Want to write for our blog? Get in touch about becoming a sortitoutsi writer.
FM25 Revised Release Timeline
We previously stated that we would be confirming FM25’s release date at the beginning of September (with pre-orders starting at the same time), closely followed by our gameplay rollout period.
Firstly, we've had to shift the official announcement of FM25 to the end of September. The gameplay focus period will follow soon thereafter. Our target launch date has moved accordingly and is now scheduled for late November, rather than our usual early November slot.
The FM25 development cycle has been challenging for the whole team. We knew that moving the entire game to the Unity engine was going to be a complex endeavour. As we’ve gotten deeper into the process and gained learnings, it’s fair to say it’s been trickier than we originally anticipated. The entire dev team has been challenged in a myriad of new ways and are doing an incredible job in the process. I’m excited to eventually share our hard work with you but we need a little more time before we can do that.
As I outlined in June’s blog, we’ve consistently held ourselves accountable to the same three core questions:
- Would we do it in the same way if we had our time again?
- Would we have done this at all?
- Do we have the time required to do this to the highest possible standard, in our first cycle of a new era?
International Management Removed
The challenges we’ve encountered in the development process over the last couple of months have led us to make another difficult decision around game content: international management will not be a playable mode in FM25, FM25 Console or FM25 Touch.
Coming off the back of a summer of tournament football and with this week even being an international break, we’ve looked really hard at international management in FM and determined that what we were planning to deliver wouldn’t reach our initial quality threshold.
We also considered the available game data. Only 5.6% of all FM24 PC saves have used the mode, which we feel validates our view that we need to do much, much better with the experience. That number is even smaller on Console.
So, rather than delay FM25 even further, we’ve paused work on that area of the game and allocated those resources to other key areas. It will continue to exist in FM25, FM25 Console and FM25 Touch as part of the wider simulation of world football, it just won’t be playable.
However, international management will remain playable in FM25 Mobile as that’s on a different development track and codebase. For all other versions, international management will return in a much more feature-rich way to FM26, FM26 Console and FM26 Touch in what will be an exciting year for international football with the World Cup expanding to 48 teams. To be clear, this will return as part of the base game and not as any form of additional downloadable content.
While difficult, these decisions are made for the good of the game and the majority of our players. We are determined to ensure that FM25, the first game in a new engine, is as good as it can be in the time we have. By pushing back FM25’s release date, we’ve given ourselves a few extra weeks of development time to try to deliver the best experience that we can for this first in the new era of Football Manager releases.
Testing Also Delayed
We also announced in June that we would be welcoming FMFC members within a reasonable travel vicinity to come to our campus in London and help with playtesting the new UI/UX of FM25. We received an enormous response to that, and I want to thank everyone who has volunteered and given us their availability. The playtesting will still be going ahead but as a result of the above milestones moving, the start date is shifting slightly. FMFC members who have applied will be contacted shortly with further date options as we begin to finalise the process.
This should be my last development update until we start focusing more on what’s in FM25. We have lots of good stuff to show you that we’re excited about but I want to re-iterate that FM25 is the first instalment in a new era for the game, one that will give us a lot more possibilities than we had with the previous chapter.
FM25 is just the starting point for what is a very exciting, long-term project.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Comments
You'll need to Login to comment
kingrobbo
SI said in an interview on radio a few years ago[possibly 10] and I am paraphrasing that he envisaged a match engine like the FIFA game franchise or better in a couple of years…..lol
The bottom line is they didnt deliver that, the game is bugged on release every year and we are not talking little things[check the bug report forums]
and now features are being shelved so the product will be worse IMO, there may be a slight upgrade on the match engine so what, if I wanted that I would use the FIFA product its a management game
I see issues with the graphics some features being locked -skins and other Mods
There will be hoopla and fanfare when it is announced and positive feedback/reviews too- ‘The best ever version’ said a fanboy account !
kingrobbo
If that isnt going to happen they have to say as there is a large editing community that would not buy the product due to this
Frankly it should be fully beta tested prior to release, and come out with the Beta option of the game
I cant see there being much change to the editor but I could see limitations to how we use files and share them. I can see certain things being locked to editing easily done by SI and I am surprised it hasnt happened before.
Joe5p
Yes, I was probably exaggerating, but they will take a hit, especially on PC. PC version for many is all about modding, even to a small degree. Console and mobile will be fine, because those players play knowing it will be limited mod wise. It all depends on how far behind they are and what kind of game they could produce. With features falling out regularly, and very little to go on in terms of what is new, they could end up in a catch 22 because if they release a really poor game, people will just stick to FM24 for a few years until it is sorted.