The Football Manager failed to get off to a good start in a new era. That’s why Sports Interactive and SEGA are trying to get FM26 back on track and get people playing it. A free weekend should now help with this.
Aspiring soccer coaches take note: From April 17 to 19, there will be an opportunity to test Football Manager 26 free of charge. Following the inclusion of FM26 in the Game Pass and the PS Plus Extra and Premium versions, PC players will also benefit. The official website lists Steam and the Windows Store as points of contact for the test weekend. There is also currently a 40 percent discount on the game on both platforms.
The “perfect opportunity to dive into the game” according to developer Sports Interactive is likely to be more than just that, however. The measure is certainly also based on the hope of winning back some potential players who may have been put off. It is probably no coincidence that the studio emphasized the new features to be explored in the announcement.
Updates notwithstanding: player numbers at rock bottom
Football Manager 26 was in dire need of rework and adjustments after its unsuccessful release. Sports Interactive itself openly admitted in November 2025 that the product did not meet its own standards. Which is why the first updates were released at the same time – although these also received little praise from the community.
To this day, the mixed to disappointed feelings of the players have not changed. Instead, the criticism from the gaming community continued months after the release – which is now reflected in an unsightly milestone: at the end of March, the number of simultaneously active players on Steam in FM26 fell below 40,000 for the first time, according to the SteamDB database. A sharp drop compared to the predecessor. Up until the release of the current version, at least 57,000 Steam users had been playing it at the same time.
Steam trend gives slight hope
Will the studio make a small comeback with the free weekend and will the numbers climb again? The endeavor is probably not hopeless. At least the assessment of the fans on Steam has improved. While less than 20 percent of the 8,000 reviews were positive after the release, the proportion of positive ratings has now climbed to over 32 percent.
This is still not an exhilarating figure. But at least a gentle trend that Sports Interactive would like to convince as many players as possible of this weekend.