Football Manager fans, this is your last chance to buy FM24

Following the full release of Football Manager 26, it has now been confirmed that its predecessor, Football Manager 2024, is set to be delisted from storefronts.

FM26 is the first game in the series for two years, with the switch to the Unity engine forcing the cancellation of last year's game.

And while developer Sports Interactive has long heralded the switch as the beginning of a new era for Football Manager, the results have proven less than convincing.

Fans have found the game's new UI frustrating to use, citing missing quality-of-life features, failure to use the space adequately and it feeling more sluggish than its pre-Unity counterpart – all issues we ourselves mentioned in our FM26 review.

As such, it was expected that many players would choose to remain on FM24 for the time being, choosing to wait for the new version of the game to improve across a few years before switching over.

However, that may not be possible for everyone, with SI confirming that, starting from 5th November, FM24 will start being removed from various storefronts, meaning it could be your last chance to purchase it.

According to a graphic posted to the official FM website, FM24 will be delisted from Steam and the Epic Games Store on 5th November at 4pm GMT and 2pm GMT respectively.

However, for us at least, FM24 appears to have already been pre-emptively removed from Steam, several hours before the supposed deadline to purchase it.

The game will still be available on the Windows and Xbox stores, and via Xbox Game Pass until 10am UTC on 16th November, while the PS5 version leaves its store on 18th November at 9am local time.

It should be noted that, while players will not be able to purchase the game from these dates onwards, anyone who already owns the game will be able to continue playing as normal.

SI is no stranger to delisting its previous games, especially from services like Game Pass.

However, owing to how controversial FM26 has already proven with players, this may come across as a means of ensuring players engage with the new game.

Similarly, those playing FM24 via a Game Pass subscription will now be forced to purchase the game separately if they wish to continue playing, something which is unlikely to go down well with large sections of the fanbase.

This would not be the first time that FM players have refused to engage with a new entry in the series.

During the switch from Championship Manager to Football Manager, many players infamously continued to play the former, with many still enjoying the original series to this day.

Whether or not SI will decide to renege on this decision remains to be seen, but what is almost a certainty is that this will mark another unfortunate blight on the launch of FM's new era.

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