After taking a year off, theFootball Managerseries is making its return, but the cancellation of the last game still stings for the series’ longtime fans.
SEGA and Sports Interactive have released abrief teaser trailerfor Football Manager 26.
It doesn’t show much, but it gives fans a glimpse of what the series is going to look like after its move to the Unity engine, as well as showing offthe series' new Premier League license.
There’s no hint of a release window, with the trailer just saying that the game is coming soon, but the series’ standard annual schedule would suggest a launch in November or early December.
‘The Wait Has Been Long’
According to apress releasefrom SEGA, Football Manager 26 will “take players on a journey to define their footballing destiny” and that the game will be the “most immersive and visually rich” entry in the long-running series.
An early snippet of the elevated Match Day experience through the lens of the official Premier League license gives just a teaser of what to expect following the move to the Unity engine.
It’s not much to go on, and some fans in the comments of IGN’srepostof the trailer are reasonably skeptical about the game’s chances to go back to the classic Football Manager experience, especially afterthe cancellation of the previous title.
Football Manager 25 was canceled earlier this yearafter a series of delays due to whatSEGA president Shuji Utsumi called “quality issues”and torefocus on the development of FM26, which in turn led toextended availability of the previous titleon Xbox Game Pass.
In the wake of the cancellation of FM25, SEGA laterannounced Football Club Champions 2025, a free-to-play football management sim for PC and mobile that has still yet to be released.
Hopefully the extended and focused development time for Football Manager 26 after the cancellation of FM25 will ensure it will reach similar heights of popularity to FM24, deal with their development struggles with the Unity engine, and win back the fans who were disappointed by the previous game’s cancellation.
Still, despite the misgivings, many fans are still hopeful that Football Manager 26 will deliver on their expectations, assuming it doesn’t get delayed and canceled again.
