Football Manager 2025

[moore_94]

https://www.footballmanager.com/news/future-football-manager?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=dev_update

 

FM25: THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE LIKE NOTHING BEFORE

As mentioned before, FM24 will be the closing of a chapter after 20 years at the top of the management simulation league. But it is far from being the end of our story…

 

For many years now, we have been planning the next revolution of Football Manager, something we haven’t claimed since the 3D engine first came into the series back in FM09. 

 

With the average play times we enjoy and the health of our game’s performance in the market, it's an important decision to get right. How can we bring new people to the series, whilst not alienating our existing audience? How can we cater for all the different ways that people play our games?

 

There are a number of key projects we have been working on for some time now that we’re supremely confident will propel Football Manager forward for all of our player types.

 

PROJECT DRAGONFLY: A DEEP DIVE INTO OUR TECHNOLOGY

We last had a revamp of the graphics engine running behind our match engine in 2017.

 

The last major update of the engine behind the wider game, such as the UI, was way earlier than that. 

 

Whilst what we did in 2017 was good for the 3D engine, some other things actually went backwards from a consumer-facing perspective. For example, we made the decision back then that the faces of Newgens would appear on the player bodies in the graphics engine, but the technology we use for that has stagnated and we’ve been a bit stuck. The rendering engine we chose to use also didn't keep pace with other engines - and nor did our own internal engine.
 
Whilst we’ve constantly been having discussions over the years on how to improve our backend technology, back in January 2020 a small group in the team were assigned to start discussing the future more intently across the studio, to work out what to do to really push our technology forward. This became known as Project Dragonfly; a root and branch look at all the technology we use in the studio. Alongside this, we also started looking at different business models, platforms, working practices, and Games as a Service, and if and how we might tie these things together.
 
The original plan was to deep-dive into the potential and then propel the learnings forward with the aim of a new-look Football Manager for FM22. Due to the pandemic and the impact on working practices at the studio, Project Dragonfly slowed down, mainly so we could deliver the games that we did during this time on time, which many other studios weren’t able to do. So we switched the planned revolution to FM23.

 

We started adding to the team to not impinge on other releases and games projects in the studio to try and deliver Project Dragonfly, but in the run up to the release of FM22, we still weren’t where we needed to be to hit our FM23 deadlines. The strong recommendation from those working on the project from a design and engineering perspective was to move not to FM24, but to FM25.

And that’s what we’re talking about here today.

 

NEW CHAPTER, NEW ENGINE

So, Football Manager 2025, FM25 Console and FM25 Touch will be our first Football Manager releases to use a new engine – Unity. Incredibly well-known in the gaming space, Unity powers many of the best-known games in the world, from Genshin Impact through to the Cities Skyline series. Project Dragonfly explored a number of game engine partners, but after all our research was concluded, Unity was the clear favourite to take us into an exciting new era for the series. 
 
The switch to Unity is going to give us a lot more power graphically, across all formats, alongside powerful user interface tools. We’ve been working closely with Unity over the last few years to be able to deliver a whole new UI which will dramatically improve the ways you are able to interact with the game, both inside and outside of a matchday. Unity's Universal Render Pipeline (URP) allows us to create more optimal graphics across a range of platforms, from mobile to high-end consoles and PC/Mac - but we're also adding some enhancements on top. The switch to Unity means there is the possibility of better-quality graphics across all supported devices, however it should be expected that there will be some changes to the minimum spec requirements, which will be communicated ahead of FM25’s release.

 

For those of you who are not familiar with gaming technologies – in simple terms, FM25 will have a significantly better looking matchday experience - both on the pitch and the supporting stadium environments, alongside a vastly improved user interface that will dramatically improve how you navigate through screens and access all the information available to you as manager. We’ll also have new technology for Newgens and manager creation which are already looking really promising at this early stage.

 

The only platform that won’t benefit from the switch to Unity in time for FM25 is FM25 Mobile, but it is absolutely our intention to incorporate the new tech in Mobile at some point in the future.

 

A TRUER REFLECTION OF REAL-LIFE FOOTBALL WITH NEW ANIMATION TECH

We’re also taking a big jump with animations, through new integrations with an exciting partner from the professional world of football. The first part of a multi-year shift will happen in FM24, so you’ll get some of the benefits in our next instalment, with a particular focus on ball physics and player locomotion. This lays the foundations for the bulk of improvements to come alongside the graphical upgrades in models, stadiums and the surrounding scenes that will be introduced in FM25 – although FM24 will still look better graphically than FM23.

 

Simply put, the way that everything looks and moves will be far more true-to-life than ever before with FM25. This obviously requires considerable investment – but with the aforementioned growth of the studio in recent years, we now have the resource available to ensure both FM24 and FM25 are progressing simultaneously.

 

WELCOME, WOMEN’S FOOTBALL

The FM25 cycle will also see the long-awaited introduction of women’s football to the Football Manager series. Before I go into the details, I want to acknowledge that since we first announced our commitment to introduce the women’s game back in July 2021, we haven’t provided any further public updates on the project which has led to speculation and some frustration.

 

The facts are that we’ve made really good progress in many areas, including research, the match engine and translation. But there are other areas that haven’t made enough advancements, a lot of which are legal issues. The women's game deserves to be the best it possibly can be when it is released - and the new graphics engine will help deliver that.

 

Supporting us in bringing this project to life are some key people from inside the women’s game, who are passionate about helping us deliver the most authentic experience possible. We look forward to announcing some of those in a future development update blog.

 

THE BIG QUESTION

By this point that I’m sure that most of you are asking the same question – when can we see what this all looks like? Well, as mentioned earlier, we've had resource on FM25 for some time now, building towards a key milestone at the end of 2023. So, this means we're aiming for the first major FM25 reveal in Q2 of 2024. Until then, the updates from the studio will be informing you all about Football Manager 2024 - and you'll be hearing more about that very soon.

Edited 28 June 2023 by moore_94

[dmayne7]

Cheers @moore_94. Kind of strange press release as makes it sound like it's going to become a live service game (a hub like Hitman or how AC is going to be) but then just talks about new technology in a lot of fluff, when it's just a new engine, even if that is drastically needed.

[jammie82uk]

51 minutes ago, dmayne7 said:

Cheers @moore_94. Kind of strange press release as makes it sound like it's going to become a live service game (a hub like Hitman or how AC is going to be) but then just talks about new technology in a lot of fluff, when it's just a new engine, even if that is drastically needed.

I agree strange they are Mentioning and effectively promoting 25 when 24 hasn’t even been released yet, also there was actually a live service game in the past which was quite decent before they pulled the plug 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager_Live

 

[Zear0]

24 minutes ago, jammie82uk said:

I agree strange they are Mentioning and effectively promoting 25 when 24 hasn’t even been released yet, also there was actually a live service game in the past which was quite decent before they pulled the plug 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager_Live

 

I loved that game. It was annoying as it was cheaper to buy a boxed copy than to pay for subscription so I had about 8 copies on a shelf. 

[Daggers]

Am I the only one who doesn’t care for the physics of the live match? I live for the glorified spreadsheet of it all. 
 

Rather than a true flighted football to a realistic player, I want to see believable press conferences where you aren’t constantly repeating stick answers - and where you can go freeform abuse at a player or agent. 

[Daggers]

*stock

[shen]

10 hours ago, Daggers said:

Am I the only one who doesn’t care for the physics of the live match? I live for the glorified spreadsheet of it all. 
 

Rather than a true flighted football to a realistic player, I want to see believable press conferences where you aren’t constantly repeating stick answers - and where you can go freeform abuse at a player or agent. 

It is a bizarre sell for what is mainly a stats and numbers game. Of course, making the visuals and match engine more coherent so we don't see meme goals would be good for the intuitive understanding of the game, but I don't give a fvck about player models, manager appearance etc. Not sure who they're trying to appeal to here.

 

I too read the big news as:

1) FM24 is backwards compatible with old saves (never seen this request myself, but it makes sense and will appeal to many I assume).

2) "business model and game as a service" indicates they'll be going to a subscription/expansion model, i.e. they could sell leagues, women's game etc as packs/add-ons or charge a monthly fee live Europa Universalis, Civilization etc.

3) FM24 will basically be the last game following the existing business model.

4) Switching to Unity will change the match engine radically. BUT I also see a few concerns on how taxing Unity can be on PC resources.

[Rain King]

Give me the matchday interface of just the screen with the commentary and score like this and then the rest of the game as it is and I'd be happy.

 

Barely played the last couple of years as the cluttered screen really puts me off and I don't actually want to watch the match.

 

 

[CosbehFox]

FM's worst issue is the repetition of its various features. 

 

The irony to that is I can just about accept that with a text interface that's going to happen - with a 3D pitch for some reasons it annoys me even more. 

[Lako42]

I don't give a shit about the matchday graphics. 

 

I don't want to watch a game of fifa. 

 

 

 

[Mark_w]

2 hours ago, Rain King said:

Give me the matchday interface of just the screen with the commentary and score like this and then the rest of the game as it is and I'd be happy.

 

Barely played the last couple of years as the cluttered screen really puts me off and I don't actually want to watch the match.

 

 

Just set it to commentary only and grab a skin that has the match layout you want?

[Rain King]

3 minutes ago, Mark_w said:

Just set it to commentary only and grab a skin that has the match layout you want?

I'm crap at that. Downloaded several but never managed to get it working properly.

[Finnegan]

18 hours ago, Daggers said:

Am I the only one who doesn’t care for the physics of the live match? I live for the glorified spreadsheet of it all. 
 

Rather than a true flighted football to a realistic player, I want to see believable press conferences where you aren’t constantly repeating stick answers - and where you can go freeform abuse at a player or agent. 

 

Mhm, reading between the lines it does sound like the "revolution" of Football Manager does just mean making it prettier. 

 

I mean there is a knock on effect, if the match engine is better - as in actually more realistic, not just better looking - then it does have an impact on the attributes you need from players, the way you set your tactics up, etc. So it does impact the "spreadsheet" of it all too. Buuuut, I dunno. I feel like if they were really pushing for a major overhaul of the actual game as a simulation of true football then that's what they'd have said. Unity is, ultimately, just a graphical engine. A good one, yeah, but. Eh.

 

I'm expecting "new" Football Manager to just be old Football Manager with a boob job and a tummy tuck.

[Daggers]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

Mhm, reading between the lines it does sound like the "revolution" of Football Manager does just mean making it prettier. 

 

I mean there is a knock on effect, if the match engine is better - as in actually more realistic, not just better looking - then it does have an impact on the attributes you need from players, the way you set your tactics up, etc. So it does impact the "spreadsheet" of it all too. Buuuut, I dunno. I feel like if they were really pushing for a major overhaul of the actual game as a simulation of true football then that's what they'd have said. Unity is, ultimately, just a graphical engine. A good one, yeah, but. Eh.

 

I'm expecting "new" Football Manager to just be old Football Manager with a boob job and a tummy tuck.

It’s the kind of game begging for the inclusion of AI, that’s the next step. 
 

Being able to have proper daft convos with players based on their personality types. Getting balls deep in arguing with non-league fans on Twitter. Ultimate in second life bollocks. 

[filbertway]

10 hours ago, Daggers said:

It’s the kind of game begging for the inclusion of AI, that’s the next step. 
 

Being able to have proper daft convos with players based on their personality types. Getting balls deep in arguing with non-league fans on Twitter. Ultimate in second life bollocks. 

That sounds like a psychologists dream haha.

 

I think it's bad enough arguing with real strangers on the internet, arguing with AI is a whole new level

 

Can just imagine you say there looking pissed off and the missus asking what's up with you "ahhh it's that @DaggersOut fan account again! I've taken Kettering to league one the pr*ck still won't give me a break!"

 

 

[Daggers]

13 minutes ago, filbertway said:

That sounds like a psychologists dream haha.

 

I think it's bad enough arguing with real strangers on the internet, arguing with AI is a whole new level

 

Can just imagine you say there looking pissed off and the missus asking what's up with you "ahhh it's that @DaggersOut fan account again! I've taken Kettering to league one the pr*ck still won't give me a break!"

 

 

This. This is what I want 😂

[Lako42]

I want real people to argue with on twitter as a manager on FM. That would be interesting 

[dmayne7]

1 hour ago, filbertway said:

That sounds like a psychologists dream haha.

 

I think it's bad enough arguing with real strangers on the internet, arguing with AI is a whole new level

 

Can just imagine you say there looking pissed off and the missus asking what's up with you "ahhh it's that @DaggersOut fan account again! I've taken Kettering to league one the pr*ck still won't give me a break!"

 

 

Only League 1?! I took them all the way straight up the leagues to the Champions League places before pissing off to Atalanta.

 

I'd be joining that Daggers out club too

[Daggers]

21 minutes ago, dmayne7 said:

Only League 1?! I took them all the way straight up the leagues to the Champions League places before pissing off to Atalanta.

 

I'd be joining that Daggers out club too

I’m going nowhere and it’s high time the campaign group got that through their thick skulls

[RoboFox]

I still keep up with progress despite being FM clean since 2017. I love the game still, but I just can’t…
 

It should never have taken SI 15 years to introduce a new match engine. Despite their tweaks and updates, it’s been woefully dated and unfit for purpose for about half of that time. 

For ages it’s felt like they’ve just been phoning in roster updates, and absolutely raking in profits every year so it’s good to see some genuine progress even if it is years overdue.

 

Agree with what’s been said though. With the advances in AI they’d be mad not to try and utilise it to revolutionise the stale interactions in the game.

[Dan LCFC]

I would feel honoured if I did receive far more criticism for the fact my Paris side are going to end up on 120 yellow cards this season.

[dmayne7]

On 28/06/2023 at 23:05, Daggers said:

Am I the only one who doesn’t care for the physics of the live match? I live for the glorified spreadsheet of it all. 
 

Rather than a true flighted football to a realistic player, I want to see believable press conferences where you aren’t constantly repeating stick answers - and where you can go freeform abuse at a player or agent. 

Meant to reply to this. I actually think the 3d match engine made things less believable. When it was just 2d, it wasn't constricted to looking pretty so the actual on field action felt more authentic, partly because you could imagine how it looked, but also because the players were just circles so could move much more freely and the ball just needed to interact with that circle rather than a specific animation.

[The Doctor]

On 29/06/2023 at 21:11, Daggers said:

It’s the kind of game begging for the inclusion of AI, that’s the next step. 
 

Being able to have proper daft convos with players based on their personality types. Getting balls deep in arguing with non-league fans on Twitter. Ultimate in second life bollocks. 

100%. I want to go into press conferences and call my opposing manger a specialist in failure who couldn't manage a wetherspoons.

[Finnegan]

On 01/07/2023 at 20:58, The Doctor said:

100%. I want to go into press conferences and call my opposing manger a specialist in failure who couldn't manage a wetherspoons.

 

Yeah but you're not gonna want to have to manage Rangers are you so you'll have to wait til the AI gives him another job in the Prem.

[The Doctor]

57 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Yeah but you're not gonna want to have to manage Rangers are you so you'll have to wait til the AI gives him another job in the Prem.

You underestimate my ability to start rivalries. Currently Marcelino absolutely hates my guts for saying his team (Wolves) are old and shit after my yearly 4-0 home win.