Sports Interactive, the developer of the popular sports simulator series Football Manager, has announced that the highly anticipated Football Manager 25 has been delayed again.
Historically, fans have been used to the annual release of the new game falling in early November. Football Manager 25 however had already been delayed until November 26th. The game has now been delayed again until March 2025.
In a development update, the developers said that sticking to the original deadline would lead to the game being released in a state that would not have met the “very high standards” the development team and fans of the franchise expected. The company has told fans that it was “intensely aware” that the news would be “massively disappointing” going on to say it is “extremely sorry”.
In addition to the delays, Sports Interactive have also announced that the challenging development process has led to numerous long-standing features being removed from the game so that they can reallocate “those resources to other key areas”. These features include touchline shouts and international management.
Many fans have responded to the news saying that it would be more beneficial for developers to focus on the 2026 release of the game, ensuring it was released with a full roster of features, while using the new year of data to update Football Manager 2024, giving fans the most up to date team and player information without the need to purchase a new game.
While some features have been removed, the game is expected to be a massive leap forward for the series. The series is moving onto the Unity engine, allowing them to drastically improve the graphics and user interface (UI) of their game.
The series has received criticism for falling far behind the graphics quality of other popular football games, such as EA Sports FC (formally FIFA) and Pro Evolution Soccer (PES).
In addition to the new Unity engine, women’s football is another headline addition to the series.
The Football Manager series first launched in 2004 but its origins go as far back as 1994 with the release of Championship Manager.
While fans have become accustomed to an early November release, Sports Interactive were forced to delay the launch of Championship Manager 4 from late 2002 to March of the following year. Championship Manager 4 was in a similar situation with an introduction of a 2D match engine which allowed players to see how their formation and tactics worked during matches.
Football Manager 25 will be available in March 2025 on PC, Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo Switch and Mobile.
Words by Jamie Calder.
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.