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Football Manager 25 release delayed until March 2025 as Sports Interactive reveal reason for 'tough decision'

Football Manager 25 was scheduled to be released at the start of September, with Sports Interactive transitioning to the use of a new engine, powered by Unity. They initially delayed the game until the end of November, but have now confirmed that it will instead release in March. At the same time, they have offered to refund pre-orders and have also confirmed that the next gameplay reveal will take place in January.

WHAT HAPPENED?

<a href="https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/football-manager-2025-release-date-new-features-price/blt84c152daf7c5193f" target="_blank">FM25 has officially been announced just last week</a>, with a roadmap also promised, but SI have now explained that they do not feel they can release an acceptable product within the current timeframe. How this now impacts FM26, because the games are released on an annual schedule, is yet to be seen.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

<a href="https://www.footballmanager.com/news/football-manager-25-delayed-until-march-2025" target="_blank">In a statement, SI wrote</a>: "After careful consideration, Sports Interactive have made the tough decision to further delay the release of Football Manager 25."Following discussions with SEGA, our licensors and partners, we have agreed the best course of action is to delay the launch until March 2025. Specific platform release dates will follow once confirmed."In our last Development Update in September, we explained that we needed to push FM25’s original release back to give ourselves more time to deliver the best possible experience for this first instalment in a new era of Football Manager."This additional time has not been sufficient to ensure the game quality and experience meets your expectations and our very high standards."In the previous blog we explained that it has been a difficult development cycle for the studio. Many things have been moving slower than we had predicted – despite everyone in the team working at an incredible pace to try and get everything done."Timelines were already tight and, as rightly pointed out by many of your recent comments, we were simply rushing too much and in danger of compromising our usual standards. This has put an enormous amount of pressure on everyone working across the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best game possible."FM25 is the biggest technical and visual advancement in the series for a generation. We simply cannot compromise the delivery of this crucial juncture in Football Manager’s history by rushing to release it in November."Of course, this is not where any of us expected to be seven weeks out from our release but, in the spirit of our studio values, we always consider the bigger picture – and the bigger picture here is that we need this additional time to deliver a game that we can all be proud of."

WHAT SI SAID

This marks a disastrous period in SI's history as they aim to overhaul FM and have twice been forced to delay the most anticipated release in the game's history. Those wanting to role-play as a virtual manager will have to stick with FM24 for now.

WHAT NEXT?

Football Manager 25 release delayed until March 2025 as Sports Interactive reveal reason for 'tough decision' | Goal.com

Sports Interactive has announced that Football Manager 25 has been delayed until March 2025.