Why Football Manager 2025 has been delayed as new release date confirmed

Sports Interactive and Sega announced that Football Manager 2025 would be the start of a new era for the series, but the game's release date has now been pushed back.

Sports Interactive has confirmed that Football Manager 2025's much-anticipated release date has been put back, with a new launch date set, but gamers will have to play the waiting game.

The Football Manager series is one of the most successful football games on the market, while Football Manager 2024 - its latest instalment - has become the most played title in the series' history.

Last year, Sports Interactive and Sega announced that Football Manager 2025 - or FM25 - would herald a new era for the series, but its fans will now have to wait a bit longer to experience this new chapter as the release date for the game has been delayed until 2025.

Sports Interactive has confirmed the new release date for FM25. Their game will now be launched in March 2025, instead of the initially planned released on November 26, 2024.

The specific platform release dates will be confirmed later. Sports Interactive posted a statement on the Football Manager website explaining the reasons for that delay: "Sports Interactive has made the difficult decision to delay the release of Football Manager 25," the statement read.

It continued: "After careful consideration, Sports Interactive have made the tough decision to further delay the release of Football Manager 25", as per reports from The Mirror.

"Following discussions with Sega, our licensors and partners, we have agreed that the best course of action is to delay the launch until March 2025. Specific platform release dates will follow once confirmed."

The company had previously explained in a September Development Update that they needed to push back FM25's original release to ensure the best possible experience for this first instalment in a new era of Football Manager. "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," explained Sports Interactive.

"This additional time has not been sufficient to ensure the game quality and experience meets your expectations and our very high standards."

The studio also acknowledged the challenges its faced during the redevelopment cycle: "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.

"Time-lines 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 across the studio, who are passionately committed to delivering the best game possible.

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"FM25 is the biggest technical and visual advancement in the series for a generation. We can't 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.

"For large numbers of you who have already pre-ordered the game, we thank you very much for your trust and support. Given the delay, however, should you wish to claim a refund, then please contact your retailer."

Sports Interactive went on: "We are intensely aware that it will be massively disappointing for you. We share that disappointment and are extremely sorry. Thank you for reading and your patience.

"It means the world to us as we continue to work on creating a new era for Football Manager."

FM25 is set to be a game-changer, marking the introduction of women's football for the first time. Earlier this year, it was also confirmed the Premier League will be fully licensed in FM25 - making it the official football management video game of the English top-flight.

But perhaps the most significant change comes with overhauling the FM match engine. Sports Interactive are set to transition to Unity, which means those old-school graphics we've all grown fond of in Football Manager will be replaced in FM25, with Unity enhancing the match experience from overall graphics to in-game animations.