Gaming Football Manager 2025 | Delayed til March 2025

[SilentWitness]

this

it takes them a year to make relatively minor changes to the existing game, no wonder it's taken them far longer when it's an entirely new game - even taking into account the extra year they've had on it.

Don't make promises you can't keep.

 

[Alex99]

this

it takes them a year to make relatively minor changes to the existing game, no wonder it's taken them far longer when it's an entirely new game - even taking into account the extra year they've had on it.

Everyone would have been far more understanding if they hadn't released FM24 (at full price), despite essentially advertising it as FM23 with a fresh coat of paint, and then excused the lack of new features with the promise - "FM25 is going to absolutely blow your bollocks off with how amazing it'll be". We're now a year down the line and they've announced more removed features than new ones, and have delayed the release of the game until almost halfway through season, having basically admitted that they're struggling to make the game playable.

If they needed an extra year again, they should have just said so and announced that FM25 was actually going to be a £10-15 update for FM24 while they tried to get FM26 ready on the new engine, rather than Miles constantly releasing "updates" in which he tells us how "people don't really use this feature and this one didn't even do anything, so we're getting rid, and I've had to bin a holiday so I hope you're all happy with yourselves".

 

[Berbaclass]

Also, I don't think a lot of people realise that they're basically recreating the entire game. They can't just leave features as they are, as they won't work. It's not a copy and paste thing. That's why features have been cut. They haven't found the time to basically create them anew for FM25.

Sorry Miles

 

[Alex99]

Also, I don't think a lot of people realise that they're basically recreating the entire game. They can't just leave features as they are, as they won't work. It's not a copy and paste thing. That's why features have been cut. They haven't found the time to basically create them anew for FM25.

If I was running a company that released annual editions of a game, I'd simply not promise that the next version was going to be amazing and packed full of great new features when I hadn't given myself enough time to even include all of the existing features.

 

[saik]

If I was running a company that released annual editions of a game, I'd simply not promise that the next version was going to be amazing and packed full of great new features when I hadn't given myself enough time to even include all of the existing features.

But it's Miles though. He'd rather promise everything and then tell the world how he had to cancel his holiday because they can't get the game completed in time.

 

[Alex99]

But it's Miles though. He'd rather promise everything and then tell the world how he had to cancel his holiday because they can't get the game completed in time.

Yeah, I know he's a prat. I don't understand why people are going to bat for him.

This was very easy for SI. Just come out at literally any point over the past six months and go, "Development hasn't gone as smoothly as planned, so we're pushing back the new engine stuff and aiming to have it ready for FM26. In the meantime, owners of FM24 will be able to purchase an official data update for [nominal fee], moving the game to the start of the 2024/25 season and reflecting all transfers, promotions, etc. Buyers of this DLC will also receive a winter update as usual."

Anyone pre-ordering this version is, frankly, an idiot.

 

[Leg-End]

It was better when it was.

It so painfully was wasn't it.

 

[Frosty]

Are they even a small team anymore? Sports Interactive have nearly 300 employees and backed by Sega, this ain't a game built in a bedroom by 30 odd people anymore.

Backed by Sega seems to be a hex. The Total War series isn't in much better shape with the same backing.

 

[Berbaclass]

Yeah, I know he's a prat. I don't understand why people are going to bat for him.

This was very easy for SI. Just come out at literally any point over the past six months and go, "Development hasn't gone as smoothly as planned, so we're pushing back the new engine stuff and aiming to have it ready for FM26. In the meantime, owners of FM24 will be able to purchase an official data update for [nominal fee], moving the game to the start of the 2024/25 season and reflecting all transfers, promotions, etc. Buyers of this DLC will also receive a winter update as usual."

Anyone pre-ordering this version is, frankly, an idiot.

I don’t think it’s possible to pre-order right now.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Why are people acting like it's getting cancelled? It's just a slight delay in the announcement. The drama over a video game..

 

[stepic]

Yeah, I know he's a prat. I don't understand why people are going to bat for him.

This was very easy for SI. Just come out at literally any point over the past six months and go, "Development hasn't gone as smoothly as planned, so we're pushing back the new engine stuff and aiming to have it ready for FM26. In the meantime, owners of FM24 will be able to purchase an official data update for [nominal fee], moving the game to the start of the 2024/25 season and reflecting all transfers, promotions, etc. Buyers of this DLC will also receive a winter update as usual."

Anyone pre-ordering this version is, frankly, an idiot.

i wouldn't call that 'very easy'. to essentially forego a year's worth of revenue and replace it with just a 'nominal fee' to upgrade would have been a massive call to make - and a massive financial hit to the company.

and yes, while it's true the delay is "until almost halfway through the season" it's usually only released early November anyway, so we're talking about a 3 week delay at the moment. it's significant but not ridiculous.

i definitely think Miles is a bit of a prat too, but I can see why they are doing everything they can to make sure this version gets released this year. however i agree they definitely should have foreseen the issues far earlier and announced some of the things being removed way earlier too - it would have come across a bit more professional than them announcing these things so late in the day.

 

[roseguy64]

Yeah, but they released a shoddy game in FM24 and admitted it was because they were concentrating on FM25 only to then tell everyone that development for that game isn't going well. It's not like they haven't had the time to do it.

They have but lots of things go wrong in game development so not surprised. They set themselves a deadline they couldn't meet.

 

[roseguy64]

Yeah, I know he's a prat. I don't understand why people are going to bat for him.

This was very easy for SI. Just come out at literally any point over the past six months and go, "Development hasn't gone as smoothly as planned, so we're pushing back the new engine stuff and aiming to have it ready for FM26. In the meantime, owners of FM24 will be able to purchase an official data update for [nominal fee], moving the game to the start of the 2024/25 season and reflecting all transfers, promotions, etc. Buyers of this DLC will also receive a winter update as usual."

Anyone pre-ordering this version is, frankly, an idiot.

I'm not going to bat for him. I'm just able to understand what's happened and it's not made me angry. I don't really take promises like what they made as golden is probably helping my reaction here.

Besides better to have a playable improved game minus some features than keeping in features that need a complete overhaul to improve them and taking away resources that make 90% of the game great. Up to SI deliver on that 90% being great.

 

[Berbaclass]

Why are people acting like it's getting cancelled? It's just a slight delay in the announcement. The drama over a video game..

It's not though is it.

 

[SilentWitness]

They have but lots of things go wrong in game development so not surprised. They set themselves a deadline they couldn't meet.

That's on them. I don't have a lot of sympathy for them, especially when their lead, Miles acts like a jackass and that he's better than the FM community and the fanbase. If he and they were less up themselves and more transparent in the first place, the disappointing announcements regarding FM25 perhaps wouldn't be seen with the same level of negativity and furore.

It's also damaging for the cohort of FM streamers/YouTubers they've built up who get a lot of their revenue during the first month or so of the game releasing. A release closer to December and the downturn in ad rev is not good for them.

 

[V.O.]

Why are people acting like it's getting cancelled? It's just a slight delay in the announcement. The drama over a video game..

If anything, this might be one of the more civilised video game related threads on the caf. It's hardly full-on console wars.

The only two camps here are "Miles is a prat but..." and "Miles is a prat and..."

 

[stepic]

It's not though is it.

assuming no further delays (i know), it's 3 weeks. hardly the end of the world, is it?

 

[Berbaclass]

assuming no further delays (i know), it's 3 weeks. hardly the end of the world, is it?

In the wider context people are not just annoyed about the delay.

 

[stepic]

In the wider context people are not just annoyed about the delay.

ah, i see what you mean.

 

[Lay]

Cut Miles some slack. He was really looking forward to his holiday and he had to cancel it.

 

[Lay]

SI balls'd up FM24 with promises they couldn't keep (J league) which they then tried to hide before Miles had to apologise for it.

They fecked up the Inside forward role (FM22) and promised to fix it next patch but it took until FM23 for them to somewhat fix it.

 

[Lu Tze]

Miles is one of the most obvious shite bastard bosses and clearly incompetent managers in all of gaming. He's awful to his customers, god knows how he is to staff.

FM25 is going to be a disaster when it first releases, I can't wait to see it. Not like previous FMs won't still be there to play if we want. Given newgen faces for the last 10+ years, we'll probably end up playing PS1 Spyro era graphics and be told to be grateful.

 

[Hoof the ball]

In this year's FM 2025, we've not only renovated the entire game from the ground up, but we've radically re-created the scouting system from scratch. Our new feature, LuckyScout, our revolutionary AI scouting system, now collates information from very well-known players and presents an almost endless supply of hindsight advice to delve into at your convenience.

In order to facilitate this new and ground-breaking feature, we have unfortunately had to remove the 3D match engine, at least for now.

 

[sebsheep]

In this year's FM 2025, we've not only renovated the entire game from the ground up, but we've radically re-created the scouting system from scratch. Our new feature, LuckyScout, our revolutionary AI scouting system, now collates information from very well-known players and presents an almost endless supply of hindsight advice to delve into at your convenience.

In order to facilitate this new and ground-breaking feature, we have unfortunately had to remove the 3D match engine, at least for now.

Can 2 negatives be a positive?

 

[SilentWitness]

Been watching a few videos of the FM show and their take on stuff. Also not impressed.

They make a good point that the next dev blog really needs to showcase the match engine as that's what all this mess has realistically been for. There will be major red flags if they don't show it.

 

[NoLogo]

Didn't follow much of the progress of fm25 so far, didn't even realize it's such a shit show right now.

 

[Hoof the ball]

Been watching a few videos of the FM show and their take on stuff. Also not impressed.

They make a good point that the next dev blog really needs to showcase the match engine as that's what all this mess has realistically been for. There will be major red flags if they don't show it.

When they do show it, it'll probably look like Ultimate Soccer Manager '98

 

[Berbaclass]

Interesting if true

 

[V.O.]

Interesting if true

... isn't that basically just the old arrows but in text form?

 

[Berbaclass]

RIP Segundo Volante and Mezzala

 

[SilentWitness]

What the feck are some of those roles. I thought they were making the game simpler.

 

[Hoof the ball]

What the feck are some of those roles. I thought they were making the game simpler.

If they're making the tactical system more complex, providing more scope to play exactly the way you want to play, both in defensive and offensive transition, is a good thing

 

[didz]

I quite like the look of that. Anything that freshens up the tactical side of the game has my attention.

It does seem like all of the out of possession roles could easily just be integrated into player instructions though. If they aren't cutting those as well, of course.

 

[SilentWitness]

If they're making the tactical system more complex, providing more scope to play exactly the way you want to play, both in defensive and offensive transition, is a good thing

Sure, but some of that stuff is just bollocks

 

[Berbaclass]

Sure, but some of that stuff is just bollocks

Based on?

 

[Hoof the ball]

I quite like the look of that. Anything that freshens up the tactical side of the game has my attention.

It does seem like all of the out of possession roles could easily just be integrated into player instructions though. If they aren't cutting those as well, of course.

Perhaps, but at present it's very difficult to replicate some real life tactics, since there's not enough role specialisation with the current tactical system to do a great job at perfectly mimicking the likes of Pep, Klopp or Ancelotti, on and off the ball. Sure, you can use inverted players in FM24, but it's very rudimentary and limiting in terms of having someone play perfectly how an inverted player would play in real life. Plus, you can't re-create those wing rotations that Arsenal and City do, with three man triangles at the side and having runners in between the FB and the CB. Things like these are just not possible in the current iteration of the tactical system.

So, I'm all for refining, recreating, making more complex and built upon a new match engine.

I want to be able to set up like ten Hag in FM perfectly, and play just as bad as we do in real life!

 

[simonhch]

This is so obviously going to be utter shite. Zero chance I buy this on first release. Will likely at best wait until the first patch or patches come out but almost certainly going to skip this until at least FM26, when you’d hope they’d be back on track. We’ll see.

 

[saik]

I'm pretty sure none of those would have any real effect and we will have Miles saying they were useless and taking it out of the game in a couple of years.

 

[didz]

Perhaps, but at present it's very difficult to replicate some real life tactics, since there's not enough role specialisation with the current tactical system to do a great job at perfectly mimicking the likes of Pep, Klopp or Ancelotti, on and off the ball. Sure, you can use inverted players in FM24, but it's very rudimentary and limiting in terms of having someone play perfectly how an inverted player would play in real life. Plus, you can't re-create those wing rotations that Arsenal and City do, with three man triangles at the side and having runners in between the FB and the CB. Things like these are just not possible in the current iteration of the tactical system.

So, I'm all for refining, recreating, making more complex and built upon a new match engine.

I want to be able to set up like ten Hag in FM perfectly, and play just as bad as we do in real life!

I don't think roles are gonna be the answer to getting wing rotations - that would need to be a team instruction like overlap right. And I've no idea if the ME is gonna be able to handle that, but maybe eventually.

But like I said, the more roles and more true to life roles the better in my opinion. The tactical side is where there should be some complexity. 90% of my FM saves are based on recreating the tactical style of a particular team. Like, whenever we are linked with a new manager I love booting up a new United save and having a go at guessing what they'd do with the squad and how they'd get us playing. Or when I watch an interesting side, past or present, I see if I can mimic them with another team. So the tactics screen is probably the one I spend most of my time on, meaning it's the one where I want as many toys to play with as possible.

More roles (that makes sense) should make AI managers more challenging to face as well. FM24 did make some improvements here, but the AI managers need those tools, as they can't do things the player can like add PIs that drastically alter how a role behaves.

And absolutely, my first save will be trying to work out exactly what Ten Hag wants for the team and proving that it can work!

 

[Lay]

Interesting changes to tactics which have been much needed. But my faith in SI is so low that you'll know they'll somehow balls it up and promise it will be fixed for FM26