A Premature Whistle on a Promising Season
There are certain video games that transcend the medium, so much so that they become like lifelong friends. These are the games with whom you have shared hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours, sticking together through the good times and the bad. They are friends with whom you have laughed in moments of triumph and cried with in the dark, lonely hours of a slump.
For me, the Football Manager series, in all its various iterations over the past decades, has been exactly that kind of friend.
I have vivid memories of playing it in hotel rooms while abroad, finding comfort in its familiarity. I remember the crushing despair of losing the title on the final day of the season while sitting on a train, a memory etched into my mind forever.
So, after a short break from the series – mostly as FM25 was cancelled and never saw the light of day – it was with a heart full of anticipation that I went to meet up once more with my old friend in Football Manager 26 Console.
Let’s just say the reunion wasn’t quite what I had hoped for.
Technical Turmoil
I am going to start this review by cutting straight to the chase, because there is an elephant in the room that cannot be ignored.
At this specific moment in time, as I write this review, Football Manager 26 is, frankly, a bit of a mess on console. It has reached a critical point where the actual gameplay on matchday is running so choppily and performing so poorly that it renders the game almost impossible to play with any degree of enjoyment.
At times, the framerate seems to plummet to ridiculous levels, turning what should be fluid football into a slideshow. Trying to make substitutions or tweak tactics in-game while battling this is incredibly tricky and frustrating. It feels like a game that simply shouldn’t have been released, or at the very least, not without a substantial day-one patch to address these fundamental issues.
However, beneath the technical rubble, there is undeniable promise for this game in the future.
The Unity Engine Overhaul
It is well documented that for this iteration, the developers made the massive decision to switch engines to Unity. Alongside the engine change, the game features a completely new User Interface (UI) and this means trying to forget years of muscle memory and getting used to a new way of navigating, which is surprisingly hard to do.
Once you get past the initial hurdles and choose to build your new manager to kickstart your career, you get to customise the look of your avatar in more detail. There is also a new questionnaire segment regarding your history – or lack thereof – in the footballing world. You get asked about your managerial vision and how you see football being played. Then, the familiar excitement kicks in as you choose the leagues you want to have running and pick the team you want to manage.
Then you are off, thrust into the big time to experience the dizzying highs and crushing lows of professional management.
Tactical Transformation
If you are reading this review, I imagine you have probably played Football Manager before. If you haven’t, you might want to start with an earlier, more stable version of the game. But for the veterans, let’s highlight the major changes that are actually good. High on the list of improvements is the tactical overhaul, which has changed drastically. You can now have two distinct tactical setups active at the same time: a formation and set of instructions for when you are in possession of the ball, and a completely different shape and strategy for when you are out of possession. You can control the way you want to play with a range of experimental formations, deeper player roles, and specific pressing triggers with incredible detail if you want to micromanage.
This tactical depth is going to be absolutely fantastic once the crippling matchday bugs are finally ironed out.
Quality-of-Life Improvements
As I played more of the game and forced myself to push through the technical issues, I actually started to like the new UI. One of the features that particularly impressed was the overhaul of the recruitment side of the game. It seems to be a lot more streamlined and easier to access this time around. All the essential bits that you want, like scouting reports and lists of transfer targets, are gathered in one logical place rather than being scattered over several sub-menus; a welcome quality-of-life improvement.
Football Manager 26 also features fully integrated women’s leagues for you to manage, introducing a whole bunch of new players to develop and a new landscape to explore. There is also – finally – an official Premier League licence granted to Football Manager, giving you all the correct logos, kits, and visuals out of the box, which adds significantly to the immersion. And the trusty old inbox has been replaced by the Portal, a central hub containing features, messages, your calendar, upcoming fixtures, and news items all in one feed.
Visual Upgrade, Performance Downgrade
With the shift to the new Unity engine, we have also seen a significant upgrade in the visuals. Lighting is a major factor here, with the look of the game benefiting from dynamic time-of-day effects and a greater sense of depth and realism in the environment. It’s not EA Sports FC, of course, but it is a definite upgrade from the spreadsheet aesthetics of before. The improved visuals also extend to different camera angles, better pitch design that shows wear and tear, and more realistic player movement.
All of this potential beauty is evident, but because the game runs so terribly at present, it’s hard to really appreciate any of the new shiny stuff. The UI has also received a visual upgrade, which in some screens is a massive improvement. Audio has had a dynamic enhancement as well, making matchdays sound more alive rather than just a drone of background noise.
A Broken Launch – But There’s Still Potential
Football Manager 26 Console is incredibly disappointing right now. I have a strong feeling that in six months’ time, after a load of patches and optimisation updates, this might be a different beast altogether, as framerate issues and bugs are pushed to one side.
But we can only review what is in front of us, and the sad reality is that Football Manager 26 Console, at times, borders on the unplayable.
Important Links
The Two-Year Wait is Over as Football Manager 26 Rebuilds the Beautiful Game on Game Pass – https://www.thexboxhub.com/the-two-year-wait-is-over-as-football-manager-26-rebuilds-the-beautiful-game-on-game-pass/
Football Manager 26 Sets November Release Date – https://www.thexboxhub.com/football-manager-26-sets-november-release-date/
Football Manager 26 is Officially Unveiled, Ushering in a New Unity Engine Era After FM25’s Cancellation – https://www.thexboxhub.com/football-manager-26-is-officially-unveiled-ushering-in-a-new-unity-engine-era-after-fm25s-cancellation/
Download from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/Football-Manager-26-Console/9NMNZ4CK59DM
