FM 25 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

[CrowManager]

Just now, DavutOzkan said:

I'm honestly surprised out of all the bad that came out of this blog, WEIGHT of all things is the one that is being such a sticking point. 

It was one of two things that came out of this blog and is just such an insanely petty thing to add to a devblog that probably signifies that development is just, cooked.

[NoirChrist]

I have no problem with the womens game. I was 50/50 about it last year when EA announced they were adding it to career mode but i've grown to enjoy it's inclusion and i'm looking forward to the same in the next instalment of FM.

What i do have a problem with is taking away the "Weight" stat. Some might argue that it's always been an inconsequential factoid (I'm quite slow-paced & detailed while playing the game so i've always found utility for it, while also pairing it with the height stat while scouting, particularly in the lower leagues where i'm not familiar with most player profiles ) but i think it's useful, like why have Height but not Weight on display?

If the argument is Body/Weight-shaming, surely someone's Height comes into the equation too? Have we considered the people out there shorter than 5'7?. Also, don't we have to safeguard gainst racism? maybe we stop rendering skin colour and just make all the 3D player models gray! Maybe we stop providing information on player nationality and just take that out alongside the International management feature?!

Like many have said, the thought is in a good place but now it's like SI have jumped the gun too far and are now creating solutions for problems which do not practically exist. Like we have Female characters of various morphology in many video games all across the genre spectrum. Why then do SI decide to take a weird stand about this when no one else is fussing about it in the first place?

 

[NoirChrist]

Just now, NoirChrist said:

I have no problem with the womens game. I was 50/50 about it last year when EA announced they were adding it to career mode but i've grown to enjoy it's inclusion and i'm looking forward to the same in the next instalment of FM.

What i do have a problem with is taking away the "Weight" stat. Some might argue that it's always been an inconsequential factoid (I'm quite slow-paced & detailed while playing the game so i've always found utility for it, while also pairing it with the height stat while scouting, particularly in the lower leagues where i'm not familiar with most player profiles ) but i think it's useful, like why have Height but not Weight on display?

If the argument is Body/Weight-shaming, surely someone's Height comes into the equation too? Have we considered the people out there shorter than 5'7?. Also, don't we have to safeguard gainst racism? maybe we stop rendering skin colour and just make all the 3D player models gray! Maybe we stop providing information on player nationality and just take that out alongside the International management feature?!

Like many have said, the thought is in a good place but now it's like SI have jumped the gun too far and are now creating solutions for problems which do not practically exist. Like we have Female characters of various morphology in many video games all across the genre spectrum. Why then do SI decide to take a weird stand about this when no one else is fussing about it in the first place?

 

Admittedly, Myself and many others seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill of this but it is an international break and not much else to do. It's not a big deal at the end of the day but weird move from SI to make this an issue out of nowhere.

[John Joe O'toole]

The delay is disappointing but to be expected on a first build I'm sure?

I always check height on FM depending on position but have never checked weight so don't think its too much of an issue!

[CrowManager]

Frankly I think a lot of the outrage over these things is the fact that Football Manager as has been known looks to be sorta just, going away. 

I mean when you look at this game it looks like it has very little of what it should. Is Womens football even going to be played differently to Mens football? Will it feel any different at all?

But at the same time it's like: Our voices do not matter to the game. The forums are not very active most of the time, and even if they were, companies follow the money. SI going for seemingly a more casual route means that the only way for a return to the route the hardcore fans of this game would want is for the game to just fail. To just fail commercially and hope that SI sees that as them abandoning their fans. To me these dev updates show that they were focusing on casual streamlining and are focused on graphics over gameplay. The possible tifos they can add, the stadiums having much more potential and variation and realism. Because the graphics could hook new players and SI could go and readd these features with huge announcements as "new". That's why I think they aren't releasing anything on the graphics, they could be the great hook to get people immersed into the game. 

And in the end we don't have control of that, the 30 of us mad on here about the game? Yeah that's getting ignored by SI, and again, understandably so. The people who were complaining about hockey scoring in FM24? Most stayed, FM24 has higher average players online than FM23 did in its release window. But it is disappointing that for people to get the change they'd want probably have to hope the game fails sales wise. People drop off the game? Unlikely to happen, and even then, they have the money from it because SI is one of the only companies that doesn't release mid year DLC for profit. 

Lot of it comes down to, is the series genuinely going to improve and be a sim, or is it not and be dumbed down. I don't know.

[santy001]

1 minute ago, NoirChrist said:

like why have Height but not Weight on display?

Same point as I made before, your height cannot fluctuate. No one has ever come back from a period of injury six inches shorter, they might come back six pounds heavier. It's nothing at all to do with weight shaming. It's very likely no one had a meaningful discussion about weight over the last 10 years. When it's come to setting data for female footballers it seems quite logical to infer that when someone asked for weights they were like "Well it changes quite a lot through the course of a season" and that probably led to a bit more of a concerted conversation about how it features and is presented in the game.

While Starfield had a mass system when designing ships the weight had no tangible impact on ship handling/effects when actually piloting a ship compared to a game like Elite Dangerous where there was an inertia based physics model which was impacted by ship cargo, various upgrades etc. FM hasn't had that to the best of my knowledge and even if it were to be developed in the future, the descriptions in the background could still be utilised in it.

[XV20]

until call-ups are fixed and perfected, i have no problem with it being removed currently. I guess we can now forget about the unity event stuff for the time being...

[jeru]

27 minutes ago, Brentford Alan said:

Weight has not been 'removed', it's now hidden. We're still setting weights or weight descriptions in the database so you'll still have chubby players, stick insects and everything inbetween when they're running about the pitch.

 

Irl managers don't know the actual weight of a potential signing until they're on the scales at their medical, the stuff clubs put on their website player profiles is usually a ball park figure at absolute best.

How do you know it’s not been removed? Have you seen the source code? No so unless we can see visible differences in the player models in the graphics engine it has to all intents and purposes been removed from the user perspective.
 

 

[Brentford Alan]

1 minute ago, jeru said:

How do you know it’s not been removed? Have you seen the source code? No so unless we can see visible differences in the player models in the graphics engine it has to all intents and purposes been removed from the user perspective.
 

 

I'm a researcher, I can see the database, we still have the fields to amend. If they were of no use they would be disabled and we wouldn't be asked to waste our time filling them in for every player.

[Aim_Less]

1 hour ago, forameuss said:

It's rare you see a post that shows so clearly you've little idea of how a project like this will work. Well done.

You clearly don't know what your talking about.

You think all these years the game was coded from scratch for each release? That's delusional if so

[jeru]

7 minutes ago, Brentford Alan said:

I'm a researcher, I can see the database, we still have the fields to amend. If they were of no use they would be disabled and we wouldn't be asked to waste our time filling them in for every player.

Doesn’t matter that you can see the database that Does’t mean that the values in database are actually being used for calculations they could just be for future use, the fact that they exist doesn’t mean they are used. we can all see the database to a fashion in the pre game editor unless you work on the ME code you have zero idea researcher or not. 

Edited September 4 by jeru

[XaW]

3 minutes ago, jeru said:

Doesn’t matter that you can see the database that Does’t mean that the values in database are actually being used for calculations they could just be for future use, the fact that they exist doesn’t mean they are used. we can all see the database to a fashion in the pre game editor unless you work on the ME code you have zero idea researcher or not. 

Did you read the post by Miles?

Quote

This perspective encouraged us to review the wider game, much like we have with all other areas, and we’ve ultimately decided to no longer show weight for any players in FM25. A very basic measurement will still be included under the hood, but it won’t be visible on the front end anymore.

 

[Dagenham_Dave]

9 minutes ago, angelo994 said:

The fact that this was one of the main talking points of the development update is comically worrying.

It's not really. There was supposed to be a proper development update this week, but that has been pushed back to the end of the month. However, instead of just saying nothing, they've released a statement giving an indication of where things are. Naive? Perhaps. They did say they were going to be more transparent though, so can't have it both ways. 

But deep down I'd like to think they did it just for the lolz to have a laugh at the reaction on here. It's what I would have done, absolutely nobody would be surprised to hear. 

[angelo994]

Just now, Dagenham_Dave said:

It's not really. There was supposed to be a proper development update this week, but that has been pushed back to the end of the month. However, instead of just saying nothing, they've released a statement giving an indication of where things are. Naive? Perhaps. They did say they were going to be more transparent though, so can't have it both ways. 

But deep down I'd like to think they did it just for the lolz to have a laugh at the reaction on here. It's what I would have done, absolutely nobody would be surprised to hear. 

Do they want people to NOT buy their game? 

[jeru]

1 minute ago, XaW said:

Did you read the post by Miles?

 

What’s that got to do with you 

[Brentford Alan]

1 minute ago, jeru said:

Doesn’t matter that you can see the database that Does’t mean that the values in database are actually being used for calculations we can all see the database to a fashion in the pre game editor unless you work on the ME code you have zero idea researcher or not. 

Believe what ever you desire. In my 10 years of researching we have always been told which fields are no longer functional or they are disabled/removed so we don't waste our time and the internal research team dont have their time wasted on entering meaningless info. I'm fully confident they havent changed tact on this particular attribute that barely anyone takes notice of.

[Sunderland AFC]

Every single thing I've seen on FM25, from the screenshot to the development updates have really concerned me. 

There isn't one thing that sounds good or going in the right direction. 

An interface that looks like it belongs on handheld console and is there to appeal to casual users to increase £££.

[santy001]

6 minutes ago, jeru said:

Doesn’t matter that you can see the database that Does’t mean that the values in database are actually being used for calculations they could just be for future use, the fact that they exist doesn’t mean they are used. we can all see the database to a fashion in the pre game editor unless you work on the ME code you have zero idea researcher or not. 

So it was never used in the first place right and the only difference was it previously got displayed in the UI and now it won't. So nothing has changed?

Maybe none of it is really used and SI just gets 1200/1300 people to provide data in a huge effort each year for a laugh. None of us will ever know because we don't get to see the source code.

[CaptainSa]

There's another way to look at weight that we're not considering, and it's really what SI should've gone with as a justification - that weight figures are an unreliable stat that we have no idea the validity or accuracy of. Even discounting the prospect of monthly or weekly fluctuations, how do we know what weight people are?

Let's take a male player as an example.

How much does Marcus Rashford weigh?

Manchester United don't have this information on their website. The Premier League don't have this information on their website. The England National Team don't have the information on their website.

So who does? Well a quick search on duckduckgo (parameters: "marcus rashford weight", always private, safesearch moderate, united kingdom location), gives us 70kg from SportReview (unsourced), 75kg from from healthyceleb.com (unsourced), 69.84kg from soccerbase (unsourced), and 70.76kg from soccerway (unsourced). 

So all we have is unsourced information from websites that whilst being close together in estimates, don't have any kind of assurance of accuracy. And that's about one of the most prominent footballers in the game. Now let's take another player.

I support Plymouth Argyle. We just signed a player from Od, in Denmark, called Rami Al Hajj. His weight isn't on Plymouth Argyle's website. He doesn't have a profile on thesportreview or healthyceleb or soccerway. He has one on soccerbase, with no weight listed. He has no weight listed on wikipedia, or on transfermarket.

So how do the people putting together the database even know what weight to put?

[XaW]

Just now, jeru said:

What’s that got to do with you 

Because you either

1. Argue in bad faith, and I have to step in as moderator

or

2. Were unaware of it, and thus to give you what you need to get your facts straight.

Either way, you were wrong and were arguing for the wrong view to be counted as correct. Get a grip.

[NoirChrist]

6 minutes ago, santy001 said:

Same point as I made before, your height cannot fluctuate. No one has ever come back from a period of injury six inches shorter, they might come back six pounds heavier. It's nothing at all to do with weight shaming. It's very likely no one had a meaningful discussion about weight over the last 10 years. When it's come to setting data for female footballers it seems quite logical to infer that when someone asked for weights they were like "Well it changes quite a lot through the course of a season" and that probably led to a bit more of a concerted conversation about how it features and is presented in the game.

While Starfield had a mass system when designing ships the weight had no tangible impact on ship handling/effects when actually piloting a ship compared to a game like Elite Dangerous where there was an inertia based physics model which was impacted by ship cargo, various upgrades etc. FM hasn't had that to the best of my knowledge and even if it were to be developed in the future, the descriptions in the background could still be utilised in it.

Oh i'm starting to get it. The "Weight" stat has no influence on the match engine so that called into question the whole utility of collecting data for it. It's also not because of the inclusion of the Women's game, it's because the stat fluctuates generally.

I do still feel, it shouldn't be hidden, FM is as much of a scouting tool as it's a game/manager sim, having height but no weight on open display still seems a bit off though. Also, at most during a season, a player weight probably fluctuates at most 10-15lbs either way. The data collection could just be focused on an average value for weight an working off there

 

Like why not just have a simple rule to increase player's weight by a random "x" amount during the off-season. 

This could even be something that only affects players with low determination/natural-fitness. Then you "double intensity" their training to get them to shred it off. Seems like i've stumbled on a cool potential easter egg here.

 

I do get the general point, i haven't read the dev update entirely but your explantion makes sense, although a bit puzzling why the general consensus from the community seems to be it's all because of "body-shaming".

 

[nick1408]

I’m beyond disappointed at the loss of international management. I was hoping any announcement would be in the opposite direction and fix issues this mode has had for years. There’s a reason there’s only 5.6% of players and I don’t think it’s through lack of interest. The international management mode has had no real changes in a long time while having some bugs last over multiple versions. I’ve always liked international management as winning a job in-game feels like an achievement after success at club level. 
 

im also going to miss trying to win an international job prior to the 2026 World Cup. It’s a little challenge I set for myself to keep things interesting. FM25 sounds like it’s going to get repetitive without international management. 
 

Now, on a more cynical level I do wonder if other game modes will be dropped if they have less than 5.6% of players. 
 

I know the announcement said it’s shelved for 12 months but if it’s still in FM Mobile I hold hope that it may be reintroduced with a patch at a later date. 

[SPE3D]

The general vibe of that latest development article is not encouraging. I wouldn't be surprised if this year's game is eventually scrapped and they go to FM26. A move I wouldn't be against if it meant we got a playable game.

[Brentford Alan]

6 minutes ago, Sunderland AFC said:

Every single thing I've seen on FM25, from the screenshot to the development updates have really concerned me. 

There isn't one thing that sounds good or going in the right direction. 

An interface that looks like it belongs on handheld console and is there to appeal to casual users to increase £££.

Tbf, and I don't understand the reasoning behind it tbth, but they've only focused so far on the negatives of stuff that's coming out of the game, not on whats going to be flashy, new and updated.

[NoirChrist]

1 minute ago, SPE3D said:

The general vibe of that latest development article is not encouraging. I wouldn't be surprised if this year's game is eventually scrapped and they go to FM26. A move I wouldn't be against if it meant we got a playable game.

The game, whatever state it ends up being in, will be releasing this year for sure. I don't think Miles & SI can afford to skip "another" instalment. I'm particularly interested in this new 3D match engine, can't wait to see what they've been working on all this while.

[NoirChrist]

3 minutes ago, Brentford Alan said:

Tbf, and I don't understand the reasoning behind it tbth, but they've only focused so far on the negatives of stuff that's coming out of the game, not on whats going to be flashy, new and updated.

As a researcher, Do you have any info on what exactly the "new" Unity game engine is going to look like?

[DP]

9 minutes ago, SPE3D said:

The general vibe of that latest development article is not encouraging. I wouldn't be surprised if this year's game is eventually scrapped and they go to FM26. A move I wouldn't be against if it meant we got a playable game.

It won’t be scrapped. They do actually have a business model. 

[jeru]

9 minutes ago, XaW said:

Because you either

1. Argue in bad faith, and I have to step in as moderator

or

2. Were unaware of it, and thus to give you what you need to get your facts straight.

Either way, you were wrong and were arguing for the wrong view to be counted as correct. Get a grip.

You can’t definitively say I am wrong, the fact is nobody on this forum unless they have seen the source code know how weight works

miles post says it’s removed from the front end but remains behind the scenes, this could just mean still in the database for men’s values as a static value in the db as already collected by the researchers but there are no values for women or it could mean that the code can’t currently handle fluctuations. You don’t know and nor do I so don’t say I am wrong as you don’t know. I would hazard a guess that Every application ever written will have things removed in the front end but still have values in databases or config files etc 

[Brentford Alan]

6 minutes ago, NoirChrist said:

As a researcher, Do you have any info on what exactly the "new" Unity game engine is going to look like?

Absolutely none.

[santy001]

8 minutes ago, NoirChrist said:

As a researcher, Do you have any info on what exactly the "new" Unity game engine is going to look like?

Researchers have non-disclosure agreements covering a wide variety of things. However, we're not in a position where we need to see in-development assets like graphics/visual elements to do our part in terms of providing research. So we wouldn't ever have information on that until the point we play the game for the first time. 

[the_postie]

14 minutes ago, SPE3D said:

The general vibe of that latest development article is not encouraging. I wouldn't be surprised if this year's game is eventually scrapped and they go to FM26. A move I wouldn't be against if it meant we got a playable game.

That’s what I’m going to be doing anyway, skipping this version and hoping the next one is better

[Mobius]

So more features are being removed and the game is delayed? Sweet, looking forward to the next update. 

[forameuss]

9 minutes ago, jeru said:

You can’t definitively say I am wrong, the fact is nobody on this forum unless they have seen the source code know how weight works

You know who can? The people who've just said this

Quote

A very basic measurement will still be included under the hood, but it won’t be visible on the front end anymore.

It's being hidden.  That's it.

[Deisler26]

I'm sure that SI have their reasons, but for me, I don't see how shiny graphics are going to beat what they're taking away in Create-A-Club, International Management and Shouts.

I'll give the demo a go, but to be honest, it's looking like I'll stay on FM24

[themadsheep2001]

Everyone has their views, but i will remind everyone here that they are bound by our terms and conditions, and our code of conduct when they post. Think before you type. Because you will be held responsible for it. There have been enough warnings in this thread, further action will now result in thread bans or more if required. Shouldn't really need to be saying this, but it appears its needed

[fc.cadoni]

3 development updates; and all of them was negative. Removing stuff, canceling travels and all of that non sense to fan base.

Bad communication. Sorry. I can understand the development phase - behind of scenes; but today (yesterday) was seriously bad communication.

Seriously, I can't think any way to return any positivity towards FM25. FM26 makes more sense when some basic features will return back (it's sounds like a joke).

Unless, Sports Interactive thinks, the marketing department; is ok to ask someone to pay 60€ with less features (but better graphics?). If this is ok, then I hold my hands up.

Good luck SI and people which manage social media and communicate directly with people.

GG

 

[Mobius]

I’m surprised they couldn’t show some good stuff to soften the blow of a delay + more features being removed (to follow up on the previous update of features being removed) like chuck a few screenshots or some snippets of something to look forward too. Literally anything… and it might distract from or at least make the bad news less bad

The bit about Miles holiday plans are just.. well I imagine a boss at my work delivering bad news and adding that nugget and how that’d be received, lol. 

[busngabb]

Weight being removed is an interesting one. It's a pretty redundant stat that I honestly don't think I've ever used or referenced. Height, strength, jumping reach, agility, aggression cover the impact side of the weight stat anyway. No one thinks about it so deeply that you need to model how much someone weighs during the monthly cycle etc, which the development blog hints at, it's just a characteristic. Surely they aren't going to have women's physical stats (strength, acceleration, jumping reach) and emotional state impacted by such matters as well? Just keep that out of the game entirely.

International management being canned is a big disappointment for me. I've been calling for a proper focus on international management for a while and to see it gone is a blow. It was an afterthought and has been for many years, which is why only 5.6% of players use it, but it's disappointing that it's gone. It coming back in 2026 is a positive, but I don't see why we can't have feature updates that filter in these developments when they happen like happens with other games. It's a general indication that they are really struggling with timescales, which was inevitable given the scope of the changes for this iteration.

This just reinforces that FM25 is going to be one where we need to support SI and help build the new engine, rather than overreact to the inevitable challenges it'll face. I was massively behind the changes, they were long overdue and it's brilliant that SI have done it, we've got to take the teething problems on the chin and work through them. I'm starting to get a little worried that we've not seen the game engine at all yet, hopefully it's not like the new Star Wars game and Neil Maupay's shots won't fly under the game world, but that mega-corp franchise having so many challenges shows how difficult an undertaking SI have taken on. Fair play to them for it.

[StevehFC]

29 minutes ago, forameuss said:

You know who can? The people who've just said this

It's being hidden.  That's it.

Wonder if you’ll be able to see the weight option in the in game editor?

[vuje85]

In italy, we have a annual book, curated by Panini, with weight and height of alls players from serie A and serie B. I myself followed the weight task of Italian footballers.
This move is simply to open the field for women's football. They hope that 5% of national team managers will become manager of football female. The weight is a protection for women's football. For me it's unwatchable football, I even tried the Olympic final, unwatchable.

I hope they can retrace their steps at least for the weight.

Edited September 4 by vuje85
text

[GIMN]

39 minutes ago, NoirChrist said:

Oh i'm starting to get it. The "Weight" stat has no influence on the match engine so that called into question the whole utility of collecting data for it. It's also not because of the inclusion of the Women's game, it's because the stat fluctuates generally.

I do still feel, it shouldn't be hidden, FM is as much of a scouting tool as it's a game/manager sim, having height but no weight on open display still seems a bit off though. Also, at most during a season, a player weight probably fluctuates at most 10-15lbs either way. The data collection could just be focused on an average value for weight an working off there

From my reading:

• Researching women's football, they've realised how much weight fluctuates
• It fluctuates in men's football, albeit to a lesser degree
• This fluctuation isn't modelled in FM
• Weight doesn't directly impact anything in FM
  • Researchers have the option to supply a player's build as an alternative to weight, which possibly informs how the player's 3d model is rendered
  • Weight is an inaccurate measurement as this information isn't readily available for all players, nor is it possible to ascertain when the information was recorded
• The above makes it hard to create a fluctuation model
  • If a player is recorded as 10st, is that at the top of their range, bottom of their range, middle of their range
  • If information is hard to gather for a player, what is the likelihood you'll be able to get an idea of where their estimated weight is in relation to where they will fluctuate
• Fluctuations do not help us
  • A player being 10st one day, then 10st 2lbs a week later is going to cause more confusion than necessary
  • The information that "matters" is their attributes
• The choice is then between displaying a useless bit of information, or no information at all.

Did it need to be mentioned in this blog?  Probably not.  Could it have been communicated better?  Probably.

[Mobius]

Someone’s just gonna make a custom skin that adds weight into the game anyway

Assuming the new UI allows custom skins…

I guess we’ll have to weight and see 

[Birdman10piyu]

I really just want a snip of the match engine.

That's all I've been wanting to see for awhile.

For all the features they have removed, lack of concrete info why not show us some clips?

Talk about the ME atleast. I think most of us just want to see how it looks 

[themadsheep2001]

6 minutes ago, busngabb said:

Weight being removed is an interesting one. It's a pretty redundant stat that I honestly don't think I've ever used or referenced. Height, strength, jumping reach, agility, aggression cover the impact side of the weight stat anyway. No one thinks about it so deeply that you need to model how much someone weighs during the monthly cycle etc, which the development blog hints at, it's just a characteristic. Surely they aren't going to have women's physical stats (strength, acceleration, jumping reach) and emotional state impacted by such matters as well? Just keep that out of the game entirely.

International management being canned is a big disappointment for me. I've been calling for a proper focus on international management for a while and to see it gone is a blow. It was an afterthought and has been for many years, which is why only 5.6% of players use it, but it's disappointing that it's gone. It coming back in 2026 is a positive, but I don't see why we can't have feature updates that filter in these developments when they happen like happens with other games. It's a general indication that they are really struggling with timescales, which was inevitable given the scope of the changes for this iteration.

This just reinforces that FM25 is going to be one where we need to support SI and help build the new engine, rather than overreact to the inevitable challenges it'll face. I was massively behind the changes, they were long overdue and it's brilliant that SI have done it, we've got to take the teething problems on the chin and work through them. I'm starting to get a little worried that we've not seen the game engine at all yet, hopefully it's not like the new Star Wars game and Neil Maupay's shots won't fly under the game world, but that mega-corp franchise having so many challenges shows how difficult an undertaking SI have taken on. Fair play to them for it.

Moderator position aside, it's a tricky one. Lots of people have called for revolution rather than iteration, which is understandable, it was probably time after FM23. People forget that revolutions are often bloody. If anyone thought there wouldn't be some pain with the revolution, i think they may have been kidding themselves a bit.

Also communication isnt always telling people good news. It's news, good or bad. And again people probably need to be a be more realistic and receptive around that. 

That said, SI probably need a good reveal come end of September. I suspect if they had more positive news to drop they would have so the next one will be interesting. 

[pukfm]

Ok, i will skip this year again - which is now two years in a row. It's first time in 20 years thats happened for me i guess.

[Sir_Liam]

I'm very unhappy that features are being removed from the next game, particularly international management, but also the shouts.  SI are making 2 huge changes to FM25 with the move to the Unity engine and addition of women's football, have these projects turned out to be far bigger than expected and that's subsequently affected other areas of the game?

If so that is really disappointing as I don't think there is a good reason to remove international management from the game, it's been there since the Champ Man days and even though it is an area that is overdue a revamp I don't think that means it should be removed completely.  Perhaps if this revamp had happened in the last few years more people would be playing that mode.  I play it occasionally but would use it more if it worked better.

I respect the fact SI are adding women's football to FM as by Miles's own admission this project is costing a lot of money for little return, which means that in an age of companies making games designed to milk as much money as possible from the customer SI are instead making the game they want to make, even if another direction would be more financially beneficial.  It isn't though a feature that interests me.

The Unity engine is potentially very exciting, but currently we don't have much information on it, so whilst I am interested to see what this offers I don't have an idea of how this will benefit the game at the moment.

In addition to this I really disliked FM24.  I've owned every title since it became Football Manager and for every version up until FM23 I've played it up until shortly before the release of the next version.  I stopped playing FM24 in January, with the half finished mess of a match engine being the main reason.

So my faith in SI was already pretty low before today's announcement and now, speaking as someone who has been very loyal to the series, I don't know if I'll buy FM25.  Features I want being removed, a major new feature that doesn't interest me, the massive unknown of a new game engine, all coming off the back of, imo, the worst version of FM that has been released.  I just feel that with needing to fix the problems in FM24, moving to the Unity engine and adding women's football, as well as the other changes that come with every release, you've given yourselves too much to do and I fear the game will suffer as a result.

I normally sympathise with SI as FM has given me so much joy over the years and I think you've taken a lot of unfair flack at times, but I can't defend you right now, it isn't good enough and a lot of the criticisms in this thread are justified.

[Sheriff7]

After a decade with zero improvements at this area they decided to "dissappear " International management. Yeah guys this is very realistic... A ridiculous decision and this will be my first time (after 12 years) I won't buy the new version of fm. 

[SkaldfraNorden]

1 hour ago, busngabb said:

This just reinforces that FM25 is going to be one where we need to support SI and help build the new engine, rather than overreact to the inevitable challenges it'll face. I was massively behind the changes, they were long overdue and it's brilliant that SI have done it, we've got to take the teething problems on the chin and work through them. I'm starting to get a little worried that we've not seen the game engine at all yet, hopefully it's not like the new Star Wars game and Neil Maupay's shots won't fly under the game world, but that mega-corp franchise having so many challenges shows how difficult an undertaking SI have taken on. Fair play to them for it.

The bolded part. If it were free updates/patches that you get in the base game over time, sure! Like PDX has been doing with Vic3 or CKIII, base games have become vastly different since release, and you get all the updates incrementally for what you paid for originally.

But FM is an annual franchise, and spending 40-50e/usd/gbp every year, and only a couple of bugfix patches in the meantime - no.

[Ranquelme]

Oh man this is bad. No international management is an immediate, no. Definitely won't be purchasing it. 

The weight issue is just silly. It doesn't do any harm and to keep it but hide it from the player is just ridiculous. 

[Mobius]

My understanding is that International Management has been 99% the same for years, as far as I can remember nothing major has changed with it (as I guess the fact it's being removed and revamped shows) , so what changed in FM25 that made it need to be removed, when it was included in all previous versions.

In fact the features page on the official FM24 page mentions "Discover new ways to setup your game world and approach your career, plus fresh ways to approach squad planning at both your club and National Team." so this was considered a selling point last year.

Is there a reason International Management couldn't be left in FM25 as it currently exists, and also improved for FM26?

The blog post makes some mention of the issues of moving stuff over to the new engine etc but that doesn't seem to be specific to International Management, I can't imagine it's fundamentally different to shifting the non-international management aspects of the game... It also says they've paused work on that area and allocated resources to other key areas, but again I'm not sure why that means binning International Management entirely, rather than leaving it as it is, and has been for many previous iterations of FM?

Only 5.6% of PC Players have used International Mode according to the blog. I'd love to see more stats like that. How many people are using the "Player Targets" feature which was introduced last year?

Edited September 4 by Mobius