Football Manager 26 had a disastrous start – so why are tens of thousands still playing it?

Football Manager 26 may be the most important game Sports Interactive has released in years.

It may also be one of the most controversial.

The series traditionally evolves gradually.

Databases improve.

Match engines change.

Scouting systems expand.

Tactics become more detailed.

However, the basic structure remains familiar enough that longtime players can normally open the new edition and immediately understand where everything lives.

FM26 broke that pattern.

Sports Interactive moved Football Manager onto the Unity engine, redesigned the user interface, changed tactical systems, introduced women’s football and rebuilt substantial parts of the match-day presentation.

This was supposed to establish the foundation for the next generation of Football Manager.

The transition did not go smoothly.

Football Manager 25 was cancelled entirely.

FM26 eventually launched on 4 November 2025, but early player sentiment was poor.

Even now, Steam lists the overall English-language review score as Mostly Negative, with only around 38% positive.

Yet there is another side to the story.

Recent Steam reviews have improved to around 57% positive, moving the recent sentiment into the Mixed category.

More importantly, tens of thousands of players continue loading saves every day.

September 2026 tracking shows average Steam concurrency above 30,000 players, with monthly peaks approaching 50,000.

So FM26 has clearly not been rejected outright.

Instead, it has become something much more interesting.

A flawed rebuilding year that many Football Manager players still cannot stop playing.

FM26 had to carry the weight of a cancelled game

To understand FM26, we need to start with FM25.

Sports Interactive had planned Football Manager 25 as a major technical transition.

The game was supposed to introduce the Unity engine and help move the long-running series into a new era.

Development became increasingly difficult.

The release was delayed.

Then it was delayed again.

Eventually, in February 2025, Sports Interactive and SEGA cancelled Football Manager 25 entirely and shifted focus to the next release.

That was an extraordinary decision for an annual sports franchise.

Football Manager players had become accustomed to a new edition every year.

Instead, FM24 had to carry the series through another season.

For Sports Interactive, the cancellation also changed what FM26 needed to accomplish.

This was no longer just another yearly update.

It had to justify missing an entire release.

Unity became the foundation of the new Football Manager

The biggest technical change is the move to Unity.

Sports Interactive describes the engine change as creating new foundations for the future of Football Manager.

That matters because Football Manager had accumulated years of systems, menus and behaviours around older technology.

Moving engines therefore meant more than improving graphics.

The studio had to rebuild substantial parts of the game around a new technical framework.

Players immediately see the difference in matches.

Movement is smoother.

Animations are more detailed.

Presentation is more modern.

Players appear more physical on the pitch than in older Football Manager releases.

For a series historically associated more with spreadsheets than visual spectacle, that is a significant change.

The match engine is one of FM26’s strongest improvements

Even many players who dislike the new interface acknowledge that match presentation has taken a considerable step forward.

Football Manager has never tried to compete directly with EA Sports FC as an action football game.

That is not its purpose.

However, matches still need to communicate whether a tactical idea is working.

FM26 makes that process easier to read visually.

Runs are clearer.

Movement feels more natural.

Player positioning is easier to interpret.

Passing sequences look closer to actual football.

That matters because Football Manager is ultimately a tactical simulation.

The better the match engine communicates football, the easier it becomes to understand why a tactic succeeds or fails.

FM26 also changed tactics significantly

One of the most meaningful changes is the separation between In Possession and Out of Possession formations.

Managers can define how their team behaves when controlling the ball and how it reorganises without it.

That reflects modern football more accurately.

A team described as playing 4-3-3 may transform into something completely different when attacking.

Full-backs move inside.

Midfielders drop deeper.

Wingers become forwards.

Defensive shapes change once possession is lost.

FM26 gives players more direct control over these transitions.

Consequently, tactical thinking becomes less about choosing one static formation and more about deciding how the team behaves through different phases of play.

The new tactical visualiser helps explain movement

Football Manager has always provided enormous tactical depth.

However, depth can become meaningless if players cannot understand what their instructions actually produce.

FM26’s tactical visualiser attempts to solve part of that problem.

Players can see how the team changes shape in different situations.

That makes certain roles easier to understand.

A player who begins in one position may occupy another during possession.

Meanwhile, the defensive shape can become dramatically different.

This is one of the areas where the new foundation makes sense.

Sports Interactive is trying to model football as movement rather than as static dots on a tactics board.

The user interface became the biggest source of controversy

Unfortunately, rebuilding the interface created one of FM26’s greatest problems.

Sports Interactive redesigned Football Manager around a new UI system centred heavily on cards and the Portal.

The Portal brings information, messages and important areas of the club into a central location.

Bookmarks also allow frequently used screens to remain accessible.

In theory, that sounds sensible.

In practice, many veteran players found the new structure slower and less intuitive.

Information that once required one interaction sometimes felt buried behind additional navigation.

Long-standing muscle memory became useless.

Screens players had used for years suddenly behaved differently.

For a game that can involve hundreds of hours in menus, those small frustrations become significant.

Football Manager lives or dies by navigation

This point is easy to underestimate.

Football Manager is not a game where menus simply support the action.

The menus are the game.

Players spend enormous amounts of time:

• comparing players
• negotiating contracts
• checking scouting reports
• changing tactics
• reviewing staff
• examining finances
• analysing fixtures
• planning training
• managing development

If performing those tasks feels slower, the entire experience feels slower.

Therefore, criticism of FM26’s interface was not merely resistance to change.

For many users, navigation affected the fundamental rhythm of playing Football Manager.

Sports Interactive has continued changing the UI

FM26 did not remain frozen in its launch state.

Sports Interactive released numerous updates following launch.

For example, Update 26.1.1 contained more than 300 changes, including stability work, contract logic adjustments and improvements to post-match and previous-match reports.

Later updates continued refining the experience.

Update 26.2, released in March 2026, changed the Fixtures and Results card on PC and added the ability to change player roles from the Tactics Visualiser.

That does not erase the launch problems.

However, it demonstrates that Sports Interactive continued adjusting FM26 after release rather than simply moving immediately to FM27.

The Steam review score shows how severe the backlash became

Current Steam sentiment remains difficult to ignore.

Football Manager 26’s English-language reviews sit at approximately 38% positive overall, giving it a Mostly Negative classification.

That is extremely poor for a franchise with such a dedicated long-term audience.

Football Manager players are not casual visitors.

Many buy the game repeatedly.

Some have played since the Championship Manager era.

Others maintain individual saves for hundreds or even thousands of hours.

Losing trust among those players matters.

Yet the more recent reviews tell a slightly different story.

Recent reviews have improved

Steam currently shows approximately 57% positive reviews during the last 30 days.

That is still not a strong result.

However, it is considerably better than the overall score.

The difference suggests that FM26’s current condition is being received more positively than the game was around launch.

Updates may have helped.

Players may also have become more familiar with the new interface and tactical structure.

Some users who initially rejected the design may have adapted.

Whatever the exact cause, FM26’s reputation appears to be improving at least slightly.

Yet player numbers never collapsed

Perhaps the most interesting statistic is not the review score.

It is the player count.

September 2026 data shows Football Manager 26 averaging around 32,000 concurrent Steam players, while monthly peaks have approached 49,000.

That is Steam alone.

It does not include people using PC Game Pass, Epic, consoles, Apple Arcade, Nintendo Switch or mobile versions.

The main PC edition is available through Steam, Epic, the Microsoft Store and PC Game Pass. FM26 Console is available on Xbox and PS5, while FM26 Touch is available through Apple Arcade and Nintendo Switch.

Therefore, Steam only provides a measurable section of the total audience.

Still, tens of thousands of simultaneous Steam players this late in the game’s cycle is significant.

Football Manager has an unusual relationship with negative reviews

One explanation is simple.

Football Manager players can dislike the game and still play enormous amounts of it.

That sounds contradictory.

However, this is not a conventional 15-hour story game.

A player may dislike the interface yet still be deeply invested in a career save.

They may hate certain design decisions while enjoying the improved match engine.

Another player may think FM24 handled some systems better but still want current squads, updated competitions and newer features.

Football Manager generates long-term attachment through saves.

Once someone has taken a club from the lower divisions into continental competition, abandoning that career becomes difficult.

Therefore, review scores and player activity can tell very different stories.

FM26 is a perfect example.

The arrival of women’s football is historically important

FM26 also delivered something Sports Interactive had been planning for years.

Women’s football is now integrated into the Football Manager ecosystem.

The game includes 14 playable leagues across 11 nations, including competitions such as the Women’s Super League and National Women’s Soccer League.

This is not presented as a completely separate Football Manager title.

Instead, men’s and women’s football exist within one wider management ecosystem.

That opens entirely new career possibilities.

Players can discover different clubs.

Different players.

Different financial environments.

Different competitive structures.

For a game built around starting new careers, that dramatically expands the potential sandbox.

Women’s football also makes the database more important

Football Manager’s database has always been one of its greatest assets.

Players become familiar with footballers they had never previously heard of.

Young prospects become household names inside individual saves.

Scouts identify players from leagues the user may rarely watch in real life.

Adding women’s football increases that discovery process substantially.

For some players, FM26 may become their introduction to clubs, leagues and players outside the men’s game.

That is one of the most meaningful additions in the series for years.

The Premier League licence improves authenticity

FM26 also includes a fully licensed Premier League.

Official club badges, kits and player photography are integrated into the game.

That might sound cosmetic compared with tactics or recruitment.

However, licensing has always been a noticeable part of Football Manager.

Community graphics packs became popular partly because official assets were missing.

The Premier League licence therefore makes one of the world’s most visible competitions feel substantially more authentic out of the box.

Recruitment remains one of Football Manager’s great addictions

Football Manager’s greatest danger to free time has never really changed.

Finding players is enormously satisfying.

A scout returns with a prospect.

You investigate.

The attributes look promising.

The asking price seems reasonable.

Suddenly, a player you had never heard of becomes central to a five-year plan.

FM26 builds further on recruitment through its TransferRoom integration.

Managers can communicate recruitment needs and find potential opportunities more directly.

The concept reflects how football recruitment increasingly operates through networks, data and specialised platforms.

Transfers create stories players remember for years

Football Manager is technically a simulation.

However, its greatest strength is storytelling.

Not scripted storytelling.

Emergent storytelling.

A teenager signed cheaply becomes world class.

A veteran scores the goal that keeps your club from relegation.

A player demands a transfer after you refuse a contract.

A record signing fails completely.

A youth academy player eventually becomes captain.

None of these stories needs a writer.

They emerge from interacting systems.

That is why players can spend thousands of hours with Football Manager.

Their save becomes their story.

FM26’s manager creation system adds more personal history

Sports Interactive also redesigned manager creation.

Players can create a more detailed manager identity and career background.

This fits the wider storytelling goal.

Football Manager has always invited players to imagine themselves inside football.

Where did the manager come from?

Were they a former professional?

What licences do they have?

How experienced are they?

Those decisions influence the starting point of the career.

They also help turn a database simulation into something more personal.

International management has become much more relevant in 2026

FM26 gained another major current hook through the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The game now includes officially licensed FIFA World Cup 2026 content.

Players can use dedicated national-team management tools, access a tournament-specific starting date and experience authentic branding, graphics, match balls and kits where licensing permits.

The timing gives FM26 a distinctive advantage in 2026.

Players can recreate the tournament.

They can manage established favourites.

Alternatively, they can take control of a smaller national team and attempt something completely unexpected.

International management has existed in Football Manager for years.

However, the official World Cup licence gives it more prominence.

FM26 is still fundamentally a numbers game

Despite the graphical improvements, Football Manager remains Football Manager.

Attributes matter.

Scouting matters.

Finances matter.

Data matters.

Contracts matter.

Form matters.

Player relationships matter.

The Unity engine changes presentation.

It does not transform Football Manager into an action football game.

That is important because the visual overhaul could easily have distracted from what makes the series work.

FM remains compelling because it allows the player to operate as strategist, recruiter, negotiator, squad planner and problem solver simultaneously.

There is still no universal way to play Football Manager

One player may begin with Manchester City.

Another chooses a semi-professional club.

Someone else builds exclusively around youth development.

Another searches the entire world for undervalued talent.

Some people simulate matches quickly.

Others watch almost every minute.

One manager delegates training.

Another controls everything.

That flexibility remains one of the series’ strongest qualities.

FM26 may have changed the presentation, but it still allows wildly different careers.

Lower-league management remains one of FM’s greatest challenges

The glamorous clubs are only one part of Football Manager.

Lower-league saves often produce the strongest stories.

Budgets are tiny.

Facilities are poor.

Scouting knowledge is limited.

Players leave.

Contracts expire.

One unexpected injury can destroy an entire tactical plan.

Promotion therefore feels substantial.

Taking an obscure club through multiple divisions creates a sense of ownership that few sports games reproduce.

The game becomes less about controlling famous footballers and more about building an institution over decades.

The database makes obscure football meaningful

Football Manager can make players care about competitions they previously ignored.

A South African player might begin in England.

Then a scout recommends someone from Scandinavia.

Another signing arrives from South America.

A future star emerges from an African academy.

Suddenly, leagues that previously seemed irrelevant become important because they contain potential solutions.

That global database remains one of Sports Interactive’s greatest achievements.

FM26’s technical transition did not change that foundation.

South African players can build locally as well

For South African Football Manager players, the attraction is not limited to European superclubs.

The series’ broad database makes South African football part of the larger global system.

That creates interesting career possibilities.

A manager can build locally and then move abroad.

Alternatively, they can scout South African talent for clubs elsewhere.

The Football Manager experience works particularly well when players create their own narrative rather than simply recreating real-life managerial careers.

No local competitive server population is required for the core single-player game either.

Your long-term save remains entirely viable regardless of local multiplayer activity.

FM26’s biggest weakness is that familiarity was sacrificed

The previous Football Manager interface had accumulated problems.

However, players understood it.

Years of repetition had created extremely efficient habits.

FM26 disrupted those habits.

That was probably unavoidable to some extent.

A genuinely rebuilt game cannot keep everything exactly where it was.

However, Sports Interactive appears to recognise that not every removed behaviour improved the experience.

That becomes particularly obvious when looking at what the studio is saying about FM27.

Sports Interactive is already talking about restoring older behaviours

On 27 August 2026, Sports Interactive confirmed that Football Manager 27 will launch in November 2026.

The exact date has not yet been announced.

More interesting, however, is the language surrounding the next game.

Sports Interactive says FM27 will evolve the current design while restoring ideas and behaviours that players valued in previous editions.

That statement is significant.

It effectively acknowledges that the FM26 transition removed or changed things the community still wants.

Therefore, FM27 will not simply continue moving further away from the older interface philosophy.

Some ideas are coming back.

The studio is also changing how it communicates

FM26’s problems were not only technical.

Communication became part of the controversy around the transition.

Sports Interactive has now announced a more active approach for FM27.

The studio plans deeper feature coverage, more direct community communication and an official Discord server.

It has also widened playtesting opportunities so more players can provide feedback before release.

That may prove important.

Football Manager’s audience contains players with extraordinary knowledge of the series.

Ignoring that experience would be wasteful.

FM26 may ultimately be remembered as the transition game

This may become Football Manager 26’s legacy.

Not the best game in the series.

Not necessarily the worst either.

Instead, the awkward bridge between two eras.

FM24 represented the mature version of the old Football Manager foundation.

FM26 represents the first major attempt at something new.

The transition introduced better match presentation, women’s football, deeper tactical structures and a technical foundation designed for future games.

At the same time, it created UI frustration and damaged trust among some longtime players.

Both things can be true.

The player count suggests the Football Manager formula remains powerful

Despite everything, players keep playing.

September 2026 figures show average Steam concurrency above 30,000, while monthly peaks remain close to 50,000.

That is perhaps the strongest evidence of Football Manager’s underlying strength.

Players may criticise the interface.

They may prefer FM24.

They may dislike certain changes.

However, the core loop remains extraordinarily compelling.

Scout.

Sign.

Train.

Select.

Lose.

Adjust.

Win.

Repeat.

Then suddenly it is 2am and you are negotiating with a 17-year-old midfielder from a club you had never heard of.

Football Manager still does that better than almost anything else.

Should you play Football Manager 26 in September 2026?

This is more complicated than recommending a conventional game.

FM26 is already approaching the end of its yearly cycle.

Sports Interactive has confirmed that FM27 will launch in November 2026.

Therefore, someone who has not purchased FM26 needs to consider timing.

FM27 is close.

It is also being developed with explicit attention to feedback from FM26.

For existing FM26 owners, however, the situation is different.

The game has received numerous updates.

World Cup 2026 content is available.

Recent Steam sentiment has improved.

And tens of thousands of players remain active.

There is still plenty of football to manage.

FM26 is better judged as a foundation than a finished revolution

Sports Interactive described FM26 as creating new foundations for Football Manager.

That may ultimately be the fairest way to judge it.

Foundations are not always attractive.

They are not the finished building.

The Unity transition required disruption.

Some changes clearly worked.

Others did not.

The match engine moved forward.

Tactical modelling became more interesting.

Women’s football significantly expanded the database.

Licensing improved.

However, navigation lost some of the efficiency veteran players valued.

Sports Interactive now appears to be trying to preserve the successful parts while rebuilding the weaker ones for FM27.

Why Football Manager 26 still matters

Football Manager 26 will probably never escape its launch reputation completely.

Steam’s overall review score is evidence of that.

However, reducing FM26 to “the bad Football Manager” would miss what actually happened.

It completed the engine transition that FM25 could not.

It introduced women’s football.

It changed tactical structure.

It improved match-day presentation.

It brought the Premier League fully into the licensed experience.

It added official FIFA World Cup 2026 content.

And despite widespread criticism, tens of thousands of Steam players are still managing clubs simultaneously in September 2026.

That does not mean every criticism was wrong.

Quite the opposite.

Sports Interactive’s own FM27 messaging suggests the studio understands that some older behaviours need to return.

FM26 therefore sits in an unusual place.

It may be the Football Manager that needed to exist so a better version could follow.

Whether FM27 fulfils that promise will become clear soon.

For now, FM26 remains messy, ambitious, frustrating and deeply addictive.

Which, in a strange way, may make it one of the most interesting Football Manager releases the series has produced.