Sega and Sports Interactive have announced that Football Manager 25 has been canceled, and that development efforts will now focus on the next game in the series.
In a development update on the official Football Manager website, Sports Interactive said that while development on Football Manager 25 was progressing apace, the studio realized it wouldn’t be able to reach the standard it wanted to in time for the game’s already-delayed March release date.
Delays to games aren’t uncommon, but Football Manager 25, like many yearly sports titles, is a special case; delaying the game beyond March would mean the game would launch “too late in the football season to expect players to then buy another game later in the year”, as Sports Interactive says.
Sports Interactive says that despite the “phenomenal efforts” of its development team, various areas of Football Manager 25, like its “overarching player experience and interface”, aren’t where the studio wants them to be for how far along in development the game is.
As such, the decision was made to cancel Football Manager 25 and to focus on what will presumably be called Football Manager 26 instead. Assuming it’s not subject to delays, that game will likely be released towards the end of the year.
Football Manager 25 was originally due for release in November last year, but it was subsequently delayed to March to give the development team additional time to work on the game. It now seems as though even that extra time wasn’t quite enough.
The game was due to drop a number of features from previous Football Manager games, including the Create-a-Club system, Touchline Shouts, and more.
It’s likely the work Sega and Sports Interactive did on Football Manager 25 will carry over to Football Manager 26, so don’t expect those features to suddenly make a reappearance in the series’ next major iteration.
This cancellation also hasn’t changed Sega’s stance on a data update for Football Manager 24 to implement more up-to-date club and player information; Sports Interactive says this would still be a “substantial undertaking” that would “divert critical resources away from the development of the next release”.
