Football Manager 26 shows a lot of promise, but raises some concerns too

Following the cancellation of last year's game, Football Manager 26 feels like a make-or-break title for Sports Interactive.

The switch to the Unity engine has brought with it as many issues as it has new possibilities. While I am still very much excited to see the final product, after spending a day hands-on with FM26, I certainly have some doubts.

Let's kick off (get it?) with the good: the game looks fantastic.

I must say that the new visuals shown in the first teasers didn't look like much of an upgrade to me, but seeing them in person while playing is another story.

While the visuals are now leagues ahead of FM24, they do fall into an emerging trend of wondering, "was this worth cancelling FM25 for?" Certainly in the long run, yes, but at the moment, it's hard to say if those trees have borne fruit just yet.

Women's football is also finally in the game. This is a long-awaited addition, and although the number of leagues is fairly small to start with, it's an important feature and one that is only going to grow over time.

That being said, I will be waiting patiently for someone to mod in the English third tier so that I can manage my beloved Rugby Borough.

Perhaps my most mixed experience (though not necessarily negative) comes with the new tactics system.

After years of fans asking for it, tactics are now split between in possession and out of possession, letting you field different formations and player roles depending on whether you have the ball or not.

Along with this is a huge change to player roles, with many fan favourites like mezzalas, liberos and the like tweaked or renamed to things like 'Channel Midfielder', which does initially make it a bit clunky to differentiate between them all.

This is a welcome change, and one that gives you a bit more flexibility with how you set your team up. Though roughly five hours is nowhere near enough time to fully explore what this system offers, my initial experiences across Middlesbrough and Durham City were positive.

Some aspects of the gameplay could certainly use some tweaking. While my strikers couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, my defenders were extremely clinical; in one particular 6-1 victory in pre-season, all six goals were scored by defenders including a hat-trick from a full-back.

Thankfully, all of these elements I've discussed so far – what I would call the core of FM26 – really impressed me. I have no doubt that anyone as excited for the game as I am will enjoy the gameplay for what it is.

Where my broader doubts regarding FM26 begin to creep in are largely with its UI/UX.

It's a whole new design, and like any new UI design, it takes some getting used to.

Hotkeys and shortcuts will be in the game at launch, but many of the shortcuts I was used to, or the muscle memory to find certain menus was now useless, which meant that my first hour or so was a tad sluggish – my own fault, not the game's.

Personally, I am not a fan of the UI, but I never usually am. I install a custom skin every year anyway, as do many other players, and that certainly isn't going to change with FM26.

However, layout and design of the UI is one thing, but actually using it is another, and that's where my main gripe with FM26 so far lies.

While at the SI offices, we were told that, whereas previous entries had always built upon an existing game, FM26 has been built from the ground up. The biggest consequence of this is that years, if not decades of quality of life improvements are not immediately present.

While some of it is just the little things that were nice to have, but not a necessity, plenty of them felt like quite large oversights.

If you make a substitution in a match, then click a player profile before confirming it, all of your substitutions are reverted.

If you try to make a sub by dragging players along the scrolling bar to the right of your tactics page, the bar no longer scrolls – you have to line up the names perfectly, or otherwise move players multiple times just to get them on the pitch.

Sometimes, a menu I opened simply didn't have a back button, forcing you to go all the way back to the dashboard and make your way back to where you were.

Now, it's important to know that the build I played on was a couple of weeks behind the internal build, and that at the time, there were still a few weeks of development left – plenty of time to fix a couple of bugs and small issues.

But with so many things to solve and just a month to go before launch, do forgive me if I feel a bit uneasy about what is to come.

I am still confident that FM26 will be a success. At its core, it is the same game we've always loved, just with a souped-up game engine powering it.

I am also confident that by the time we get to FM27 and FM28, the creases will be ironed out, and we will have a definitive, best ever version of Football Manager to enjoy.

But while not so bad as to cancel it, the growing pains of the Unity switch do appear to be hitting FM26 as we approach release.

More than two decades on from the switch to Football Manager, there are still plenty of people who have chosen to stick with their beloved Championship Manager, and I think we're about to see that happen again.

As much good as Football Manager 26 brings to the table, I think there are certainly aspects it takes away, too, and I can certainly see it being a very divisive game among fans.

But, as I said earlier, there is only so much you can glean from an afternoon playing a game as deep as Football Manager.

Once the beta, and more importantly the full game, roll around, we'll get our answers as to whether this is usher in FM's glorious new era, or the bumpy road to that finish line.

Football Manager 26 releases on 4th November 2025 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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