Those keeping up with the upcoming Football Manager 2025 news of constant delays may have been expecting a release day or a new delay time frame. Sadly, that is not the case. Today, it was announced on their website that Football Manager 2025 has been canceled after initially being delayed until March 2025.
Sports Interactive regret to inform that, following extensive internal discussion and careful consideration with SEGA, we have made the difficult decision to cancel Football Manager 25 and shift our focus to the next release.
What does this mean for those who pre-ordered the game years ago? Luckily, the site has an answer in its FAQ.
I pre-ordered the game on PC / Mac how do I obtain my refund?
Pre-Purchase orders for Football Manager 25 will automatically be refunded in full if purchased through an official SEGA-approved retailer. Retailers will process refunds in due course, for any enquiries please contact your point of purchase.
If you have pre-ordered the game, go to the retailer and ask for a refund.
They also explain why they decided to stop and just canceled the game.
Due to a variety of challenges that we’ve been open about to date, and many more unforeseen, we currently haven’t achieved what we set out to do in enough areas of the game, despite the phenomenal efforts of our team. Each decision to delay the release was made with the aim of getting the game closer to the desired level but, as we approached critical milestones at the turn of the year, it became unmistakably clear that we would not achieve the standard required, even with the adjusted timeline.
Whilst many areas of the game have hit our targets, the overarching player experience and interface is not where we need it to be. As extensive evaluation has demonstrated, including consumer playtesting, we have clear validation for the new direction of the game and are getting close – however, we’re too far away from the standards you deserve.
We could have pressed on, released FM25 in its current state, and fixed things down the line – but that’s not the right thing to do. We were also unwilling to go beyond a March release as it would be too late in the football season to expect players to then buy another game later in the year
Overall, the development team didn’t want to spend so much more time on releasing the game and then patching the game after release since they wanted a complete release. Especially if they also wanted to focus on developing Football Manager 2026.
It is sad for those of us waiting for the game’s release, but at least they told us about it now rather than closer to its March release date.
Football Manager 2025 is canceled and as soon as any information on the next release of the title is revealed, we will have the information at The Outerhaven
