Last year I wrote about a general malaise in the sports gaming world, brought about mostly by the fact that the relentless need to release a new game every year--colliding with the ever-increasing budgets and complexity of AAA gaming--was draining the genre of innovation and chances at fresh starts.
Today, let's talk about something more positive! A rare exception to the annual grind last season was the storied Football Manager series, which botched its transition to an all-new engine--and a number of gameplay and interface changes that went along with it--so badly that it had to miss its scheduled 2025 edition altogether.
What was initially some pretty bad news has, in the end, turned into something of a blessing for the series and its fans. With the chance to actually take a breath, developers Sports Interactive have (among loads of other tweaks and revisions) been able to deliver on a long-promised feature and bring women's leagues to the game, at a scale that makes it almost a game-within-a-game.
In an interview with The Athletic, director Miles Jacobson says over 35000 women's footballers will now be in the game, with around a dozen major leagues also represented. Players will also be able to run both the men's and women's databases concurrently, meaning that while the option is there to play a men's or women's-only save, you can also manage sides across both at once.
If you're not a sports fan, this is an expected but nevertheless substantial update, as women's football has exploded in popularity over the past decade. The recent Euros' final broke broadcast records in England, while the 2023 World Cup semi final is the single highest-rating TV broadcast of all time in Australia. So having it in Football Manager (when series like FIFA/EAFC have had it for years) is both long overdue but also, given the scale it’s finally arriving at, an extremely welcome addition.
Speaking of EA Sports, the interview also contains a fascinating insight into how the licensing for the women's leagues--sometimes a make-or-break factor for sports fans--have been worked around for their first inclusion in Football Manager. Jacobson says:
...a massive thanks to EAFC, who have been really helpful throughout this whole process In most of the areas where they’ve had exclusive licences in women’s football, they’ve actually agreed to carve us out so that we can have licences as well. We can’t thank them enough.
Huh! While there's no exact release date for FM26, the game is coming out this year, and should be ready sometime in the next few months (they've traditionally released around October-November).
