Despite Updates, Football Manager 26's Player Count Has Taken a Massive Hit

FM26 was going to lose a lot of players sooner or later. It’s no surprise that FM26 has a lot of issues, but what kept players sticking around was loyalty to the franchise and a bit of hope. 

However, the game’s active player count has dived. The game is continuing to lose players fast. Despite making a lot of progress since launch with weekly updates, the game has lost a lot of players.

FM26 went from being the most-played FM to the least-played FM in about a month. Fans are getting tired of the issues within the game and choosing to play the old ones.

Maybe the December update, which promises improvements to the Match Engine, can bring players back. But the current state of FM26 has players quitting.

What Are The Fans Saying?

Image: Sega

There was a post on r/footballmanagergames talking about FM26’s loss in active player count. The comments more or less summarize what the entire community is feeling about the game.

The game is nowhere near what I hoped it would be, and I doubt it will be for another 2 to 3 years. If FM27 looks better, I may try it after it’s been out for some time, but right now I’m looking at FM30 as the one to buy and get into FM again. 

Another comment talked about the instability of the game.

I really tried to overlook all lack of features and to get used to this UI. But if the game crashes every 3 or 4 games making me having to repeat matches all the time then I give up 

One of the comments talked about how the reduced number of players could quickly become a big issue in the long term. If fans are left unsatisfied, they might not consider buying the next game.

Over the long term, these are the most damning statistics. Sales will be fine, but if people don’t enjoy the game, they may not return for another year. All I know right now is that I’m having a blast playing the older versions and will be very wary of what SI sells next year.

Hopefully, the upcoming updates start moving the game in the right direction. Because, as of now if the state of the game doesn’t change, SI will lose a lot more players than this.