Sports Interactive has canceled Football Manager 25 after multiple delays. The delays were part of the studio making a transition from the SIOS or Sports Interactive Operating System to the Unity Engine. The game was being delayed to ensure the quality but the team behind it “haven’t achieved what we set out to do in enough areas of the game, despite the phenomenal efforts of our team.”
- All versions of Football Manager for all platforms are being canceled. The list includes all the platforms on which the game was confirmed to be released.
- You can obtain a refund automatically on your pre-purchase of the game.
- The company released the cancellation news because of stakeholder compliance.
- No season data from 2024/25 will carry over to Football Manager 2024.
- Extend of Football Manager 2025 on subscription platform is in talks.
The cancellation came due to the game not meeting the standard, the studio had no hope of making the game fully functional even after the delays as they stated “we would not achieve the standard required, even with the adjusted timeline.”
Sports Interactive was thinking about releasing Football Manager 25 in its current state with future updates to fix the issues and make the game better. But they pulled out the idea because “that’s not the right thing to do.”
Whilst many areas of the game have hit our targets, the overarching player experience and interface is not where we need it to be. As extensive evaluation has demonstrated, including consumer playtesting, we have clear validation for the new direction of the game and are getting close – however, we’re too far away from the standards you deserve.
We could have pressed on, released FM25 in its current state, and fixed things down the line – but that’s not the right thing to do. We were also unwilling to go beyond a March release as it would be too late in the football season to expect players to then buy another game later in the year.
The company promises to take everything it learned from the failure of Football Manager 2025 to make sure the future release sees optimum success. The studio will not work on the 2025 release, as they are pushing the resources for newer titles to make sure it reaches the expectations of the players.
