Football Manager 25 Cancelled: What Fans Need To Know About The Future Of The Franchise
In one of the biggest news coming out of the football gaming industry, Sports Interactive and Sega released a statement that Football Manager 25 is now cancelled.
This is the first time this has happened, and there is not just one reason for the cancellation. In September 2024, Football Manager was announced, which made a lot of gamers excited given the new engines and women’s cricket promised by the game developers.
Why Football Manager 25 Got Cancelled?
It’s official folks, on February 6, 2025, Football Manager 25 stands cancelled by Sports Interactive as the developers and the parent company, SEGA, finally decided to scrap the game. According to the developer of the game and the publishers themselves, numerous challenges hindered the level of the game which interfered with the game’s overall quality and experience.
Technical Challenges
The transition to Unity was quite complex for the developing team. None of their previous efforts, for example, regarding the match engine, interface, and AI, could achieve the level of polishing they desired. They tried to present something unique experience-wise, but the technical aspects were too significant to be resolved.
Delays and Quality Concerns
FM25 was scheduled to be released in November 2024 but was delayed twice. The first delay shifted the date to late November, and the second delay made it March 2025. Although the delays should have provided more time for the development team to fix technical issues in order to make the game perfect, it was not the case. This is the main reason that Football Manager 25 got cancelled.
The additional time proved too little and put the developers under pressure for what they believed would be too big a compromise. Makers of Football Manager 25 were dissatisfied with the quality and user experience and this in turn led to the game’s cancellation.
Decision to Cancel
Sports Interactive revealed that while they did hit a number of targets in many game areas, the overall quality was not up to the mark. The company conceded that they could have pushed through and still released FM25 as it stands and then would have addressed things in due course, but believed that it would be unfair to gamers. They even eliminated the possibility of a later release date, given the fact that it would be late in the football season, and no player would buy another game so late in the year.
Sports Interactive apologized for not communicating the game’s cancellation earlier due to legal and financial regulations stemming from Sega’s ownership, a publicly traded company.
Players who had already pre-ordered the game would automatically be refunded in full. The studio also ruled out updating Football Manager 2024 with data from the current season of the sport, as this would be a “substantial undertaking” that would detract from the development of the next release.
Focus on Football Manager 26
With Football Manager 25 being cancelled, the spotlight is now on Football Manager 26. The developers have vowed to use the extra time available to ensure that the next version is up to par with what fans expect. This means overcoming technical issues and including community feedback to create a truly groundbreaking experience with FM26.
Football Manager has been published on an annual schedule since 2004’s Football Manager 2005 and never after November’s end.
FAQ
Q. Why did Football Manager 25 get cancelled?
A. Football Manager 25 Cancelled because Sports Interactive said that the quality they wanted to have was not achieved.
Q. When was Football Manager 25 cancelled?
A. On February 6, 2025, the news of Football Manager 25 being canceled came from the tweet released on Fpptball Manager X’s social media.