A round-up of all the new features in Football Manager 2024 ahead of early access beta release

Football Manager 2024 will officially drop on Monday, November 6, although early access will be available to those who pre-purchased the game. So what can we expect from a version that was described as a "love letter to football" by Sports Interactive’s studio director Miles Jacobson?

Here is a round-up of the new features on the upcoming release, featuring match engine upgrades, set piece changes and a history-making ability to play previous save games.

A new option at the start of your Football Manager journey:

There are now three ways to start a save – ‘Original’, ‘Real World’ and ‘Your World’. So what do you they mean?

• Original: Players will be at the clubs they play for in the current Football Manager database at the start of your game, reflecting the most accurate real-life data.
• Real World: Players will start the game contracted to the clubs they were with on the real-life date your Career begins. They will then move to their new club on the same date as they did in real life.
• Your World: Club squads and budgets will be set at the date your game starts, and only players who joined before that date will be at your club - with all future transfers (for Real World mode) cancelled, giving you the opportunity to change history.

Image credit: Sports Interactive

Import your career from FM23 into the new game:

For the first time in the franchise's history, you will have the ability to transfer your save from Football Manager 2023 into FM24 and beyond.

Sports Interactive’s studio director Miles Jacobson confirmed the news, saying: "When you first launch Football Manager 2024, you'll be given the option to continue your FM23 story, picking up exactly where you left off – powered with the new features and revamps that FM24 will introduce."

He added: "And it’s not only for this year’s version of the game that this feature will be active. It’s also the plan to bring saved games from FM24 into FM25, despite the big changes coming for FM25."

Image credit: Sports Interactive

Decision-making/team selection capabilities of AI managers/finances:

It has been announced that decision-making and team selection capabilities have been "significantly improved" by those working on the game, meaning opposition AI will be able to recognise imbalances in their squad make-up and will take their tactical style into consideration.

There are also a number of big changes to finances in-game, including negative transfer budgets. That's right. If you overspend your budget – or fail to make enough money within a time period – then the board will take matters into their own hands.

"It's the board who decide whether you've overspent or not across a season, based on their priorities, and obviously those priorities can change during a season - both positively and negatively," said Jacobson. "So, you might take over a team at the start of the game (or when moving to another team) with a negative transfer budget.

"You may have your budget cut during the season based on a bunch of different factors including FFP and league position and find yourself needing to sell a player. The board's plans may also change from one season to the next."

Image credit: Sports Interactive

Match engine upgrades/new positions:

Lighting and pitch textures have been significantly enhanced in Football Manager 2024, with day, night and interior lighting being upgraded to ensure that fans get better colour grading based on the weather, season and time of day.

Pitch textures are also much sharper and bring a more natural feel to the game.

The inverted full-back is also a new player role in this year's edition – a position that balances a traditional full-back with becoming a third central defender in possession.

"This new role enables you to experiment with three-at-the-back building shapes while defending in a back four, something that many of the world’s top teams are currently doing. It also frees up someone else in your backline to move up into midfield," the FM website states.

Sports Interactive have also tweaked the inverted winger and inside forward roles.

"They will recognise that you’ve got an additional midfield player pushing up into the half space on their side, they will stay wider to accommodate them and help you create more overloads."

Image credit: Getty

Set piece changes

Set Piece coaches are now a specialised staff role in the new Football Manager, which means a Set Pieces attribute has been added to every coach in the database that indicates their ability to train your players in the tactical aspects of set pieces.

When you enter the Set Piece screen, you will be greeted with several options. Do you want your team to defend with Zonal, Hybrid or Man Marking? Then, you'll be asked questions like, how aggressively do you want to counter-attack from your opponent’s set pieces? Or whether you want your takers to aim for the near post, far post or centre of the box?

Under the header 'More adaptive and intelligent routines' on the FM website, it reads: Your Set Piece coach will use the answers you provide to craft some initial corner and free kick routines for every scenario.

When these routines are created, you’ll now see that every set piece has specific roles attached to it. For example, at a corner the key roles outside of the taker are:

• Aerial Threat
• Box Threat
• Recovery Defender
• Creators

Image credit: Sports Interactive

Image credit: Sports Interactive

What are you looking forward to most on Football Manager 2024?

Let us know in the comments.