A significant update on the future of Football Manager has given fans an insight into what we can expect in the coming years.
Miles Jacobson, director at Sports Interactive, the studio responsible for Football Manager, has released a blog revealing key projects in development.
Here, he explains how the team will transform your FM experience in the short and long-term.
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The 51-year-old talks about the unprecedented success of FM23 – their most played game of all time – before turning his attention to the upcoming release.
"Football Manager 2024 will be the 20th game in Sports Interactive’s Football Manager series, and will be the last of its kind," he writes.
"It’s a love letter to football and the FM series as we know it. It’s the closing of this chapter of our history."
Miles says users can expect a host of improvements, big and small, both in new features and revamps to existing areas of the game.
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Then, as a sneak preview, he drops one of the most requested features from their forums over the last 20 years – the ability to transfer saved games from one version of FM to the next.
"From our data, we know that people play FM in a wide range of different ways," he says.
"Many will play each version until the next one is released, while others may continue with previous iterations not wanting to give up on their save game. As the best 'create your own story' game there is, this is both a blessing and a curse.
"But, thanks to many years of hard work from across the studio, I’m delighted to announce you’ll be able to bring your FM23 career into FM24 across all platforms.
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"This means, when you first launch Football Manager 2024, you'll be given the option to continue your FM23 story, picking up exactly where you left off."
Miles also reveals that Football Manager 2025 will be the first Football Manager release to use a new engine called Unity.
"Incredibly well-known in the gaming space, Unity powers many of the best-known games in the world, from Genshin Impact through to the Cities Skyline series," says Jacobson.
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"The switch to Unity means there is the possibility of better-quality graphics across all supported devices, however it should be expected that there will be some changes to the minimum spec requirements, which will be communicated ahead of FM25’s release.
"For those of you who are not familiar with gaming technologies – in simple terms, FM25 will have a significantly better looking matchday experience - both on the pitch and the supporting stadium environments, alongside a vastly improved user interface that will dramatically improve how you navigate through screens and access all the information available to you as manager.
"We’ll also have new technology for Newgens and manager creation which are already looking really promising at this early stage."
The FM25 cycle will also see the long-awaited introduction of women’s football to the Football Manager series.
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"Before I go into the details, I want to acknowledge that since we first announced our commitment to introduce the women’s game back in July 2021, we haven’t provided any further public updates on the project which has led to speculation and some frustration," he says.
"The facts are that we’ve made really good progress in many areas, including research, the match engine and translation.
"But there are other areas that haven’t made enough advancements, a lot of which are legal issues. The women's game deserves to be the best it possibly can be when it is released - and the new graphics engine will help deliver that.
"Supporting us in bringing this project to life are some key people from inside the women’s game, who are passionate about helping us deliver the most authentic experience possible.
"We look forward to announcing some of those in a future development update blog."
To sum everything up:
FM24 – Marking our 20th anniversary of Football Manager by delivering the most complete version in the series' history, across Steam, Epic, Microsoft Store, Game Pass, PS5, Xbox, Apple Arcade, Switch and iOS & Android for mobile.
FM25 – For the first time in decades, a true sequel. The Unity engine will bring a new graphics engine, a fresh user interface and advanced animations, alongside the introduction of women's football (plus lots more, across platforms).
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Featured Image Credit: Football ManagerTopics: Football Manager, Gaming, Premier League
