
The Football Manager community is worried and rightfully so. We were promised the biggest technical and visual advancement in the series for a generation.
This new era would begin with the release of FM25. A release that'd normally take place in early November got pushed back to November 26th, then eventually delayed significantly until March 2025.
The studio remains silent despite the backlash that followed after the developers failed to deliver on their own promise to drop the new gameplay reveal by the end of January.
I'll try to answer all the tough questions. Admittedly not every answer can be factual, but guesswork will be supported by various facts and occasions.
Will there be Football Manager 25 at all? Is FM25 still happening?
The short answer is yes. I believe SI can't afford to skip FM25 altogether, financially speaking. The studio had to hire a dedicated team for women's football in order to get the game over the line in time. Imagine working with practically no sufficient sales income since October while having a bigger team under payroll. Then add in the mix over 20% of refunds for FM25 pre-orders that followed the title's postponement towards the end of Q1 2025. One way or another, the game needs to get released in whatever state it's going to be by March 31st.Why delay the release of FM25?
The reason for the delay is a quality issue as Sega boss stated in an interview back in December 21st. He also added that "maybe providing the game at an early stage can be the better choice financially, but we decided to keep having the quality level to keep that discipline". That supports the 10.10.24 statement by SI "we simply cannot compromise the delivery of this crucial juncture in Football Manager's history by rushing to release it in November".Why push back the launch of FM25 to March specifically?
There's a massive gap between November and March, which means the game was far from being at a state the developers would be proud of. Still, why March and not April? In the absence of an official statement and while this is all guesswork, I believe that March can only make sense because it's the last month of the financial year in the UK which starts on April 1st and ends on March 31st. Chances are the studio is contractually bound to release a new game each financial year, and failing to do that might have severe financial repercussions. I suspect Sega wouldn't want another case like Relic where they ended up selling Relic and cutting 240 jobs across UK studios back in March 2024.Why open FM25 pre-orders 10 days before announcing the game is delayed until March?
The most likely reasoning here is legal and licensing issues. In certain cases, if you buy a license on club and league logos for example, then it isn't that you can use it, but have to use it instead. SI did say that they worked hard with their partners to solve all legal issues and make it possible to delay the game. That probably means they knew long before that the game wouldn't be ready in November but had to do all the announcements due to clauses in their contracts. And only after they could get all partners to agree on delaying the release, they could announce the delay.Any other reason why pre-orders opened shortly before declaring a 4-month delay?
Another possible reason is that pre-orders could work as a test for whether it's a good idea delaying the release or not. It's safe to say that FM has an extremely loyal customer base with strong pre-sales. But what's going to happen to pre-sales without actually revealing new gameplay? If pre-orders are close to where they typically are, then it probably makes sense to go ahead and ship a product as is and deal with the fallout. Anything less, seriously considering a delay would be a better option. In other words, it's better to lose e.g. half the sales by shipping a respectable product late than to lose as many sales by permanently damaging the brand.Why is SI being radio silent for months?
That's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean actions speak louder than words, especially when you've planned for this particular release to kickstart a new era for the franchise. On the 10.10.24 statement they promised 2 things; the game would be released sometime in March and the new gameplay reveal would drop at the end of January. Since then they posted 2 more statements; on October 22nd to clarify why a FM24 Data Update is not possible ahead of FM25's March release, and on December 4th to confirm that FM24 would remain available across platforms until the release of FM25.Yet SI failed to deliver on their own promise about FM25's new gameplay reveal. Why?
I honestly didn't expect they'd not only break that promise but also choose to remain silent after that. The lack of communication is worrying, but surely there must be a good reason we don't know about. I mean it's definitely a bad look and not a good sign, but sometimes comms get taken out for legal reasons which could mean it's not currently possible for them to say anything in fear of misinterpretation. They need more time and I'm certain we'll have some news soon. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me right now.SI broke the new gameplay reveal promise, doesn't that mean FM25 is cancelled?
Yes, they did. That doesn't mean they gave up on getting Football Manager 25 ready for release in March. The info regarding the gameplay reveal was a footnote in their 10.10.24 statement, while the actual game launch date is the headline. I know this is no excuse and it doesn't make it any less disappointing, but I remain confident and optimistic they will deliver FM25 by the end of March, even if it's going to be the last day of that month. And remember they have to include data changes from the winter transfer window which requires additional time and effort.How about FM25 Advanced Access? Is that happening?
We normally get Early Beta Access approximately 2 weeks before the launch date. This wasn't initially announced for FM25, but got confirmed with the 10.10.24 statement: "We can confirm Advanced Access will be available ahead of the new release date and, when we are confident on how long that period will be, we will update you at the first opportunity". That means there's a chance the early access period won't be the usual 2 weeks, but it remains uncertain if the intention is to make it longer or shorter. You can check my personal estimate for the FM25 Beta release date.Why not skip FM25 and wait for FM26 instead?
I know that FM25 dropping in March is already late in the season and there will only be like 7 months until FM26 would likely get released. However, March is when we normally get the final part of the Main Data Update, so we're used to starting new saves after that. Understandably some of you feel like SI deserve to be punished for breaking promises, keeping silent and whatnot. There's no denying they made mistakes which can be hard to forgive, but I'm more worried about what might happen to the studio if too many people turn their backs on FM25. Personally, I'm not going to skip it and I encourage you to do the same and be supportive.Surely they can't expect us to pay full price for FM25 all things considered?
I agree that a lower price would be more appropriate as that'd partly justify the long delay. Perhaps the financial policy is not something the studio can enforce. Hopefully some kind of loyalty scheme will be introduced to sweeten the deal. For example, you could have a significant discount for FM26 if you also buy FM25. I reckon that could work well and benefit all parties.Disclaimer: Having answered all that, you should know this is no insider info nor have I been in contact with Sports Interactive while putting this article together. It's my personal opinion on the situation, and that is taking a generally negative thing but looking at it from the optimist's view.
I'm expecting to see some official news about Football Manager 25 soon and very much looking forward to getting my hands on the game sometime in March.
Now it's over to you. Feel free to ask more questions or answer the ones above in the comment section below.
Discussion: What's going on with FM25?
21 comments have been posted so far.
What we’re seeing here isn’t just about Unity or coding challenges; it’s about how businesses make strategic decisions under pressure. March 31 was always a key deadline because it’s Sega’s financial year-end, and companies in this position are often forced to make tough calls based on financial reporting cycles, not just development progress.
It’s also worth noting that it isn’t unusual for a company to be trading with high levels of financial debt—many large corporations operate this way, using shelf companies and various financial structures to manage cash flow. The financials we see from a company of this size are often largely irrelevant in the grand scheme. But one thing is certain: you can’t justify a major increase in staffing to shareholders unless you either had the cash available or a clear future commercial product in mind. SI weren’t hiring aggressively in 2023 just for the sake of it—there was a plan in place.
And that’s why I firmly believe SI are going hard for the American market. They now have the time to properly develop FM26, and in the meantime, they’ve effectively starved their existing customer base. This isn’t unprecedented—Rockstar did the same thing with GTA VI, keeping players on GTA V for over a decade to build insane demand. Nintendo did it with Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, delaying for six years so that when it launched, it immediately broke sales records. SI skipping FM25 could be a deliberate move to make FM26 feel like an absolute must-buy, especially for their existing audience who will be stuck playing an increasingly outdated game.
It’s a classic forced upgrade strategy, and it’s likely deliberate. If they market it right, FM26 could actually end up being one of their biggest sellers ever—especially with a bigger push into the US market ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
Whether FM26 will actually be the game they’re promising depends on what they’ve learnt from this mess, but what’s clear is that SI weren’t willing to gamble on a rushed product. That tells you just how bad things must have been behind the scenes.
One thing I noticed in their financial report (thanks for that), was that their wages and salaries listed on page 27 went up from £16.7m to £20.2m. That's a £3.5m increase in annual salaries/wages, which would definately dent their financials, especially since their profit for the previous year was only £1.4m, adding £3.5m (a 20% increase) to their "Production" staff annual wages bill is a massive hit!
The number of "Production" employees went up from 189 to 231, and "Administration" staff from 29 to 36. Showing that they were "ramping up" their production capabilities in preparation.
Their 231 "Production" staff are earning on average £87.5k per annum. Good developers are expensive!
+42 new staff members in a single financial year is actually very high, considering that the number might be even higher if some old staff left the company during the year. So lets say 50+ new "Production" staff members added in a single financial year. Some might be used for the FM database, UI/UX etc. But I'm pretty sure a large portion of the 50+ would be new developers, because UI/UX and DB skills are generally more transferrable than C++ developers to C#/Unity. They would need very experienced Unity developers to make the transition a success, especially very experienced senior devs. And they've probably hired a lot more devs since that last report came out. Another issue, is how many C++ devs did they try and migrate to Unity. Just because you're a C++ developer, doesn't automatically make you a good C# developer.
Also, just adding new developers doesn't automatically mean faster production. Adding so many "Production" staff is actually a burden on senior developers. I know, because I have to onboard new members, and my managers already know that my production output as a Team Leader will suffer while I teach (onboard) the new members of the team. It's a significant drain on my time. Not only do you need to teach them the codebase (file & folder structure, core code sections), but also your MR/PR policies (code reviews), code syntax & style guidelines, how to compile and make debug builds, check any custom logs or debugging tools, with a lot of pair programming sessions etc. Just the initial setup of a new dev can take 2 weeks of setup time. Then they typically only start becomming productive from 1 to 3 months, depending on skill levels.
It's very clear to me, that their NEXT financial report is going to be VERY bad! If they posted a loss of £2.2m, while in the same report they said FM24 is "the most-played game of all time", with a turnover of £72m. Although I think a majority of the loss is down to "Production" staff wages increase by £3.5m, posting virtually NO sales in this financial year, and a staff wage bill of £20.2m, it's virtually catastrophic. When FM24 sales were £32.7m, and having virtually none of that this year, with such a high salary bill, heads will roll!
Honestly, I think they've made a very bad judgement call. IMHO, they should have just released a reskinned version of FM24 using a skeleton crew, with some tweaks and an official DB update for FM25. Letting us know that they've diverted the majority of "Production" staff to the new Unity FM26 project. They still would have sold a bucket load of FM25 copies, while still giving them time to migrate the codebase. And they could have done it with a "skeleton" crew, while the majority of devs work on FM26. We complain that FM is just a reskinned version each year anyway, but we would have bought it anyway.
They could have done it easily with a "major feature freeze"!
I think they went "all-in" on the new engine, and it failed.
Long live FM24!
they are clearly in some form of trouble
Source-Companies House
Yes I'll think abt it, thanks
Thanks for the technical clarifications. I will definitely not buy a broken, buggy and slow FM25
I think we had already realized that the decision was purely financial. Uncontrolled greed is taking hold throughout the world.
SI will certainly become less rude and arrogant in forum responses.
We will always have FM24 as a memory to show our grandchildren.
Agile isn’t a magic wand for bad planning—it’s a tool for adapting. But when you lock in a hard deadline across two continents’ financial reports, you’re not ‘failing to estimate complexity’—you’re executing a pivot. Unity might be a mess, but the real engine here is revenue targets.
And spare me the ‘organizational suicide’ theatrics. If SI were truly drowning in C++ chaos, they’d delay indefinitely—not neatly slot into a World Cup sales window. This isn’t panic; it’s strategy. Stay loyal if you want, but don’t confuse code migration with capitalism.
I just wanted to thank for your in depth share about the technical side (C++ etc.). I'm also a certified PMP, with a strategy and management consulting background (yeah, I know they call the scammers of the modern age hhhh ! )
But joke a side, changing course for a large project like that IS ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. It's like telling ppl hey we SUCK guys but instead you tell that to all your employees,, it's like an organizational suicide.
I think the problem was underestimating the challenges of moving their custom 20 year old C++ game engine to Unity (C#), BY NOT GIVING THEMSELVES THE MEAN TO ACHIEVE THAT as :
- Hiring enough professionals (developers, PMO's, etc.)
- ... Which have impact on the lack of the accuracy of their planning
- ... Which have impact on passing deadlines
And when that happens, it creates panic on board cause there are a lot of Financial constraints AND Legal ones (since they have contracts with the Premier League licence for example)
When the PL or Champions League give you their licence THEY EXEPCT in their financial Forecasts to have incomes from commercials etc (and many other details and perf clauses with sales teams)
FINALLY, when that happens you start making decisions under the influence of panic :
- Do we hire new ppl (I didn't know for example that Unity developers were easier to onboard - thanks Darth for the insight)
- Do we look for freelancers
- Do we communicate or not
- ...
All in all, the purest joy of these days to me, is getting out of my cave and be able to chat with a lot of ppl from the community whether here or on reddit.
Cheers everyone !
I disagree that it has nothing to do with legacy debt. It has to do with the complexity in moving the game engine from C++ to Unity, which is what they're doing right now.
They had already began moving their codebase in 2023 (or sooner) to Unity, and they had expected to reach their November/December deadline.
If you look carefully at their "gameplay reveal" videos they showed, those are "simple" visual parts of the engine to port over. It's the more complex "hidden" game engine features, like league and match processing, training and player development that are the more complex parts. Also, the league and competition system is very complex! Their league and competition systems can handle virtually every type of competition, cup and league in the world. Those non-visual parts are damn complex!
You said: "and giving the very specific date of March makes no sense"
I disagree, giving 31 March makes perfect sense!
The reason March 31 is chosen is not only because it's the UK financial year end, but also for Japan (Sega, their parent company). If they can launch the game on March 31, then all the pre-order and launch sales for FM25 will be accredited to the 2024 fiscal/financial year.
They will probably also sweeten this up in their financial reports by mentioning all the sales made after release day.
These guys have to write financial and shareholder reports to Sega and other partners and sponsors. They cannot afford to miss the March 31 financial year end. At all costs, I 100% expect to see a broken, buggy and slow game released on 31 March or they will face huge financial penalties and repercussions. They will be planning to fix the performance and bug issues after release, but they will be in huge trouble if they miss that deadline!
PS: I'm a certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and Certified Agile Leader (CAL-1). So I'm pretty sure they had a roadmap and expected to reach the target launch but failed. They would have mapped out all the required features and goals, and would have began seeing the writing on the wall pretty early on. But it's hard to correct and change course when a lot of planning and goal setting starts going badly! Changing course for a large project like that is like trying to turn the Titanic around.
I expect features like game mods, themes, custom skins and other modding features to be dropped early on. They would prioritize their core features and functionality first. "Nice-to-have" features like modding and skinning support will be dropped quickly.
SO what is the reason....
This is commercial. They are not going to release FM 25 in March and then FM26 in November. FM26 will be sold the same time the following year to capture a bigger audience in America, ready for the world cup.
The decision has nothing to do with legacy debt, and everything to do with pushing for a new market im afraid.
I think it was a purely financial decision for them:
1. Unity developers are easier to find compared to C++ developers.
2. Unity is a well known engine, but FM is based on a custom engine.
3. Easier to onboard a Unity developer than teaching a custom C++ engine.
4. Unity has a unified build process for Mobile & Desktop.
5. Less divergent code between mobile & desktop means fewer devs required.
6. Developers are expensive, and it takes more time to onboard a C++ dev.
7. Unity has a good graphics engine, so they wanted the pretty 3D engine.
8. C++ has better multi-threading performance, so expect slower processing times.
9. They will drop features by the dozen to make their deadline and performance targets.
10. The dropped features will make the Desktop version feel like the Mobile Touch version.
11. They will appeal to a broader "casual" fanbase, that will praise the 3D engine.
12. Features dropped will isolate and disapoint their loyal hardcore players.
13. C++ is faster and compiles to native code.
14. Choosing Unity (C#) is putting style before substance.
15. "Next Day" processing wil be significantly slower in C# with larger databases.
They probably had many meetings about what features to include and drop for the new version, because it's very difficult (as they are finding out) to port a 20 year old custom C++ codebase from one language to another and expect the same results, or an easy migration. They underestimated the challenges! Some Unity advocates and evangelists probably sold them on a dream.
I think they decided to move to Unity for the better graphics during matches, and probably also want to move to a unified mobile & desktop build/codebase.
They expect the move to Unity to save them money in the long run by having the "Touch"/Mobile and Desktop versions being the same (unified) codebase. Less maintenance. Good C++ developers cost a lot of money, and their custom codebase is probably challenging to onboard. With Unity, you can get experienced Unity developers by the dozen. So you don't need to teach them the engine, just your implementation of the engine. It's maybe 50% less time to onboard a new dev.
Also, as a carreer path for developers, staying with Unity gives you better options, compared to a custom C++ engine. Because you can only transfer a smaller subset of your work experience to a new company.
My concern is that by trying to unify the codebase (Mobile & Desktop in a single project), the game will become less "hardcore", but appeal to a broader "casual" audience. By dropping features for performance and delivery targets, they will loose some of their "hardcore" appeal.
I know you wanted to be positive in your post, and encourage loyalty and support. But as a hardcore player for 20 years, and C/C++ advocate, I think they've sold their soul to Unity. FM will never be the same again.
@DAZS8 I’m with you mate, no interest in women’s football, it’s already spoilt football focus and the BBC sports pages generally.
again, some may not agree, my daughter agrees with me, she loves football, but says women’s football is terrible, and is sick of seeing the same bunch of so called diverse presenters like Scott, Balding taking over the airwaves.
sky are as bad, majority of presenters at the grounds on Saturday wired ticking a diversity box.
Waste of time in my opinion, I dont care how it makes me sound and I bet most people who have played the game for as many years as me think the same, whether they dare say it or not!!
Bloody snowflake, woke generations out there....FFS
no one even asked for that one and the game suddenly became cursed