Football Manager was once one of the year's most reliable annual sights, alongside Call of Duty or EA's now-off-brand FIFA, but for the first time in two decades, the next entry has been officially canceled.
Publisher Sega and developer Sports Interactive announced the news earlier today, writing that Football Manager 2025 had been scrapped after two previous delays to "shift our focus to the next release," presumably Football Manager 2026 or 2027. In an era where annual sports series will come out regardless of how good or functional/dysfunctional they are, the decision to can it altogether is kinda admirable.
"We know this will come as a huge disappointment, especially given that the release date has already moved twice, and you have been eagerly anticipating the first gameplay reveal," the announcement blog reads. "We can only apologize for the time it has taken to communicate this decision. Due to stakeholder compliance, including legal and financial regulations, today was the earliest date that we could issue this statement," it continues, likely referring to Sega's quarterly financial results.
Sports Interactive says the delay comes from a "variety of challenges that we've been open about to date," including the tight timelines it laid out with the game's previous delay, "and many more unforeseen." The developer explains that "the overarching player experience and interface is not where we need it to be," despite getting "clear validation for the new direction" via recent playtests.
What's most eye-catching in the announcement is that the studio acknowledges it could have "pressed on," released the game in an unfinished state, "and fixed things down the line" as so, so many major releases have done in the past. "But that's not the right thing to do," it says. "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."
Sega's financial results claim the next release will be "taking over development assets" from the scrapped FM2025. The now-canceled game was set for release in March, but the developer assures that all pre-orders will be refunded.
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