At the beginning of September, fans of the managerial simulation Football Manager were surprised by the announcement that due to the new graphics engine, FM25 would not be ready for release, and the game was postponed to November. Today, however, another blow followed and the game was moved to March of next year.
Sports Interactive’s announcement is reproduced below
After careful consideration, Sports Interactive has made the difficult decision to further delay the release of Football Manager 25. After discussions with SEGA, our licensors and partners, we have agreed that it is best to delay the launch until March 2025. Dates release for individual platforms will follow after confirmation.
In our last development update in September, we explained that we had to push back the original FM25 release date to give ourselves more time to deliver the best possible experience for this first installment in the new era of Football Manager. This extra time was not enough to ensure that the quality of the game and the experience met your expectations and our very high standards.
In the previous blog, we explained that it was a difficult development cycle for the studio. Many things happened more slowly than we expected – even though that everyone in the team worked at an incredible speed, trying to get everything done. Deadlines are overć were tight and, as many of your recent comments have rightly pointed out, we were simply pushing too hard and were in danger of compromising our usual standards. This has put enormous pressure on everyone working at the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best possible game.
FM25 is the biggest technical and visual progress in the series for one generation. We simply cannot jeopardize the delivery of this pivotal point in the history of Football Manager by releasing it in November. Of course, none of us expected this to be seven weeks before our release, but in the spirit of our studio values, we always consider the bigger picture – and the bigger picture here is that we need this extra time to deliver games that we can all be proud.
To a large number of you who are olderć ordered the game, thank you for your trust and support. However, given the delay, if you wish to request a refund, please contact your retailer. Something you noticed missing from our September 30th post was a mention of Early Access on PC/Mac. We can confirm that it will be available before the new release date and, once we know for sure how long that period will be, we will let you know at the earliest opportunity. The new gameplay announcement will be pushed to the end of January 2025.
We are aware that this will greatly disappoint you. We share that disappointment and we are very sorry. Thank you for your reading and patience. This means a lot to us as we continue to work on creating a new era for Football Manager.