Sports Interactive have confirmed that the release of Football Manager 25 has been delayed until March 2025.
The latest iteration of the popular game series was originally set for release on 26 November, but has not been pushed back due to production of the new edition being "slower thank predicted."
Alarm bells around its development rang around the FM community when the trailer was released last week without any previews of the new match footage that was to be improved by the use of the Unity engine.
Concerns over the development of FM25 have now proven to be justified as, in a lengthy statement, Sports Interactive have confirmed the decision to delay release for four months.
"After careful consideration, Sports Interactive have made the tough decision to further delay the release of Football Manager 25," read the statement.
"Following discussions with SEGA, our licensors and partners, we have agreed that best course of action is to delay the launch until March 2025. Specific platform release dates will follow once confirmed.
"In our last Development Update in September, we explained that we needed to push FM25's original release date back to give ourselves more time to deliver the best possible experience for this first instalment in a new era of Football Manager. This additional time has not been sufficient to ensure the game quality and experience meets your expectations and our very high standards.
"In the previous blog we explained that it has been a difficult development cycle for the studio. Many things have been moving slower than we had predicted - despite exeryone in the team working at an incredible pace to try and get everything done. Timelines were already tight and, as rightly pointed out by many of our recent comments, we were simply rushing too much and in danger of compromising our usual standards. This has put an enormous amount of pressure on everyone working across the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best game possible.
"FM25 is the biggest technical and visual advancement in the series for a generation. We simply cannont compromise the delivery of this crucial juncture in Football Manager's history by rushing to release it in November. Of course, this is not where any of us expected to be seven weeks out from our release but, in the spirit of studio values, we always consider the bigger picture - and the bigger picture here is that we need this additional time to deliver a game we can be proud of.
"For the large numbers of you who have already pre-ordered the game, we thank you very much for your trust and support. Given the delay, however, should you wish to claim a refund, please contact your retailer. Something you noted as missing from our announcment on 30 September was mention of Advanced Access on PC/Mac. We can confirm Advanced Access will be available ahead of the new release date and, when were are confident of how long that period will be, we will update you at the first opportunity. The new gameplay reveal will also now moove to the end of January 2025.
"We are intensely aware that this will be massively disappointing to you. We share that disappointment and are extremely sorry.
"Thank you for reading and your patience. It means the world to us as we continue to work on creating a new era of Football Manager."
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