Football Manager 26 is one of Steam’s worst rated games after just three days

After skipping last year, the Football Manager series returns with an unfortunate own goal that’s soured most of its fans.

When Sega and developer Sports Interactive opted to cancel Football Manager 25 it was widely seen as a blessing in disguise. The game was meant to serve as a major overhaul for the series but with two delays causing it to miss the real-life football season, and forcing the removal of several new features, it seemed to be in everyone’s best interests to call a do-over.

However, this meant Football Manager 26 needed to be a match-winning goal to justify making fans wait longer than usual for a new entry.

Sadly, it’s been anything but. The game launched on November 4 and in just three days it’s attracted so many negative user reviews that it’s among the top 10 worst rated games on Steam.

At time of writing, Football Manager 26 sits at seventh place on Steam’s Hall of Shame list, with an overall approval rating of 21%.

So, why are fans so displeased with it? Based on the user reviews, it sounds like the game simply wasn’t ready for a full launch and suffers from numerous bugs.

A major update has since come out, but as you can see from the list of fixes, the game was plagued by a lot at launch, including but not limited to, instances of crashing or freezing, blocked progression, performance issues, and some features simply not working properly.

It’s not just that the game’s buggy, though. A common complaint among players is the updated user interface, which has been criticised for being difficult to use and unintuitive.

‘Every single menu/screen/interaction is bloated and impractical. And for people saying ‘it takes time to get used to’ when you do finally get used to it, all it means is that you are now used to a set up that is less practical and takes longer to do anything,’ reads one review by stevenmcm7.

Another fan, st.AlexS, calls the interface ‘a complete disaster,’ adding, ‘Everything that used to take one click now takes three or four. Menus are hidden behind layers of popups, navigation is confusing, and nothing scales properly on big screens. … It genuinely feels unfinished and painful to use.’

‘Football Manager 26 feels exactly like what I imagined Football Manager 25 would’ve looked like before it got cancelled. Half-finished and missing the evolution you’d expect after skipping a year,’ says batugane.

That’s not to say there are no defenders. It’s not hard to find some more positive responses to the game, with some saying that they’ve already grown accustomed to the new interface and are enjoying themselves in spite of the bugs.

‘Admittedly lots of bugs to begin with but genuinely love the new UI/UX and new features and it’s really not run that poorly for me – certainly no crashes or lagging,’ says niallmassey.

MowieWowie says they found themselves having an easier time using a controller than a keyboard and mouse, suggesting that Football Manager 26 has been designed more with consoles in mind than PC.

For the record, the game is available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, with a Nintendo Switch port launching on December 4.

Some players think the negative reactions are overblown, with sgminer21 expressing shock at Football Manager 26’s placement in the bottom 10 games on Steam.

‘Others have completely downvoted the game to crap because of a few bugs, as if games don’t have bugs when the game releases,’ they write. ‘People can’t be bothered to learn the new AI and the game is miles better visually anything that came before it [sic].’

Still, these people are the minority and Sega and Sports Interactive must be having some very frantic conversations on how they can turn fan perception around.

The game’s certainly not beyond salvation and could be redeemed with enough bug fixes and updates. Plus, for as much as people are hating on it, it’s so far seen a steady cadence of players this week, with over 50,000 concurrent players at the time of writing according to SteamDB.

It’s not as if players have flocked back to older entries en masse either. Football Manager 2022 is the next popular choice, but it currently has less than 1,500 players.

Even so, it’s only Football Manager 26’s first week and if Sega and Sports Interactive are too slow to improve things, even the more forgiving players may find their patience tested.

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