased in a separate video.
- FM15 TV ad has made its debut on the official YouTube channel of SI.
- Miles Jacobson announced that adding an assistant manager / youth team manager / chairman mode to FM isn't going to happen as it would be dull & uninteresting for differing reasons.
- The handheld version will be released at some point before Xmas without having a firm date yet.
- No decision has been made regarding another Vita game, but it's not looking good at the moment.
- Updates to Classic Mode allow you more freedom when selecting nations, leagues and players in your game-world, among other things.
- There will be editor improvements too. (source)
- The FM15 features video and live Q&A via Twitch tonight will be streamed on the newly created official FM channel. (source)
- The FM15 database has just tickled over 600,000 players and staff from around the world. (source)
- Over 500 pro-footballers help by providing feedback on the game to make it even more realistic. (source)
- There'll be 1 main video this year with lots of information in it. Then a few little things. And lots to discover when the FM15 releases. (source)
- Twitch support confirmed in FM15 (source)
- If you buy a ticket to the FM Doc before October 6th, 1 person per screening (35 in total) will be added to FM15 as a newgen (source)
- FM15 new features video will debut alongside the FM Doc showings (source)
- A set of 16 screenshots claiming to originate from FM15 were leaked to imgur. SI didn't deny whether they were genuine or not.
- November is confirmed as release month (source)
- New features announcement to be made in early October (source)
- Introducing inSIder - a newsletter with exclusive inside info
- FM15 packshot is revealed (source)
- Pre-Order begins with early beta access as bonus (source)
- The early FM15 database has over 580,000 of players and staff (source)
- 3,399 features voted through; 1,723 need estimates; around 1,000 will be implemented (source)
More detail on FM 2015's major new features
Completely redesigned User Interface
Everything about FM15 will feel and look different. This new user interface is a departure from the designs of old, and whilst there is a sidebar, all of the key panels are now located there which means smaller and more section drop down menus for each area of the game. The new user interface is much easier and faster to navigate around. They'll be things that you'll find that have been in the game for a while but were hidden before. It's also neater and increases the amount of screen space that we can use for those with lower resolutions. An example of the new navigation can be found at the home screen, which acts as the hub for responsibilities, information and actions relating solely to you, the manager.
In-depth managerial style when starting new save
In FM15 we've taken styles of management 2 steps further by allowing you to be on the training ground as one of the club's coaches and also increasing the options for you to define what type of manager you want to be. Once you've selected a club to manage, you'll be presented with the option to set yourself up to be a tracksuit manager, a tactical manager or a mix of the two. If you want to be on the training ground every day then you'll veer towards the tracksuit manager options, but if you want your players to respect you more off the training ground and get them learning quicker then tactical is the way to go. As part of this new feature, managers can now define what coaching badges they have and can update their skills during the game. Your level of coaching badge as well as your past playing experience, plays a bit part in deciding the starting level of your attributes. The better your coaching badge in playing experience, the higher your starting attributes level will be. You can then drag the style focus to better reflect managerial style that you associate with the most. You can fine-tune your selection by customizing attribute points. In FM15 you'll be truly able to manage your way.
3D Match Engine biggest face-lift since FM 2009
A major part of this is the addition of brand new cutting edge motion capture data, which helps breathe new life into match day experience and takes it to the next level of realism with over 2,000 new or replaced animations. Motion capture allows us to precisely record the exact movements and motions of players that we combined to the character models used in the match engine to create new animations. This has allowed us to introduce great-looking animations covering a wide range of common actions you see on a football pitch from shots to passes, to crosses and headers, to dives and saves, and much more besides. There's variety in abundance from different styles of movements depending on the height of the player and the weight of the player to different style of kicks. You'll see more technical kicks, and for the first time you'll see players using different parts of their foot to make passes or control the ball, such as the inside or outside of that foot or the laces of their boots. The benefits of motion capture are huge, and their introductions to FM2015 is just the start of an exciting future for the match engine in the years ahead.
We've also made improvements to the player models. You now see the players look less robot and more human, and move and react more naturally according to their size and shape. Goalkeeper animations too have been massively improved. We've added more variety with loads of new dives, parries and catching animations. As a result, goalkeepers look more natural than they ever have before. Other new goalkeeper animations focus on their interactions with the ball and their teammates. There are also more options for goalkeepers' distribution on the player instruction screen.
It's not just animations in player models that have been improved, we've combined all of these with a brand new lighting model. Player models now reflect and absorb light based on weather conditions. A bright sunny day may make them appear more reflective, whereas they'll look wetter when it's raining. This is even extended to a brand new in-game sun and sky as well as the level of dust particles present in the air, which are now tuned to reflect the different weather conditions. It's an immense level of detail for those who have the best graphics cards, but still works and looks great on lower-end cards too. The player themselves don't just have new models, they benefit from improved depth and shadowing around the edge of their faces, arms and legs. The match ball also undergone modifications into the way it's lit, so that it looks much better and clearer in all conditions. Ball physics have also been overhauled and improved, so the ball now reacts more realistically when kicked and moves more naturally through the air.
Team-talks during the match. We see managers often yelling at their players during the match and these team-talks replicate that. They'll work in a similar way as the pre-match, half-time and post-match team-talks, and allow you to talk to your whole team or target individual players. There is a wealth of major enhancements and subtle touches, that help make the stadiums look more vibrant and varied. For a start, there are many more designs of stadiums, including curved stadiums, and roofless stadiums in South America and parts of Europe. Corner pieces have been remodeled to include an array of props, including burger vans, bins, and different types of floodlights. Around the stadium, you will also notice tunnels, stewards, jumbo TV-screens, ambulances, and even personalized club-banners. And, as an extra level of detail, the stands in the stadium represent the color of the team. These additions bring a new life into our stadiums, and help to recreate the atmosphere of a big match. All of these enhancements to the match experience are part of our long-term plan of making our match engine the best simulation of football that can be. There are also more default tactics available to choose from than ever before, so you'll never be short of formations to try out throughout your managerial career. AI managers will utilize the tactics more effectively than before, incorporating player roles more intelligently into their tactics system. As always given the flexibility of the tactics creator and the number of formations and player roles that can be selected, there are thousands of tactical setups that can be employed.
4 brand new player roles
FM14 saw an increased emphasis on player roles and team tactics, this year we've taken this on and added four brand new player roles, so you can make sure your team is instructed to play exactly the way you want them to. To start with, central and defensive midfielders can now be given a roaming playmaker role, designed for a versatile midfielder who can split their duties between a deep-lying and advanced playmaker. Wingers can also now be instructed to play as a raumdeuter, a sort of wider poacher duty, suitable for players who you want to operate on the peripheral of build-up play. Players assigned this role will focus primarily on exploiting and moving into space when getting forward, so they can receive the ball for a close range shot or a quick cross from the by-line. Taking inspiration from and modelled on modern South American wing-backs, the third new role is the inverted wing back. Rather than staying glued to the touchline when moving forward, players playing this role will cut inside and make runs through the centre of the pitch either dragging defenders inside or opening up a shooting chance. Finally if you’re looking to get the best out of a creative wide player who likes to roam across the pitch. The new wide playmaker role may be ideal for you, this new role affords winger the freedom to drift inside, and find space to create from a more central position, giving them more options to try and find that crucial killer pass.
New Player Preferred Moves
There are also some new player preferred moves (PPM's) in the game. For example, for strikers who prefer to do the majority of their work in the penalty box, rather than dropping deep or roaming to the sides to pick up the ball, we now have the "penalty box" PPM. Other new PPM's are "refrains from shooting from distance" and for goalkeepers "likes to throw the ball long to start counter attacks". These new and other updated PPM's has been added to enhance the realism and variation between different players throughout the database.
More effective and realistic scouting
Our aim for scouting at FM2015 was to make it more effective and to reflect how real-life clubs operate their scouting networks. Think of the scouting network now as the one-stop place to find players. Scouting has been integrated more closely with the player-search function for example. Also, there is a new way to set up scouting assignments with an addition focus on what you're actually looking for rather than the standard location scouting. Very helpful for finding that long-term replacement of your star aging box-to-box midfielder, working in a similar way to the real world pros on recruiting system that we are involved with.
The players that appear on the player search screen are tied to your club's scouting knowledge, so you see players from the areas that you scouted which is represented to the plans real clubs work. We also linked the effects of your club's scouting knowledge to how much information you know about player. So now, when you view the profile of a player your scouts know about, but don't know that well, rather than seeing a set of blank attributes, you see some of that attributes displayed in a range. If you choose to scout that player, than the range will get narrower until the actual attribute is displayed. the star rating of those players will also be ranged. Additionally, well known players in areas you got some scouting knowledge will have more levels of information available, without having to be scouted.
There is also an increased level of interaction between you and your scouts. They get in touch more regularly to request to cancel their current assignment, if they feel there are more suitable players left to scout, as well as suggesting you more competitions to scout. And furthermore you can now ask scouts to roam around a particular nation instead of a specific region. Scouts will deliver better feedback when scouting competitions too, giving you a concise overview of the best performing players in that competition. When assigning a scout to carry out an assignment it's now easier to see your scouts attributes, making it easier to send the right person for the job.
You can also scout players for a specific time frame too. So if you have a player that you've earmarked as a replacement for a current squad member, you can scout him for up to three months to get a more complete picture. On top of this you'll also get match reports back regarding that player, as well as an updated report card every week. As part of the changes to scouting, the report card has undergone a revamp. You'll now get a much clearer visual representation of a player's quality, thanks to the new pros and cons section. It's not just the player's performance that a scout will take into account when drawing up the players, everything from their personality, current happiness, and even how well the player will fit into the dressing room will be weighed up before your scout makes this assessment. The scout will also provide an overall summary as it's whether worth pursuing your interest.
Quicker and smarter searching
Searching for players and searching in general in FM15 has been made quicker thanks to the introduction of the search bar at the top of the screen. This works in a similar way to an internet browser. Just type in what you want to look for, and a scrollable list of results matching your query will be displayed onto the search bar. Simply click on the result you were searching for and you'll be taken to that page. The scouting and player search elements have been brought closer together in FM15, and as a result we've added a scouted filter to the player search screen making it easier to call up the player's scout report to compare scouted players against each other. There are new categories to search for as well, such as being able to search for players who are unhappy in their current club and you can now search for home-grown players at any club too.
Enhanced player interaction
In a football world where player power rules, we've tried to replicate this in FM15 with lots of additions and changes with regards to player personalities and interaction. Players can now speak to their manager about a range of worries they might have. It could be concerns regarding the club such as financial trouble or more personal problems such as rumors of a new player coming to the club who plays in their position or when you sign a player and what it means to their future. If they're considering a move away from the club on a free transfer at the end of their contract, you can talk to the player and ask them to reconsider that decision and if they feel you can offer the terms they're looking for, maybe they'll change their mind. However, if you don't want to keep a player, you can ask them to talk to the media in order to force a move away. They may be reluctant to do this if they still wish to be part of your plans, but if they're desperate for a move as you are, don't get straight on the phone to the papers.
Another new addition to this area of the game is the ability to talk to a group of players about the same issue. For example, if several players are concerned about the club's financial position, you can appease them all together rather than having separate conversations on the same subject. Allies within the dressing room can now express their concerns for the way you've dealt with their teammates and there are entirely new group and happiness meetings to address the concerns of multiple players at once. Managers will have to be a lot more careful about how they deal with the man management side of FM to avoid a full-blown dressing room revolt and the board stepping in to intervene. Similarly, there's also the scope for players to turn against that unhappy teammate and support the manager instead.
Players will now approach the manager when learning a team's interest in signing them, to state they'd like permission to talk to the interested party should a bid come in for them rather than waiting to discuss an offer after an offer has been rejected. Players will also be a lot more specific in their reasons for asking to leave, giving the manager a much wider scope to try and talk the player around, incentivize them in staying or negotiate their exit conditions. You can even give a parting comment to players who are leaving the club against their will, you can send them their way with your best wishes and thank them for their time at the club or be a little more scathing in your evaluation of the time they spent with you. You need to be careful with making promises too, players may have career goals and squad objectives up the next few years and beyond. For example, if your young striker is looking to break into the first team squad during the current season and he doesn't achieve this, he could start consider a move away from the club. The expansion is not just about unhappy players though, a youth player will show short term happiness when they're exposed to the first team for example, when they actually play their first match or just by making the bench. And if you keep your promises you can keep a very happy and together squad.
More questions and wider variety of media interaction
The media within the game is deeper than ever with a wider variety of news stories, lines of questioning and a greater focus on building media rivalries between managers. We've split media types in tabloids and broadsheet journalists which provides a great mix of media interaction styles. Tabloid journalists will come to you looking for their next big headline to get fans talking whereas the broadsheets will talk to you more about things like your tactical approach to games and a more analytical side of football.
The flow of press conferences has been changed this year with questions being even more reactive to the answers of previous questions and more headline summary is being produced as a result. This also helps the media to build a perception of how you handle press conferences and how they can approach their questioning. For example, if you're responding angrily to comments about your future, the press will keep poking further to get a reaction rather than asking nice questions and giving the manager an easy time, depending on the journalist of course. On the opposite side to this, if a manager is being confident and open with the press, journalists will avoid asking questions that could stop this openness.
Brand new to this year is the introduction of tunnel and training ground interviews. Just like in reality, managers can now be stopped pre or post match for a few questions in the tunnel to get that thoughts on the match. Likewise you can be stopped outside the training ground for an on-the-spot question as well. Obviously you'll only see the tunnel and training ground interviews when they're likely to happen in real life. If the club's matches aren't gonna be broadcast on TV in some form, then you wouldn't expect these interviews to happen. This is the same regarding press conferences, which are amplified based on the importance of matches with more build up especially towards the end of the season should you be fighting for promotion or against relegation.
You also receive questions on other successes, such as winning the manager of the month award and whether you're worried with the curse that comes with the prize. Plus questions on your reserve or under-21 sides and what that means to the players involved. Throughout the season you'll receive more questions related to the time of year. There's more variety of questioning during pre-season, and if your previous match was notable there will be more of a focus on your previous opponents during pre-match questions and how you will play in response to that game. The press will also pick up on a manager's history against an opposing manager to create rivalries.
In the past, legends have been able to criticize you without you being able to respond, but this year with FM15 you get to do just that. You can politely shrug off their comments or take a risk and respond angrily, but there's always a risk the fans may not like that. There are new or extra questions around fielding a weakened team in a match, reasons for why you haven't offered players a new contract, and questions regarding your team underachieving. We've also expanded the variety of questions when you have games against rivals, around high-profile signings, getting a new contract, and lots more besides. Basically, lots of new questions and loads more variation.
More freedom for Classic mode
Updates to Classic Mode allow you more freedom when selecting nations, leagues and players in your game-world. Plus, you can now skip pre-season (in first season), take control of player training, make more board requests and there are new unlockables, such as "Dodgy lasagne", "Unsuspend player" and "Lifetime player".
Introduced more advanced set up options for database when starting a save. This will also allow players to customize the size of their database and even skip pre-season.
Added the option of managing training this year, but it's entirely up to whether and how much you want to be involved. If you prefer, you can also control training in an individual player basis.
In addition to these changes to training, tutoring will be making its FMC debut this year as well, allowing player personalities to be a little more flexible. Each season your assistant will assess the balance of your squad and pick any young players who can benefit from tutoring. Then they'll pair the player up with a more experienced member of the squad who can take them under their wing and guide their development.
All these changes to FMC have been designed to not take away the streamlined feel of classic mode while feeding managers with a little bit more information. This is something that's reflected in the upgraded news screen as well, which is tidier than ever and easier to navigate through the now separated match and other news sections.
Also introduced a number of board requests for FMC15. You'll now be able to ask the board to increase the percentage of transfer revenue you receive or relay the pitch, improve the club's youth setup levels and expand your scouting network.
3 new unlockables: "Lifetime player" is placing a player to a rolling contract, and the only way they can leave is if you specifically choose to sell them or retire. "Unsuspend player" removes any bans the player is currently set to serve and they can be immediately available for your next match. And finally we have the "Dodgy Lasagne" unlockable. This can be applied to any team, e.g. your next opponents or your fierce rivals, and it could come in handy on the day of that crucial match when you need anything to get the win.
Team meetings are brand new to FMC this year. If you're heading to a decisive match that leads to promotion or relegation, you'll now be prompted to hold a team meeting to running the troops and hopefully inspire them to get you over that final hurdle.
Updated regulations and insight for finances
FM15 is fully up to date with all the latest financial changes to football. With financial fair play being such a big talking point in football at present, we've made sure the game's database is fully updated with all the new regulations and calculations; top division wage restrictions have been added to prevent you from overspending on wages from year to year in line with the profitability and sustainability provisions made as part of FFP. You will now also be notified of your FFP obligations in your initial meeting with the board, making it much clearer exactly what is required of you from a financial perspective when you start your career.
However, we've also made it easier for you as in FM15 the next season's wage budget is announced to you in advance, so you can plan your dealing well ahead of the start of the new campaign as the board intelligence has been improved in many areas. When attempting to sign players for the new season, the proposed new wage budget will be used and the players' wages with expiring contracts you have no intention of renewing will not be counted as part of your wage total leaving spare wages with which you can sign new players.
At the end of the season, you'll also be issued with the commercial summary which will run through how much the club is taking in through kit and match sponsorships, the club shop merchandise, hiring up facilities and other sponsorship types. This allows you to monitor how your club is progressing or indeed regressing over a number of seasons. If your club gets promoted or relegated, you'll see how this affects your income through sponsorship and likewise if you bring in a world-class player you'll see your merchandise and club shop income increase as a result.
Improved manager history and profile
Improvements have been made to the manager history and manager profile areas of the game, allowing you to define your preferences and keep tabs on the successes of rival managers. The revamped cup history provides you with the ability to compare yourself against your predecessors at the club, so you can see exactly how big the shoes you're fitting are. It's also clearer to see how long managers last at the top on average, so you can see whether you're joining a club where the axes wielded on an annual basis or whether the chairman is likely to give you time to settle.
You can also track your own manager history closer with the manager timeline. In the short term, the timeline runs through events in recent seasons and notable results at a club, whether it's a humiliating defeat to a non-league side in the early stages in the cup or a big European comeback. In the long term, you can track all the finest moments on results from your career. The media will take these experiences and use this if similar events take place, like a rematch against your non-league foes.
Now when setting up your manager profile, you have many more options to define new managerial preferences. You can specify multiple languages that you speak, likewise you can select more than one favorite club. The way you play will be a talking point in the press and will be another deciding factor into whether you fit a team's ethos and should be considered for a management position at the club. With this in mind, you can now specify your favorite formations whether that'd be a classic 4-4-2 or something more a little bit more customized.
More in-depth and diversified job interviews
Job interviews make their debut in the FM series with FM14, allowing you to interview for a vacant managerial position if you're shortlisted for the role. This year we've introduced a whole host of new discussion topics that make these interviews much more varied. Amongst these topics such things as playing experience, employment history and how your career is panned out up until the time of the interview. For example, if you're currently managing in League Two and you're invited for an interview for a Championship job you may be asked why you're looking to leave your current position and if you're ready to take such a large step up the leagues.
The further into your career you play, the more detailed and differentiated these interviews will become as clubs and chairmen will be eager to discuss past experiences such as promotions, relegations, and your track record in the transfer market. All of these new variations to the interviews are intended to give each one a completely different feel and present you with more opportunities to impress the board was providing your own unique immersive management experience.
Mentality and new coaching styles for training
Moving on to this year's changes to training, considering the increased focus on player roles in the latest addition of the game, we decided it made sense for managers to be able to specify exactly which mentality play should focus in when training. For instance, you can now specify that a player should be training as an advanced playmaker with either a support or attack mentality, depending on which you prefer to play him as. Of course if you prefer to train them more generally in the role, you can still do this too. And it's not just the full-time professionals who will benefit from this year's changes to training, semi-pro and amateur training is now more realistic than ever, working with a more flexible schedule that takes into account on which day teams have matches and holding sessions in the build up accordingly.
As well as these prior focus changes to training, we've also taken into consideration the way different coaches like to work with their players. As such we've added three new coaching styles; technical, tactical and mental, which can now be set in the data for all staff members and will create more diversity between the different coaches and the game. Coaches who prefer the new technical style will be mainly concerned with the individual techniques of the game such as dribbling, finishing or ball control, while the tactical style is for coaches who excel in developing tactically aware players. And the mental style is for those who focus more on improving a player's mental attributes and qualities. Of course if you choose to be a tracksuit manager, you'll be on the training ground yourself as part of the coaching team.
Players growing mustaches for Movember charity
You would have seen over the years that many of the advertising hoardings in FM are given to some of our favorite charities. This year we're taking it one notch louder with a new charity partner: Movember. Rather than adding in an ad hoarding, you'll notice that some players will join in with Movember growing mustaches during November each season. We've even got multiple types of 'tashe and different stages of growth.
Twitch.tv integration
We'd also like to welcome another partner to the FM family: twitch.tv. For those who don't know, twitch is a video streaming platform for gamers connecting players around the world by allowing them to broadcast, watch and chat from everywhere they play. With FM15 you will, for the first time, be able to stream directly to twitch.tv from inside the game and we really look forward to watching your broadcast.More FM15 exclusive features (as of 27 October)
Wanted to rest players option in board confidence meeting – Are you board unhappy with a recent defeat? Where applicable, you can now tell them that you needed to rest players because of an important upcoming match.New Player Preferred Move training – Got a player who can score from 2 yards, but not from 20? You can now train a player to refrain from shooting outside the area.
New team instruction: prevent opposition defender's short distribution – You can now instruct a player to close down an opposition’s defenders to prevent short distribution.
Consider whether team was in a "group of death" when exiting a competition – Board competition confidence will now take into account if you’re drawn in a group with higher reputation teams.
Team talk option to congratulate players on comeback from 2-0 down – Want to praise your players for coming back from 2-0 down? Now you can in the post-match team talk.
Team talk option to congratulate GK on crucial penalty save/late save – Has your goalkeeper made a crucial save to win you a game? You can now specifically congratulate him in the post-match team talk.
Multi-select players to group train focus/intensity – Save some time by multi-selecting two or more players to set the same training focus/intensity for them.
Total number of passes stat in Post-Match information – Want to check how well your team are passing? You can now see the total "Passes Completed" for each individual player in Match Stats.
Tactics Creator revamp – Taking into account new player roles and team instructions, we have redesigned the Tactics Creator.
Out November 7th on PC, Mac & Linux!
Want to keep up with everything that's going on with Football Manager 2015?
Make sure to like our dedicated Football Manager 2015 Facebook page!
You can pre-purchase FM15 from our store to enjoy early access to a fully-playable Beta version of the game which will be made available roughly two weeks prior to the official release date.
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Discussion: Football Manager 2015 New Features
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