The franchise’s newest installment left many fans disappointed.
Football Manager 26 recently launched in full. Players who pre-ordered had early access and reported numerous issues; by release, those problems remained unresolved.
As a result, Football Manager 26 received “Overwhelmingly Negative” reviews on Steam — roughly 82% of feedback was unfavorable.
Critics point not only to technical shortcomings (performance and bugs), but also to questionable creative choices — the interface design and overall visual polish have drawn criticism. Some players also lament a lack of innovation: the team skipped a FM 2025 release, breaking the franchise’s tradition of yearly entries.
User Spittfire describes their impressions of FM 26’s new interface (PC version) like this:
If there’s one area where the game aimed high but fell short, it’s the user interface. The redesigned UI certainly looks impressive at first glance, yet it creates friction during gameplay and makes navigating menus and pages awkward. The developers argue that hardcore FM players like me must “unlearn” what we knew before, but I think the issue stems from poor design. In many places it’s simply unintuitive. In others it feels clumsy, as if it were primarily developed with console players in mind.
Consequently, Football Manager 26 ranked seventh on the list of Steam’s lowest-rated games by user score.
Source: iXBT.games