Sports Interactive have confirmed that the release date of Football Manager 25 has been delayed until next year following challenges in development.
Last month, the company announced that FM25’s launch would be pushed back to late November, with several factors, including moving the entire game to the new Unity engine, being deemed "trickier than originally anticipated".
In short, Sports Interactive wanted to give themselves more time to deliver the upcoming instalment of the game.
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But now, the release has been delayed further as they continue to work on "the biggest technical and visual advancement for the series in a generation."
The company released a lengthy statement on Thursday afternoon to confirm the news.
It reads: "After careful consideration, Sports Interactive have made the tough decision to further delay the release of Football Manager 25.
"Following discussions with SEGA, our licensors and partners, we have agreed the best course of action is to delay the launch until March 2025. Specific platform release dates will follow once confirmed.
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"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.
"This additional time has not been sufficient to ensure the game quality and experience meets your expectations and our very high standards.
"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.
"Timelines 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 working across the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best game possible."
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The statement continues: "FM25 is the biggest technical and visual advancement in the series for a generation. We simply cannot 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 the 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, please contact your retailer."
"Something you noted as missing from our announcement on 30 September was mention of Advanced Access on PC/Mac. We can confirm Advanced Access will be available ahead of the new release date and, when we are confident on how long that period will be, we will update you at the first opportunity. The new gameplay reveal will also now move to the end of January 2025.
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"We are intensely aware that this 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."
As mentioned above, the launch for Football Manager 25 has been delayed until March 2025.
Topics: Gaming, Football Manager
Jack Kenmare