Football Manager 2025: Release Date, New Features, Demo & More on FM 25

The release date for Football Manager 2025 will be one of the most eagerly anticipated in the history of the iconic management simulation franchise.

FM 25 will be the first edition to use Unity, a powerful game engine expected to propel the popular series into a completely different stratosphere.

With developers Sports Interactive (SI) recently a lucrative licensing partnership with the Premier League, the game will be even more realistic than previous incarnations.

Read on as we take a closer look at FM 25 including details about the release date, new features, demo version and more.

FM 25 Launch & Release Date

FM 24 was released on Monday, November 6, and the latest version of the game was expected to be launched around the same time this year.

However, SI has confirmed that the release will be pushed back until March 2025 due to what it describes as a ‘difficult development cycle’.

The demo version will be made available around two weeks before the official release date, allowing the FM community to test the game and offer feedback.

FM 25 Development Update

SI studio director Miles Jacobson recently provided an extensive development update detailing what players can expect from FM 25.

Touchline Shouts, Create-A-Club, Versus mode, Challenge mode, Fantasy Draft, Social Media Screen and Data Chalkboard have all been ditched from the game.

The move to the Unity game engine will spark major changes to the user interface, increasing the immersive nature of the series.

“With the new UI, our team have built powerful design and technical foundations that can be easily scaled and improved in the future,” Jacobson said.

“This means that every future addition will strengthen the UX without compromising consistency in our UI.

“FM25’s new UI/UX is driven by what we have called a ‘tile and card’ system. A ‘tile’ is a panel of information with multiple different states, from small amounts of information to larger ‘cards’ which contain more material.

“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.

“Tiles come in multiple different sizes that we call ‘states’ – this is so that we can use the information appropriately in various different screens and scenarios.”

FM 25 New Features

New features in FM 25 include the introduction of the ‘Portal’, which will replace the in-game email page FM players spend most of their time on.

This will offer players more insights into what is happening in the FM universe, effectively mirroring how people interact with their smartphones in the real world.

Switching to Unity will significantly improve the graphics in FM 25, particularly where the match engine is concerned.

Player movements and the physics of the ball will be more accurate, while in-game situations will have a much greater degree of realism.

New partnerships with the Premier League and other organisations will likely result in stadiums that are more true to life than previous editions of the game.

Women’s football will be included for the first time, thus opening the door for a new demographic of players to join the global FM community.

SI has also partnered with FIFA’s eSports division to launch an invitational FIFAe World Cup of Football Manager tournament, with $100,000 in prize money up for grabs.

This will be used to lay the foundations for reintroducing the Fantasy Draft feature in future editions, with a view to unlocking FM’s potential in eSports.