After a year away due to the late cancellation of Football Manager 25, Sports Interactive really needed Football Manager 26 to arrive as a smash hit, uniting players of all stripes in praise. Unfortunately, it’s been quite the opposite, with players instead broadly agreeing that the game has a lot of work to do to live up to the series’ expectations.
Here’s what players are saying about what’s wrong with the game and what needs to be fixed to turn things around:
A Crate Of Bugs With Some Football Management Mixed In
By far the most common complaints coming out of the early beta and into the game’s full release have been issues of reliability. An ill-timed crash can be devastating, particularly for players not yet accustomed to keeping steady and frequent auto-saves in place to deal with such a situation.
Crashing out may be the main event for bugs and errors, but the game has had no shortage of other issues, either. From graphics bugs where colors in data graphs make it hard to know who is doing what to pop-up boxes that stop responding or refuse to close, the game has been a minefield of misfortunes, both minor and major.
An Appeal To Non-PC Gamers Leaves OG Fans Feeling Abandoned
It’s no secret that Sports Interactive is looking to expand the reach of the game across mobile and console platforms. While there is nothing inherently wrong with reaching new fans and meeting them where they’re at, many PC gamers feel it has come at the expense of the game’s PC players. While the goal of the new layout is designed around making it easier to navigate without a mouse and keyboard, many PC players feel they have had the opposite effect on the game’s computer-based core.
A World That Feels Less Lived In
Many players who get into FM games get into them for the stories told by the game’s complex and far-reaching simulation engine. Unfortunately, in the new game, this has left many players feeling like it’s been a struggle to maintain that same level of interaction with the game world, as there’s just not enough to go off.
Players have bemoaned the little details, like the game’s skin taking on the color scheme of your current club, while noting it’s not as easy to track results elsewhere and understand what’s going on in your virtual football world. All of this combines to make for a less engrossing experience on the touchlines.
Too Much Football, Not Enough Management
Football Manager is ultimately a game about winning football matches, but some fans feel this new game has leaned too hard into getting you to the “fun” while undercutting the gameplay meant to influence how those matches go.
The removal of spacebar advancement was seen by many in the community as a repudiation of a slower, more in-depth approach to the game meant to encourage zipping from match to match. Although this can make for quicker progression through seasons to get further into a save in a shorter period, it comes at the expense of not engaging with the game’s deep mechanics as fully. Response to the game has been mixed; unfortunately, it’s primarily been a mix of “this is hopeless” and “this is bad but is the core of a better future game,” with those outright loving FM 26 a distinct minority. Where do you stand, and what do you hope to see changed as the series continues?
