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Club managers across nearly any division can rest easy in the knowledge that their performance can hardly be worse than Football Manager 26. The latest entry in the long-running management sim is being criticized for bugs, a poor UI, and a lack of features present in previous installments, to the point where it's now one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam.
Sports Interactive and Sega's latest Football Manager game arrived on November 4, following a brief period of beta access for those who preordered, and PC players aren't happy. The Steam release sits at Mostly Negative with over 2,100 reviews, as people make their feelings known about this iteration.
"Setting aside the obvious (but aggravating) bugs and other technical issues, as they will most likely be addressed in updates and hotfixes, I think FM 26 simply wasn't ambitious enough in the right places," says the top review on Valve's store. Others are more pointed.
"I don't think I've ever been so disappointed by a game I was looking forward to playing," says another. "A million glitches and bugs besides, cannot recommend this to anyone," a third states. "Having played FM for 2 decades I can say that this is the worst iteration ever."
Those are just a few among many, with a large contingent of longtime fans who’ve been playing the series for decades who now feel quite short-changed. It’s not all completely negative, as some praise the improved tactical control and match recreation, but these facets seem to pale in comparison to what amounts to a pretty miserable experience for many.
Right now, FM26 is the seventh-worst-rated game ever across the whole of Steam's catalog. Not the kind of chart anyone wants to be a part of, and to do so 24 hours from launch is harsh.
It doesn't help that FM26 arrives after a two-year break, as FM25 was cancelled, and is the first entry built using the Unity engine. Expectations were higher than normal, and they certainly haven't been met within the PC community. Sports Interactive has yet to comment, but the devs will need to make substantial changes to cause any turnaround here.
Score some easier goals with the best football games to play right now.
