Football Manager has been the go-to for sports simulation for a long time, and for millions of fans, it’s a whole other world they can get lost in; the intricacies of football management are exactly the kind of thing that will keep them coming back for more every year.
Sports Interactive’s team of developers keep pushing the boundaries and adding more and more depth to Football Manager. The end result? A game that really does give a taste of what it’s like to be a football manager. With FM26 just around the corner, we’re expecting yet another step up in terms of technology and the chance to experience football management in a whole new, quite realistic way.
Let’s take a look at the areas where FM26 will make its mark in the realism stakes, from a brand new match engine that will turn the whole experience on its head to a financial system that really captures what’s going on in modern football.
A New Era for the Match Engine
For a long time, the Football Manager experience has been renowned for its 2D and 3D match engine. While it’s done a decent job showing off the teams’ tactics, the next couple of versions will be starting from scratch with the switch to Unity, a new game engine that’s going to completely shake things up with game visuals. First off, FM25 was the first to get a taste of Unity; FM26 will build on that base and unleash the full power of the new engine, bringing a whole new level of realism.
By far the most eye-catching change will be in the way players move around on screen; there are going to be a lot of people who’ll look back on earlier Football Manager games and think, ‘yeah, the players moved a bit stiffly, didn’t they?’ But with Unity, we’ll be able to create player animations that are far more fluid and natural.
There will be all sorts of different sprints, turns, and jumps; it’ll be a lot more like real-life soccer than the slightly robotic look many fans have complained about in the past. The way a player goes in for a tackle, or leaps in the air to challenge for a header, will be shown off in glorious detail, and the overall action will have a tremendous amount more authenticity to it; it should feel a lot more real.
In addition to looking better, the engine will also let us get the ball physics spot on. The way the ball zooms across the pitch, bounces and swerves in mid-air will be just as you see it in a real-life match. And that should have a big impact on how the game plays. Miss a pass and it’ll behave just like a real ball, and a shot that slices into the top corner will look and feel every bit as satisfying as it does in the real thing.
All of that will make it a lot easier for managers to tell if their tactics are working or not, and just generally make the game a lot more fun to watch.
Sponsorships and Revenue
A big part of modern football management is the club’s finances. To make the game more realistic, FM26 needs to have a much more detailed and dynamic financial system that goes beyond just managing wages and transfer budgets. To achieve realism, it must create a world where clubs have to generate revenue in realistic ways, including navigating the sometimes complicated world of corporate sponsorships.
Many clubs are financially supported by partnerships with big companies, including those in the betting and gaming industry. To simulate this, the game developers need to research how these partnerships work. They should look into the types of deals clubs sign and the companies involved.
For fans who want to understand the real-world industry that the game is trying to model, resources that review these types of platforms, like the reviews on askgamblers.com, give a glimpse into the landscape of online gaming and betting operators that modern clubs partner with. This level of detail would mean that in FM26, signing such a deal would trigger specific media questions or fan reactions, making the financial side of management more interesting.
This improved financial model would mean your board might present you with a very profitable shirt sponsorship deal from a betting company. As a manager, you would have to decide if it’s worth it. The extra money could fund a star signing that could win you the league. But you might also have to deal with a part of your fans who are unhappy with the partnership.
Conclusion
The journey of Football Manager has always been about perfect realism. Football Manager 26 takes the biggest leap yet. A brand new match engine, smarter AI, more complex finances and deeper off-pitch interactions will make the game more immersive and believable than ever.
Every decision, every win, every loss will feel real. For the millions of fans out there, the future of virtual football management has never looked so bright and detailed.
