After months of silence, Sports Interactive released a first small teaser for Football Manager 26 on Wednesday. The community is soaking up every one of the 30 seconds – and sparking euphoria.
The fans were starved, having waited months for news about the future of Football Manager. So they were all the more euphoric when the 30-second teaser for FM26 was released on Wednesday. “Obviously, the social media admins have found their passwords again: FM is back,” said Tery Whenett in his video reaction.
The man behind FM.Zweierkette was particularly impressed by the graphics – he used a shot taken very close to the Premier League Cup as an example. “Look at that: the closest you get to a trophy in FM24 is when you’ve won it – and then you’re still 50 meters away,” says Whenett. The caption reads: “Actual game footage – not final.”
“That will certainly look different in FM26. I’m not saying it’ll be worse – but of course these are just snippets of seconds,“ he says, trying to dampen the hype a little. He adds that ”game scenes“ have not yet been seen, so it is not known ”what it will look like.“ All in all, however, Whenett is in good spirits: ”It looks great.”
More precisely: “It already looks like the next level – which, to be fair, we expected.” The community has to make this demand of Sports Interactive after the developer scrapped FM25 and left its fans guessing for months. However, the teaser seems to at least meet Whenett’s expectations: “The quantum leap is still unmistakable.”
Release date the only “concern”?
Content creator Jonas Gehrmann, better known as ‘Jonukas’, also joined in the cheerful chorus. He said he was ‘relieved’ because his job is “safe for now” thanks to FM26. Like Whenett, his main focus was on the Premier League trophy: “It looks very good. The way the trophy shines… Anyone who remembers what the old FM looked like knows that something like this would never have been possible with the old engine.”
The only thing that might cause “a little concern” is that Sports Interactive has not announced a release date. ‘Jonukas’ suspects that this is due to the recent experience with the cancellation of FM25: “Maybe they want to avoid that this year and wait until they are really sure.” All in all, Gehrmann sees Wednesday as “a very positive day for the FM community.”
“The best winter ever”
Lukas Hösch, aka ‘Badeschlappen,’ gave free rein to his anticipation in a livestream on Thursday morning: “This is the game we’re going to invest a few to an incredible number of hours in this winter. It’s going to be the best winter ever.” The only problem for the streamer is that the release of Football Manager 26 is likely to be another three months or so.
“I want summer to be over – I want to jump to November already,” says Hösch. What all three FM influencers are asking themselves: What does “soon” mean? Sports Interactive provided this vague time frame when announcing that it would reveal FM26 with details about Matchday. The developer shouldn’t wait too much longer.
