Despite harsh backlash, Football Manager 26 had a successful launch and seems to have maintained consistent player numbers.
Sega wasn’t super thrilled with how its games, both premium and free-to-play, performed during the final months of 2025.
One of the only brand new games it had out in that period was Football Manager 26, which didn’t exactly have the most glamorous launch and was raked across the coals by fans.
As one of their biggest sellers, Sega had no choice but to plough on and is now promoting the game with a free trial on PC and hefty discounts on console.
As of today, Football Manager 26 will be completely free to download throughout the whole weekend, for prospective fans to spend time with and see if the game has actually improved in the last five months.
However, the trial is only available on PC via Steam and Xbox, with the former expiring at 6pm BST on Monday, April 20 and the latter ending much earlier, at 8am the same day.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
PlayStation and Switch owners are unfortunately out of luck, although the game is currently discounted across all platforms by 40%, until April 23, and will let you carry over your demo progress.
This brings the PC, PlayStation, and Xbox versions down to a more generous £29.99 instead of £49.99, whereas the Switch version is £23.99 instead of £39.99.
If you look at the game’s Steam page, its reputation unfortunately doesn’t appear to have improved much since launch. The majority of the most recent reviews are still negative, with the new user interface being a common criticism.
There are a few positive comments littered throughout, though, and despite the complaints, its player count on Steam has remained fairly consistent. According to SteamDB, it has declined, but it’s still averaging tens of thousands of players every month.
It’s unclear if there are similar figures for the console versions, but The Game Business did report that Football Manager 26 saw the series’ biggest European launch ever, outdoing Battlefield 6 and EA Sports FC 26.
Sega hasn’t shared exact numbers, but it has said Football Manager 26’s launch sales were 30% higher than the previous entry in its last fiscal report. It also acknowledged the ‘critical feedback’ it received from fans.
‘Some users who have played previous series titles feel that the latest title is less accessible or harder to play,’ Sega said at the time.
‘Additionally, we have received feedback regarding issues such as low translation accuracy for certain languages and bugs. We will address these issues sequentially and strive to restore user satisfaction.’
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.