DMC-12

No, but then I didn't think they'd be naïve enough to post a big announcement 2 months before the game launches that says absolutely nothing either.

But he wouldn't be the centre of attention if he put it on the announcement earlier. This way he gets to see all the replies saying 'love the game Miles, looks amazing!!!' and 'can't wait to buy it, best version of FM ever!!!'.

It feels like this is getting towards CM4 levels of disaster. I feel sorry for the people actually developing the game at SI. They've been let down massively by the announcements up until now, and those terrible screenshots released today.

So? Just because that's been the case in the past doesn't mean it should be the case now. FM24 was continuity FM23 because they were moving to Unity and upgrading the graphics. The new match engine and graphics have been a massive talking point for the past year, and are one of the key areas of this game - it should be a headline feature, with screenshots and footage leading every announcement.

Are they? We've not seen any evidence of that yet, and aren't likely to for a while!

So it's an announcement that there's going to be an announcement. My expectations were low, but fair play on managing to be even more underwhelming.

Its 2024 and I'm still being caught out by that.

Thats how it should be for all games, especially nowadays when they're all digital and there's no scarcity. It was different when there were only so many physical copies of a game available in the shops, but that's just not the case now. Its just sensible to wait and see.

I actually think that number would have been higher in FM. Possibly not with women's club sides, but certainly with the international teams and I could see managing a women's side at the World Cup or Euros being popular. Unfortunately, they've removed international management, meaning the popular part of the women's game (and it could be argued the more well known part of the women's game) is locked off. Its massively short sighted, especially as there's a Euros coming up next summer.

That was my take too. Its like the council changing a bus route so that no one can use it, then using the lack of people using it as a way to justify getting rid of it. SI could have updated international management at any point (and missed a huge opportunity with the 2022 World Cup which was right after the game launched), but they chose not to, leaving it a bit of a mess that lots of people didn't play because so many aspects of it didn't work. Miles uses that lack of playtime as the reason for removing it, ignoring that they forced the lack of interest in the first place.

Just another thought - a huge part of women's football is the international matches. Taking away the opportunity for people to manage those sides is pretty concerning. A lot of people don't know about the club teams and who is good, or have any interest in the clubs teams, but the international teams are well known and popular and the women's game seems more biased towards that aspect.

I'm calling it now - FM26 will be the CM03/04 of this generation of the game. CM4 was good, but had loads of issues and bugs at launch that stayed with it for the whole cycle. The 2d engine was a step forward, but it felt like it could have been more (especially following from CM 01/02 which was the peak of that generation). 03/04 fixed all of that, added some more features in and was the game CM4 wanted to be at launch.

It was nothing to do with attention spans, it was just a 42 minute update that could have been condensed into 5. They spent 5 (FIVE) minutes alone talking about sleeve patches on the players changing depending on the league they were in. Thats the definition of something that could have been an email rather than a meeting.

Why change the habit of a lifetime? Remember the 42 minute video? I'm sure he's great in the background, but I'd keep him as far away from announcements and updates as possible. Unless he's suddenly learned how to take feedback properly now?

Its not a great update. More things being removed from the game, and Miles cancelling everything doesn't suggest its all going well in the background. International management isn't going to be a headline feature for FM26, as its been part of the game since the Championship Manager days. It hasn't worked properly in years (which is probably why the percentage of players doing it is so low, rather than due to a lack of interest), but its been in the game. I'm getting CM4 vibes from FM25 now. A huge step forwards that ultimately didn't work until the next annual release.