FM 25 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

[OmnissiahMasteR]

I am writing this article for the FM 25 developer diary that I read today. First of all, switching to the new game engine is a great work of courage and I appreciate it in this respect, I read your article completely, but those UI images completely disappointed me and removing many features that were in old games just because they were not played gave me the feeling of going back to FM 11, not FM 25, yes, the game is still under construction, nothing is finished, but the interface of that game and the fact that many things that were removed were not replaced by new things made me very disappointed, thanks.

[Brentford Alan]

It's a very early state of play update, new features will I'm sure be announced as time goes on. The screenshots are just an indicator and not likely to be the final version by a long shot. 

[danyates8]

I've got deep worries that due to the popularity of the console version of the game over the last few years we are heading in a far to simplistic direction. The new UI doesn't look good at all in my opinion.

[xOGxTerror]

One thing interesting is they are using Design Builds for UI images and not screenshots... Doesn't the game release in like 4 and a bit months?!

[DP]

2 minutes ago, xOGxTerror said:

One thing interesting is they are using Design Builds for UI images and not screenshots... Doesn't the game release in like 4 and a bit months?!

Not necessarily. We don’t know when it releases - the date will be revealed in September but it could release next year?

[OmnissiahMasteR]

9 dakika önce, Brentford Alan said:

It's a very early state of play update, new features will I'm sure be announced as time goes on. The screenshots are just an indicator and not likely to be the final version by a long shot. 

yes of course this is not the finished version but I don't think it will change much when the game is 5 months away from release, the UI looks just like a tablet game and it's not nice. 

[xOGxTerror]

4 minutes ago, DP said:

Not necessarily. We don’t know when it releases - the date will be revealed in September but it could release next year?

You think FM25 will release in 2026? lol

[dℍaisa]

The UI looks dangerously simplistic in the screenshots. Clean is good, simplistic is not.

Edit: P.S. I would like to clarify that the screenshots we saw are just design files. So it would be unfair to call them UI. It is just meant to portray an idea, it's meant to be simplistic. 

Edited Saturday at 18:53 by dℍaisa
my bad

[eusebio1]

I am super interested in getting information on how the Unity build will affect Mac compatability. As someone playing on a rather old Intel-processor MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM, I really want to know whether I need to start saving money to be able to play FM25 on release  

[DP]

7 minutes ago, xOGxTerror said:

You think FM25 will release in 2026? lol

Isn’t next year… 2025? 

[xOGxTerror]

Just now, DP said:

Isn’t next year… 2025? 

Now I understand what you meant Yes maybe they will release it next year.... or maybe am I from the future?

[jimbo22]

14 minutes ago, DP said:

Not necessarily. We don’t know when it releases - the date will be revealed in September but it could release next year?

It will be October/November as it is almost every year.

[omerrath]

19 minutes ago, DP said:

Not necessarily. We don’t know when it releases - the date will be revealed in September but it could release next year?

No point to do so. The season starts on August 2024. It’s already irrational to release it every year on November (3 months after) , to stretch it even further would be bad in so many ways

[DP]

8 minutes ago, jimbo22 said:

It will be October/November as it is almost every year.

Hopefully. My point is we don’t know that for a fact. This is a completely new engine, we’ve had ‘reveals’ in June which we never get for upcoming editions and Miles has said the date will be revealed in September. It’s different from other years, but yes, hoping it’s a similar release window. 

Edited Thursday at 15:05 by DP

[2feet]

1 minute ago, DP said:

Hopefully. My point is we don’t know that for a fact. This is a completely new engine, we’ve had ‘reveals’ in June which we never get for upcoming editions and Miles has said the date will be revealed in September. It’s different from other years, but yes, hoping it’s a similar release window. 

 

Yes, and the update says they will be able to release things quicker in future.

[DavutOzkan]

Obviously, the UI is a thing I'll have to wait until I personally use before fully judging, but the first impression isn't good here, IMO. As others have said, it looks like a console/tablet version and very watered down. 

Edited Thursday at 15:14 by DavutOzkan

[Brentford Alan]

38 minutes ago, OmnissiahMasteR said:

yes of course this is not the finished version but I don't think it will change much when the game is 5 months away from release, the UI looks just like a tablet game and it's not nice. 

The pictures could have been created weeks or months ago, for all we know. 

[SPE3D]

My first take on the new UI is encouraging. I don't mind the simplistic look. The new screenshots seem to show more information provided in a clean understandable way.

I have a feeling monitor sizes could have a larger impact on this game and those with widescreen monitors could benefit more. 

[CaptainSa]

The UI looks fine, just a bit simplistic. People are going to overreact to every bit of information SI puts out there this development cycle especially, as expectations are sky high due to the engine change.

[2feet]

The Screen Between Match Highlights:

Personally I would like to see a lot of thought given to maximising screen space. Allow the tiles to be customisable so you can really PACK information in, with the information you want, and eliminate info you dont want.

I want to maximise every centimetre on the screen so I can really PACK data in. This would enable me to have all the data INSTANTLY READABLE in ONE VIEW. This would be data that I believe has the strongest influence on how to win the game, and that I have customised the tiles to show. I want to reduce the need to click, then click again, then *sigh* click one more time, to get to the info I want.

For example, I can already observe from looking at the subs icons.... does the height of the shirts need to be so tall? Could you not shrink the shirt icons and pack other data into that area instead? 

And looking at the screenshot, my first Q is: where are my subs, what do they look like, which of them could I bring on to influence the game? I see there is a little Subs option bottom left that appears to be switched off so curious about where the subs would be displayed if turned on?

 

Also:

"I think we should replace Stones with Akanji"

Please give me a 'why?' button, and allow me to have a conversation with my assistant on the side lines. You know, like we see football managers doing in real life. Wouldn't that be cool? 

 

Also 2:

It would be great to be able to select a player from the overhead view of the pitch by clicking on their circle as they move about.

[jimbo22]

Just now, Brentford Alan said:

The pictures could have been created weeks or months ago, for all we know. 

Not a smart move to release it in one of the first articles about a game headed in a new direction if its not true to what it looks like today.

[Marko1989]

I hope they will not keep this color scheme, again it looks like a soulless excel sheet in dark mode. Interface is part of the immersion, it has to be pretty, it must not look depressing like this, and it has to have club colors so you really feel like you are managing that club. It is something we look at for hundreds of hours.

 

I think FM 2017 had a nice balance of colors, with club colors and a pitch background which was really pleasing to see at least to me. 

Edited Thursday at 15:52 by Marko1989

[cerud]

I have to agree with those here that are a bit worried about the UI after seeing those pictures. The whole "looking clean is not always efficient" comes to mind.

My worry is that I won't have all the information I want at my fingertips anymore; it'll be spread out on several screens on little tiles that just seem to take up space more than anything. If I have to navigate through various screens to get what I need, that's not a good UI design. Anything that adds clicks just adds time, which is a killer for UI.

I did like the one screen that show the match highlights though. There was more on there than is currently. And it was still easy to read.

[Harper]

Personally, tiles and cards UI/UX is promising. It's easy to have negative expectations. Frankly, it's prudent to have low expectations.

But, my initial gut reaction, as someone that has played every iteration of CM and FM since 2001/02, is that the variety of option in form factors of these tiles and cards will allow the user to have greater customization of what and how information presented on player and team profiles. Hopefully the tiles can be dragged and drop around the screen so I don't have to select tiles in order to get them to go to where I want. (Think Android home screen layout rather than Apple's soon to be retired autosnap functionality). Maybe it's just the excitement of FM25 news that's got me huffing that hopium, but my gut reaction was positive (if not abundantly hopeful and disregarding the prudence of holding low expectations).

If the user has agency in selecting which tiles, and at what sizes, various tiles appear on a player profile, this will be a MASSIVE improvement for the UX. If a user can export and share their tile setup and share it with the community, it makes the skinning community much more accessible. Or, in the negative, the community is absolutely flooded with nuanced variations of the same thing. If the user can create custom cards, it allows the skinning community to focus on extracting the appropriate statistics, rather than fidgeting with panel size parameters or maintaining hi-res and lo-res versions! Or focus on introducing unique color palettes or patterns/textures that can be applied to the UI.

One of the most tedious and discouraging aspects of tinkering with a custom skin is trying to make those tiny adjustments to panel sizes to accommodate a given resolution. I've tried several times and end up just forcing someone else's skin to work to my needs. But with these, I imagine a world where @Wozzie or @_Ben_ or @TCSSkin and all the other skinners can produce their unique skins and data representations, but not have to caveat what resolution the skin is made for. Whether you are on a 13" MacBook or plugged into a 49" Ultrawide, you can use a same skin and the tiles and cards adjust to the appropriate size to fit the monitor!

I'm less concerned about color scheme, as that should be something that a user can customize...or the skinning community will find a way to customize

All in, I believe this is has the opportunity to be great for customizing how we can pick and choose what we see on our screens.

Edited Thursday at 17:31 by Harper

[themadsheep2001]

Most of the skins I used had a similar look so personally this is a step in the right direction from the little we see. 

[-Jef-]

16 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Most of the skins I used had a similar look so personally this is a step in the right direction from the little we see. 

This looks a lot like what @_Ben_ is putting out on his Statman series.

 

Also, are we gonna pretend that most of the information you want is at the fingertips and not hidden behind gazillion buttons and menus? I think most of us are so used to where things are right now that any change is gonna look and feel "off". A lot of people complains with every feature reveal that SI is putting more and more things behind more and more screens.

[Matty89]

That article is just pointless in my view

The main issue every year is the poor ME they need to focus on that for a year mainly and make the 3D engine way better actual battles rather than this walking alongside stuff we have now makes a no sense that a 3D engine has zero battling for the ball after all this time

Edited Thursday at 17:20 by Matty89

[themadsheep2001]

3 minutes ago, -Jef- said:

This looks a lot like what @_Ben_ is putting out on his Statman series.

 

Also, are we gonna pretend that most of the information you want is at the fingertips and not hidden behind gazillion buttons and menus? I think most of us are so used to where things are right now that any change is gonna look and feel "off". A lot of people complains with every feature reveal that SI is putting more and more things behind more and more screens.

Yep, great example, that and @TCSSkin. 

As you say, right now a lot of information is behind too many clicks, which is exactly why i use TCS' work. If done right, this is a huge step forwards for information coming to the foreground

[Etebaer]

Well, the question i have is: Will there be a Light Skin UI ?

I exclusively play on Light Skin UI bcs dark modes are killing my eyes screen watching endurance which in a game like FM is essential as there is much to read and most of the game happens in the data sheets.

If they are not supremely light on your eyes screen watching endurance the game simply can not be enjoyed and becomes a "burning eyes" generator!

I personally can only and exclusivley endure Light Skins!

[dℍaisa]

 

However, 

Understanding that the screenshots provided are DESIGN FILES, not the actual game build is crucial. These files are concepts created by the game artists to convey their ideas to the developers. They are designed to look simple and may not reflect how the final game will appear. Instead, they offer a potential direction for the new user interface. Any features or data not included in these screenshots have not yet been revealed.

 

Although I do want an optional light mode and accent colour change settings. 

Edited Thursday at 17:29 by dℍaisa

[pukfm]

It doesn't look good 

So they remove lot of huge features, just to make a new weird UI? And what is the new features this year - womens football ?? It looks like a skip for me. So sad.

Edited Thursday at 18:33 by pukfm

[Federico]

All I wish is having less click to do anything. So in my opinion I hope it's going to be like that, as it seems.

Also I think FM turned to be extremely overwhelming and overweight. So removing not so popular stuff could be painful for someone but necessary at the moment.

[Federico]

3 minuti fa, pukfm ha scritto:

I doesn't look good 

So they remove lot of huge features, just to make a new weird UI? And what is the new features this year - womens football ?? It looks like a skip for me. So sad.

Sorry but I think you are far away from seeing the big picture and take such a drastic judgement.

You speak of huge features removed, but from their collected data they don't seem SUCH huge after all. 

Edited Thursday at 18:35 by Federico

[pukfm]

4 minutes ago, Federico said:

Sorry but I think you are far away from seeing the big picture and take such a drastic judgement.

You speak of huge features removed, but from their collected data they don't seem SUCH huge after all. 

So do you believe that womens football feature will be huge?? I don't think so.

Sorry but i don't believe that touchline-shouts was not used much. It was one of the most used features for me. But thats not the point. The point is, they remove lot of features to make a new weird UI. So disappointing !! 

[talhak]

1. Maybe the current implementation of touchline shouts is not ideal but it DOES WORK for some degree. At least, it was giving the immersion of contacting our players on the pitch. We can't just set the tactics, click the button and finally see the result. It is not the CM/Early FM-time anymore. A NEW game/era and stepping BACKWARDS in terms of immersion does not sound nice... Isn't immersion all we want?

2. Club colors only improve the immersion, the feeling of managing the club of our dreams - being their FOOTBALL MANAGER. The look-and-feel is an important concept in UX and tightly coupled with psychology. Club colors DO MEAN a lot for fans and a big part of the game. Isn't immersion all we want?

3. Most veteran fans still play the PC version and will likely continue to do so. I hope the direction is not towards a console/mobile-looking game or a uniform UX for all platforms. Each platform should have its own UI that caters to its specific intentions. I believe many of us (current players) started playing CM/FM on PC and have continued to do so, given the depth of the PC version and our long-standing habits. Therefore, the most in-depth version (in other words, full flat-version or the flagship) should be specifically designed.

4. Most of us are eagerly anticipating the real impact of the new Unity engine on the 3D match view. It would be greatly appreciated if we could get a few hints or previews of the new 3D match view.

5. A clean look and minimalism are appreciated, but a "plain look" is not ideal. It would be great to see some visual effects on the background, such as those found in FM23, as shown in the example below. So, I hope you'd enhance the visual appearance of the game for the build version.

I'm excited to see what SI has in store for FM25! Best of luck with the release—hope it'll be another success!

[rbnrbn]

Are there any plans to include an asynchronous online mode that allows players to participate in online matches or leagues without needing to be online simultaneously?

[2feet]

“Our Design team wanted to create something that would help to build a sense of exploration for every player to reveal the depth and detail of Football Manager.

In this system, the tiles are a way of building curiosity by providing a snapshot of information, while clicking through into cards rewards your interest with further detail.”

 

Why not just allow the user to have the exact information you want on the top layer?

Because if you can do this, then the user can easily make an assessment of the data, and can pick out patterns and make connections.

It’s harder to make connections or see patterns when you have data that might be 'connectable' spread-out on different pages, within sub-sections.

If you can 'pluck' the data you want to examine, and dump it all on one page, then you can cast your eye over it all in one place, and then spot any connections or see any patterns in the data much more easily, because you now have in front of you a SINGLE OVERVIEW of different insightful data.

 

So I think users will want to be able to layout data about their teams on one page, with they key data they choose.

 

So please ensure users can customise layouts, because I do think customisation is key to making tiles work.

Like how we currently have customisable Columns and Views.

 

So if tiles can incorporate graphics into what we see on our customised pages, that would be fantastic.

You could have specific information from the Data Analysis Hub now appearing within a customised page layout for your team, a bit like the customised columns we currently have, but now with Data Hub analysis results mixed in with it too. Could be awesome.

[psoares]

not gonna lie, I'm on the same boat.

"The same is true of crafting a design that’s platform agnostic, enabling ease of play whether you’ve got a mouse and keyboard, a controller, or even a touch screen."

this for me is a terrible idea, why would a pc player used to use a mouse and keyboard suddenly have to use this mess of big tiles made for controllers? this is not ease of play this is simply to reduce cost of development or time to develop a propper ui for each platform, this is fooling no one.

"ease of use" by having information summed up in cards but if you want to see more you have to click and click and click is none sense.

[Lord Rowell]

I DID POST THIS IN THE SPECULATION THREAD. I HOPE PEOPLE DON'T MIND ME POSTING HERE AS WELL AS ITS APPROPRIATE TO THIS THREAD.

Just on this, quoted from Miles' blog post.

"The same is true of crafting a design that’s platform agnostic, enabling ease of play whether you’ve got a mouse and keyboard, a controller, or even a touch screen. "

Enabling ease of play with different devices is especially important for people with disabilities e.g. motor-control issues. I suspect going down this route might make FM more accessible to some people? I know Miles / SI (I think) are supporters of https://www.specialeffect.org.uk/ - a charity that enable gamers with disabilities to be more easily able to access games. In this discussion on this issue, I'd ask everyone to give this at least a little thought.

I hope this is part of the motivation for this route and it would be good to get a response from someone from SI about this.

[SPE3D]

I presume the main reason for an agnostic approach is purely financial. Going forward being able to implement updates more easily across all platforms makes business sense for a company like SI.

[Rashidi]

I’ve had friends who’ve seen me play FM and are only interested in the match day experience. Most are put off with the spreadsheet feel that the game has had over the last 20 years and I for one am glad that we have ditched the “Home” screen in favour of a portal where I don’t need to deal with an “inbox” and spend each turn skipping messages and only responding to necessary ones.

Personally I’ve wanted a UI that felt like Oracle’s cubes, and with the tile UI interface it seems like we can have a top down approach to drilling for information.  And instead of being saddled with detailed information, and having to ascertain what’s necessary and what’s not, we now have a UI that simplifies things.

Naturally SI only revealed the design pages so there is plenty more to come, I for one remain guardedly optimistic and will only have a concrete opinion once the game is in my hands.

I do have some concerns and these involve immersion. While I understand the need to rework how touchline shouts will be implemented within the overall game flow, I do hope we don’t have to wait till it’s reintroduced in FM26. That by far is the BIGGEST form of immersion in the game for me. I like the sensation of feeling that my shouts matter.

Since the current implementation of shouts has always left questions unanswered, I feel that the best way of kicking them back in again is via cutaways.

Each time  a shout is used, the game could cutaway to the manager gesticulating, this could give developers the change to code the script to recalculate from that moment onwards. It’s also a great way to showcase our eye patches, earrings and watches. I look forward to getting my hands on FM25.

[kiwityke1983]

As someone whose been pretty vocal in criticising the direction of travel the UI/UX has been heading for around 5-6 years now, with things being increasingly hidden behind multiple clicks and screens.

My initial impressions aren't brilliant of the new look of the tiles and cards, they somehow managed to look overly simple and cluttered and messy.

In fact I'd say my first impressions are nudging towards negative.

But the end product might be brilliant, it might be awful I don't think we can really tell from these very early design mock ups and brief description in the update from Miles.

[Mobius]

I don't really understand the "Touchline Shouts" part of the update

Quote

"Shouts have been in the series for many years and, to be frank, I’ve never been happy with them."

you know they've been crap for years but they've been in the game up until now, and despite not being happy with them, no changes have been made until now, where they're completely removed?

Quote

A “shout” should happen instantly, but they only came into effect after the ball had gone out of play.  

 why couldn't this change have been made at some point? "a shout should happen instantly" .. alright, well you've never been happy with them so there's been ample time to make a change, any change, to how it works....

Quote

It also wasn’t clear to players how long the shout lasted for. 

put it in a loading screen as a tip? could this information not have been relayed to us at some point?

To me acknowledging they've been poor/confusing/vague for years and doing nothing about it, then just removing the function entirely, sucks.

Communicating with your players during a match is a core function of being a football manager, and one of the few ways we can directly influence a match as it's happening. Who really knows what it did? Did those green faces lighting up mean things were going to improve? There was no exact science to it (i don't think we need to know definitively that a shout lasts for x minutes for example), but that was half the fun, hammering shouts in desperation trying to get your team to do something different. It's part of the roleplaying aspect of the game.

And for the Create-A-Club mode you've said

Quote

We know that this is our most popular mode away from Career and Network Career mode, with 5% of you using Create-A-Club on the platforms it's available. That said, this percentage has been steadily declining.We can’t improve the Create-A-Club experience to the level we’re looking for before this year’s launch. So, we’ve decided not to rush it, and will instead bring it back in Football Manager 26 with lots of changes and improvements.

So it's not very popular, only 5% of people use it and that number is diminishing... but you want to improve it, but you just can't do it by the next FM... so it gets ripped out of the game entirely? Why not leave it until the new version is ready? Was it that broken? Create-A-Club was fun to me personally, and I don't know what warrants its removal from the game. And it looks like the same thing has happened to Versus Mode, Challenge Mode and Fantasy Draft. 

Sorry if this sounds negative,but the reveal of this UI, and a bunch of features being removed, is hardly the most exciting way to begin the journey to a new FM, and you can only have an opinion on what's in front of you. I am sure better more exciting updates will come.

Edited Friday at 04:02 by Mobius

[phnompenhandy]

So a bunch of features I've never used won't be in FM25. Fine.

Being able to bounce around managing lower league men's and women's teams - excellent - I'll definitely be doing that.

Taking out shouts - a misstep. It needs fixing, not removing as it's an integral part of what a football manager does.

UI - I've always hated tiles - one reason I never upgraded to Windows 11. However, the screenshot looks okay. Loss of the inbox - good.

So one negative; the rest a cautious positive. So far, so good.

[XaW]

First view, cautiously optimistic. Here is why:

I think removing features from the game is needed. Not entirely sure shouts are the best to go, but I can appreciate removing a half baked feature they can't fix short term. A lot of the others are fine to remove for me, since I've rarely played the game modes, or used the features. I do understand this might upset a small  subset of users though.

I'm not sold on the UI shown, but since they are just design mockups, I know how much they can change from design to actually being implemented. So I'm not overly worried, I just hope those tiles can be customized easily on the fly by users without having to resort to skinners or such. Getting the data I want front and center is good thing, if I can decide what data I want to see that is.

Also, any transparency is good, and I think the choice of inviting people to give early feedback is a great way of getting some issues highlighted early on. Working in software development, I know the development team can sometimes have great ideas, but if the users don't intuitively understand the flow, then it's easy to fall short. Getting user feedback before release can clear up things quickly.

What I most want to see though is how well the new 3D will look and more screenshots from the UI, hopefully in an actual Alpha/pre-Alpha build rather than design documents. That said, I'd love to see more design documents too. As a tester, I know we can test those too, you know!  

So I'm looking forward to the next reveal, hopeful, but not hysterically hyping the game yet!  

[lied90]

All for removing fluff that isn't used.

From the SS it looks very sterile, so I fear people who use the default skin will feel more like a data analyst than a football manager. Some club related color and theme is important for immersion.

I will use a custom skin anyway so prob won't matter.

[herne79]

5 hours ago, Rashidi said:

I do have some concerns and these involve immersion. While I understand the need to rework how touchline shouts will be implemented within the overall game flow, I do hope we don’t have to wait till it’s reintroduced in FM26. That by far is the BIGGEST form of immersion in the game for me. I like the sensation of feeling that my shouts matter.

Agreed.

With SI’s ethos being one of “realism”, removing our ability to talk (shout) to our players during a match seems a backward step, regardless of how effective (or not) Touchline Shouts actually are.

[marioo]

 

It all looks like Erly Access FM 2027 implemented in Championship Manager 4. Wait to release the finished game instead of releasing an alpha version!

Edited Friday at 07:57 by marioo

[Mr. Moran]

Why? Is this really necessary? It's so confusing.

[eXistenZ]

Shouts dont work properly, so they were removed. Fine. Promises and player interactions havent worked properly for years though, but no word on that (yet)?

Cutting down on the MP stuff doesnt really bother me, as the figures show, the percentage is miniscule. My worry about this is that its gonna be introduced again in like 2years time and sold as a completly new feature. Also FM e-sports? Ive never hear anyone say "they should make a sports out of fm"

 

not really impressed by the UI. Looks way too console like. But its in process i guess