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Finally, after two years without a new Football Manager title and unrivalled anticipation, FM26 is here for all to enjoy. After Sports Interactive cancelled Football Manager 25 following an original delay of the FM25 release from November 2024 to March 2025, it's fair to say that FM26 has been the most anticipated Football Manager release from Sports Interactive for years. A game that’s been years in the making, players were promised a refreshed managerial experience that lays new foundations, redefining football storytelling. Honestly, this sounded too good to be true, but after the releases of FM22, FM23, and FM24, which all felt like the same re-released game, I think this gave a large portion of the FM community big hopes for FM26. Ahead of FM26, Sports Interactive promised an overhaul of the game, with FM26 running on the Unity engine for the first time ever, creating the best graphics we’ve ever seen in Football Manager. Along with the new Unity engine, the long-awaited addition of women’s football was also confirmed for FM26, with the new release promising to be the game that players have been begging for for years. But, after spending days playing the FM26 Beta, does FM26 live up to the hype after its two-year wait, or has it proven to be a bit of a letdown? These are my honest thoughts on Football Manager 26. First things first, when you enter FM26 for the first time, you’re greeted by a brand new User Interface (UI), with the home screen now called the portal, a hub where, in one place, you can find your inbox, fixtures, news and much more. You’ll also notice with the overhauled UI that the sidebar on the left of the screen from past FM games is gone. It’s no more, so you’re going to have to take some time to get used to the fresh lick of paint that Sports Interactive have given the game. The new menus were described as one of the largest re-designs in the history of FM, and this is true. I’d be lying if I said the new UI was easy to understand and get used to. The new UI features smaller panels and minimalist icons, which do look a bit easier on the eye, but the problem is that when you first load up the game, experienced FM player or not, you don’t know what these little icons mean. So, you have to learn what they all mean, just for the icons to make sense. Of course, the idea of this is to save you time and give you more time to manage your team rather than menu surfing, but it does feel like learning the game from scratch all over again. This is a good appeal for new players, but for returning players who just want to get stuck into the game, it’s a little bit of a nightmare. Now, I do feel that it’s harsh to judge the game solely over the new-look UI. Over time, this is something you’ll get used to, and give it a few weeks, these complaints will be gone. It’s like when you move into a new house. When you first arrive, it doesn’t feel like home, but once you've settled in, you'll be just fine. Once you get past the confusing new UI, the new menus are visually pleasing. They do look better than FM24. I also think that if you are a new player, the onboarding and tutorials are extremely detailed for FM26 and make the game easy to understand from the get-go. I think the best new addition to FM26 has been the new Dual Formation system on your team's tactic page. Now, you can view and set up how your team lines up both in possession (IP) and out of possession (OOP), with two different squad pages being shown. Simply, you are managing two phases of the game. Some big changes have been made to long-standing features, so for example, the role system has been overhauled. Gone are the days of legacy roles and duties like attack, support, and defend. Now, you have more detailed roles available to choose from. In fact, there are 39 new roles in FM26. The new IP and OOP tactics are great as they allow managers to have way more control over how their teams set up at both ends of the pitch. But I didn't find that it translated perfectly in-game. OOP tactics worked fine, but sometimes, the match engine wasn’t translating my IP tactics exactly how I wanted. In my first save, I used Crystal Palace, where my IP tactics were to hit teams on the counterattack, but frustratingly, my counterattacks felt very static and slow, not how I had originally planned. I found that sometimes, creating clear-cut chances didn’t come easily for my team. I’d even add instructions like discourage long-range shots, but the team would continue to do so. The easiest praise to give FM26 is the improvements to graphics. FM26 has been built on the new Unity Engine for the first time ever, which gives more realistic stadiums, better player movement, improved lighting, more active crowds and more. When it comes to player movement, I think it’s night and day above previous FM games, but let's be honest, visually, it’s not hard to beat the previous FM games. But, what I will say is that if FM is the only game you play, these graphics are phenomenal. If you play any other video games, football-related or not, the graphics are still subpar to what we’re used to in 2025. These aren’t groundbreaking graphics. Yes, they’re much better than FM24, but FM24’s 2D graphics were already years behind. It’s a big improvement, but it still feels behind the curve graphics-wise. Another big addition for FM26 was the Premier League license. The biggest league in the world is now fully licensed and available in FM26, and I think this is a fantastic addition. It’s a much-needed one; it adds to the realism, and anything Premier League-related just looks cool. It’s great to finally see this major league fully incorporated into the game. Women’s football is an addition that’s been spoken about for years in FM, and it’s finally been added to the game for FM26. In typical Football Manager fashion, it’s as detailed as you’d expect, but not as in-depth as the men’s leagues. Take English football, for example. In FM26, the top two divisions of women’s football are included in the game, while in countries like Germany, Italy and France, only the top division is included. There's also not much difference visually in how they perform compared to the men. In games like EA Sports FC , women players usually feel more agile and quick due to their height and build compared to men, but this isn’t the case for FM 26. A save in the women's game also offers some new challenges compared to the men’s. Lower budgets, shorter contracts, and transfers between rival clubs are more common, so you have to deal with some different challenges than usual. So, a lot has been added to FM26, but here are a few things I’ve noticed that aren’t in the new game. To me, the biggest and worst change to FM26 is that you can no longer shout at your players. I don't care if this added nothing to the game. It made me feel like the manager. I want it back, I want to shout at my players! There are lots of other smaller features that regular players will notice are missing. I found that the ability to compare players who aren’t at your club has gone, as well as comparing staff. The spacebar key no longer takes you to messages, a change that will take getting used to. Heatmaps, pass maps, stats during the game and also what stats you want to see are all gone, and there seems to be limited customisation on replay speeds and angles. Coaching attributes have also changed. Now, coach attributes aren’t judged by numbers, but instead, by an ability description. Another small change that absolutely no one asked for. Another feature that is missing completely is international management. Yes, you heard that right, there is no international management in FM26 from launch. Sports Interactive has confirmed that international management will be added to the game as a free content update next year, with FM securing the rights to the FIFA World Cup. When it’s finally added, it will be a welcome addition, but completely removing it from launch is a poor decision in my opinion. I think this impacts the value of the game. When paying for FM26, you expect features like international management to be in from the get-go, so this was a bit frustrating. Overall, FM26 has impressed me but frustrated me just as much. We’ve finally got an improved match engine, women’s football, and my favourite addition, the new in and out of possession tactic set-up, but I can’t shake this feeling that too many changes have been made to the UI. For a game where you spend a lot of time in the menus, I feel that a lot of unnecessary and frustrating changes were made, that’s left me finding it difficult to navigate my way around the game. When comparing it to FM24, improvements have been made, but there are also a few factors I’ve not enjoyed. So, all in all, FM26 is a fine addition to the Football Manager series, but it’s far from groundbreaking. Football Manager 26 Review: 3/5
