Football Manager 26 is out today, but it’s not the full day-one release you were likely expecting. In the Sports Interactive community forum, admin Dan Sheppard confirmed that the game is skipping the day-one patch for today. The full update will go live tomorrow on Steam, November 5, at 8 am PST. At the time of writing this article, the game has only just launched, with the only significant change being the removal of the “Report Bug” button and the beta watermark.
Confirmation of our plans for updating #FM26 ahead of full launch tomorrow
— FM Assist (@FM_Assist) November 3, 2025
More information and full release timings across platformshttps://t.co/0cJpQVTktm
What To Expect From Football Manager 26
We’ve been talking about FM26 for the better part of a month now, and the long-awaited follow-up looks to have a bunch of interesting new features. There’s a new revamped UI, plenty of playable leagues, and the community has already added an interesting first-person POV mod. The PS5 console edition costs $60, and the same goes for Steam on both macOS and Windows.
Coming back around to the updates, we did get a final update while the beta was ongoing, and that October 31st build is going to serve as the day one release of Football Manager 26. Confusingly, Sports Interactive states there will still be an update when you install the game today, but that will only serve to remove the Beta watermark and Report Bug forum link. If you bought a physical copy of the game on PS5, you’ll get an update that brings you to the latest build (October 31st version, for now).
Fans were quick to point out that this simply means you aren’t getting anything new if you already played the beta. Some are also recommending against starting main saves until the 5th, as there are bound to be bugs, glitches, and other issues that will crossover from the beta. That’s a valid take, because if you’re going to release the actual full game a day after release, why even bother releasing it on November 4th? Either way, we’re looking forward to what Sports Interactive has cooked up, and hopefully, this doesn’t translate to more issues and miscommunication.
