Just 10 days after announcing a late November release date for Football Manager 25, Sports Interactive has delayed the soccer sim by several months. The developer and Sega, the game’s publisher, said in September that they were pushing back the release date by a few weeks to “deliver the best possible experience for this first installment in a new era of Football Manager.” However, the team says it still needs more time to ensure the game quality and experience meet expectations and high standards. As such, Football Manager 25 is now slated to arrive in March. Sports Interactive is giving the long-running game a major overhaul in its upcoming iteration, but the studio acknowledges that the process has been difficult. “Many things have been moving slower than we had predicted — despite everyone in the team working at an incredible pace to try and get everything done,” Sports Interactive said in a statement. The studio noted that Football Manager 25 marks the series’ “biggest technical and visual advancement” in many years, which includes a switch to the Unity engine. To ensure this crucial juncture in Football Manager’s history is not compromised, the studio plans to offer a first proper look at gameplay in January. With Football Manager 25 slipping to March from its typical early November release schedule, it could have a knock-on effect on future entries in the series and will also mean the game arrives close to the end of the European soccer season. In response to Sports Interactive’s announcement, some players are calling for the studio to release a database update for Football Manager 2024 that reflects real-world changes for the current season, while others suggest focusing on Football Manager 26 after updating the current version.
