Football Manager 26

It's here, what is supposed to be the "new era" of Football Manager games. That was already the intention for last year's version, with a new graphics engine and everything, but the quality was apparently so poor that it was scrapped altogether. This means that Sports Interactive has now had two years to create this game, plus the time they spent before building the new graphics engine. I therefore had high expectations for this step in a game series that I have been playing since time immemorial, but the only thing I can feel... is disappointment. The feeling is that there is more focus on attracting EA Sports FC players than on pleasing players who have been flocking to the series for a long time.

This has always been something created for PC players, as it's a perfect game for a computer. Click around on different menus for hours, adjust various things for ages, quickly change tactics during matches with a few smooth mouse clicks. I don't know what has changed with the developers, but I get a pretty clear feeling that this game is designed for consoles, where it can also be used on a computer. There are, of course, two sides to this coin. On one side are the loyal PC players, those who have been there through thick and thin, and those who will be most disappointed by this new start. On the other side are the newcomers and console gamers, those who prefer the screen to consist of large squares and pop-up windows instead of going through and fiddling with small menus. After hyping this game to the skies, there are really only two things I think Football Manager 26 does better than previous games in the series: the match engine and the tactical options.

When it comes to the former, it's clear that the developers have spent a lot of time trying to make the matches feel better than before. The visual presentation and soundscape are much higher quality, and the stadiums are better adapted to the size of the real stadiums with better surroundings, even if most famous stadiums feel completely wrong. There are definitely players who prefer the classic look of 2D or even text-based matches, but for those of us who like to see the players running around the pitch, this is a step in the right direction. They move like footballers do, with gestures and everything, but don't expect anything like EA Sports FC, though as this is still FM with a slightly prettier presentation. What's more, I can really see how the players adapt to my different tactical approaches.

Speaking of tactics, which all football nerds like to sit and fiddle with, you can now choose your formation both when your team has the ball and when it doesn't. You may like to play a 4-3-3 formation, but in defence it becomes more like 4-5-1. On the team selection screen, you can view one or the other, or both side by side if you prefer. But you can also see a combined view, which basically shows the players' positions going from defence to attack or vice-versa. This is further expanded with something the developers call "the Visualiser". In the instruction menu, the pitch is divided into three areas, one for each third of the pitch. Each third then has three squares from left to right, so a grid pattern with a total of nine squares. Here you can see how your team moves depending on where the ball is. If you want the players to take more long shots from the right side and not take any from the left, you can easily click between these two places and make that change.

The two most important parts of a football manager game, the matches and the tactics, have been greatly improved and are the game's strong points. It should also be difficult to completely drop the ball in a series that has been built up with annual releases over decades, so basically this is a good game. Unfortunately, it has far too many problems. Let me mention one that is sure to put many people off. It's the new user interface. While I personally have no problem with the look itself, which I think will be great eventually, I'm sure it will provoke strong reactions. I saw someone describe the look as Windows 8 with its grid pattern. The problem I have is instead with how cumbersome it is. Things that used to take one or two clicks to get to now take five. This is, of course, entirely a matter of habit, but it's sometimes very difficult to find the things I want to find.

As a small consolation, bookmarks have been added. At the top right of the screen, there are small icons that take you directly to a specific page, and you can customise, which pages these are. Want quick access to your youth team? Add it there. Don't use transition activity that often? Remove it. As I mentioned in the introduction, however, this unfortunately feels like a move towards a greater focus on console gamers. For me, Football Manager is and always will be a PC game.

The longer I play, the more questions I have. Why have things that were previously obvious been removed? It's no longer possible to encourage players from the side-lines. It's impossible to "communicate" with them at all, and I think that if someone like Diego Simeone, with his extreme emotional expressions, plays this game, he will explode. Now it feels more like I'm someone sitting on the bench with a tablet, analysing player ratings instead of standing on the side-lines and directing my team. The different tones of voice in the match chat are also gone. After a really embarrassing loss, I used to yell at the players and throw a water bottle for extra effect. Not anymore. Now it's just comments.

Cup draws seem to have been removed, unless I've missed a button and now there's just a message telling you which team you'll be facing. The change that has me scratching my head a little extra is why the rating system for coaches, scouts, and the like has been changed. This was a scale of 1 to 20 for the different categories, such as attacking play, physiotherapy, and others. The players still have this rating for their attributes, but the employees are now ranked with words instead, such as unsuitable, decent, average, competent, good, very good, outstanding, and elite. Why fix something that wasn't broken, especially to something that provides less precision?

And perhaps my biggest question, which may be completely irrelevant at launch, is how it's possible to release such a buggy game after two years of development. I understand that some things don't work as they should with a completely new graphics engine, but there are such obvious errors that I really don't understand how they weren't detected during the testing phase. Sure, during the review period, the game is marked as beta, but it's only a few days before the full release and I see players without arms, others playing without taking off their warm-up clothes, buttons that can't be pressed, text that doesn't fit in the text boxes, words that haven't been translated, and more.

One of my matches went to penalties, after which I couldn't add penalty takers and couldn't proceed. I had to press the quick result button (which has now been added so you can simulate the rest of the match). Sports Interactive has already promised a bunch of updates in the coming days, and many of these issues will surely be gone by launch, but having this many bugs just a few days before launch and relying on beta testers to report them does not inspire confidence.

All in all, this is a good game with very big problems. I haven't even mentioned one of the better new features, which is that women's football has now been added with 13 leagues. Happily, these even include regional leagues so your local team is now represented. Some may think this is an unnecessary addition, but it's not mandatory to use and more choices are (almost) always better.

I think the biggest sign of whether someone likes a Football Manager game is how addicted they are to that "just one more game" feeling. In previous years, I would get that at 9PM and suddenly it would be 4AM, but I haven't had that feeling with Football Manager 26. I now have no problem turning off the game when I think it's time, and that's very telling. It's fun, but not nearly as addictive as before. This may sound a bit exaggerated, but the question is whether Football Manager has lost some of its soul with the new start.