Why Was Football Manager 25 Canceled in Favor of Football Manager 26? Developers Reveal Details

Ant Farley, design manager at Sports Interactive, says that cancelling Football Manager 25 was essential to secure the higher quality of the next entry in the series.

In an interview he stressed that, without cancelling last year’s project, FM26 would not have reached its current level of polish.

The new title is being developed on the Unity engine, marking a departure from the former SI Operating System. The shift to the new technology led to a string of delays, feature reductions and ultimately the cancellation of FM25. Farley acknowledged the choice was tough but necessary:

“We couldn’t have shipped a game we were proud of. Keeping the old project going would have meant only patching issues.”

According to the developer, the team’s initial disappointment soon turned into renewed determination:

“FM25 didn’t deliver the value our players expect. After the cancellation, everyone was driven to make FM26 precisely that — carefully crafted and worthy of the brand.”

The release is scheduled for November 4, 2025.

Source: iXBT.games