Football Manager 25 has been significantly delayed and will no longer be released before the end of the year, with a statement admitting the devs were “rushing out too much.”
Sports Interactive’s latest entry in the long-running franchise has given the team big challenges after moving to Unreal Engine 5. Following recent criticism, a decision was made to delay the launch of Football Manager 2025 until March 2025.
The devs admitted they were “rushing too much” and were “in danger of compromising our usual standards” amid “an enormous amount of pressure” on the team. The decision to delay intends to provide more time to “deliver the best possible experience.”
A move to Unreal Engine 5, which Sports Interactive has regularly said is the start of a new era for the Football Manager franchise, resulted in a difficult development cycle for the studio, and a previous announcement last month saw an initial delay to November, along with confirmation that some features are being dropped from the title.
The significant delay raises questions about the plans for the Football Manager franchise, which has had a November release month in every edition since Football Manager 2014. Since the split from Eidos Interactive in 2004, every Football Manager game has released in October or November.
Football Manager 25 will now break that trend, while a release month of March means the game would only have a shelf life of eight months before the next entry in the series. Given the delays, I’d be surprised to see Football Manager 26 return in a standard release schedule next year.
Whether the devs skip a year remains to be seen, but after what has been a tough period for the developer, the priority will now be Football Manager 25.
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