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With the launch of Football Manager 2024 (FM 24) on the horizon, the joys and sorrows of the previous campaign are subsiding. The slate is wiped clean. A new season, a fresh start. Excitement is brewing. Who will we sign? What can we win? Anything is possible. Fans are counting down the days till the opening game. Managers are sweating. The pressure is mounting. Expectations are high. Will this be the year we go all the way? The anticipation is almost unbearable. You can feel it in the air. There's nothing quite like it. The rollercoaster of emotions. 90 minutes of ecstasy and heartbreak. Yet you wouldn't change a thing.
It's why Football Manager is such a staple of the gaming world. Yes, managing a football team may lead to heart palpitations, but the thrill of the ride is unrivaled! With that in mind, we can't wait till the release of Football Manager 2024, the upcoming edition of the world's most realistic sports management simulation series. It will certainly be one for the record books!
Not only does Football Manager 2024 celebrate the 20th season of the series, but with major changes afoot, it will be the last of its kind before the studio moves to a new match engine. No wonder Sports Interactive is throwing everything at this one to make it the best yet!
Pre-order Football Manager 2024 right here, right now!
READ MORE: Summer Game Sale 2023: Get Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, and More!
FM 24: The Best Football Manager Game to Date
Marking the 20th anniversary of the franchise, and described as a 'love letter' to the FM series as we know it, Sports Interactive intend to make Football Manager 2024 "the most complete version in the series' history". Ambitious talk when you consider the huge success of FM 23, which hit the 5 million player mark after being the first of the series to be released across all platforms.
But the hit Studio means business. Indeed, according to Director Miles Jacobson, the vast majority of the creative team has been set to work on the production of Football Manager 2024, to incorporate ideas and feedback from the gaming community, and to put in place a host of new features and improvements to really make this edition stand out.
Unfortunately for us, despite the extra (wo)manpower resulting in earlier design and feature completion, there won't be any sneak previews. Rather, in true perfectionist fashion, Jacobson declares that the extra time will be used to finesse all aspects of the game and that they want to ensure that everything is in complete working order before they make any big reveals.
I guess we'll just have to be patient a little longer!
Transfer Your Saved Games
One significant new feature for Football Manager 2024 that the Studio was willing to disclose is one that fans have been calling for, for years. The ability to transfer saved games from one version of Football Manager to the next. Finally, I hear you cry! I mean, after a whole season of investing in your team, it felt like a betrayal of your firstborn child to discard all that hard work and start anew. Well, on the seasons in which you had at least a degree of success that was. For others, it was sometimes best to forget and move on!
Anyway, with Football Manager 2024, you'll have the option to do either. And if you do choose to pick up where your Football Manager 23 campaign left off, you'll still be able to take advantage of the new features and revamps that come with the latest version of the game, regardless of which platform you elect to play on, which is reassuring to hear.
Indeed, the trend will continue into the future, despite the big changes that are to come, thereby allowing you to bring your saved Football Manager 2024 game into FM 25. Sounds pretty good eh? Especially for those playing via Game Pass who previously would have lost all of their data shortly after a new game was released.
Big Changes to Come - Looking Ahead at FM 25
So, what exactly are these big changes that are to come? What is FM marking the end of exactly? And what is the significance of the move? Well, for the first time in the history of the series, from Football Manager 25 onwards, Sports Interactive plan to move to a new match engine, Unity, to power their football managerial sim.
For those not familiar with the Unity Real-Time Development Platform, Unity powers many of the best-known games in the world, including the smash-hit Cities Skyline series. Indeed, according to the Studio, "Unity was the clear favourite to take us into an exciting new era for the series." (28th June 2023)
Excitingly for fans, Jacobson goes on to say "...The switch to Unity is going to give us a lot more power graphically, across all formats, alongside powerful user interface tools." In other words, you can expect better-quality aesthetics, as well as a dramatic improvement in how you can interact with the game, both on and off the pitch, for an even truer footballing experience.
Sounds amazing! The only question will be, how these revamps will affect minimum spec requirements, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!
Welcoming Women's Football
The other exciting news is that Football Manager 25 will finally introduce women's football to the Football Manager series. This is something that Sports Interactive have been promising since 2021 as part of their commitment to inclusion and promoting the women's game and, although perhaps frustrating that it has taken this long, we are excited at the prospect of managing a women's team with the updated engine, and everything it will bring to the experience.
To Sum Up
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, the new Unity-powered FM 25 sounds awesome, along with its inclusion of women's football and your chance to get more involved in the women's game. Indeed, we can't wait to see what lies ahead for the ever-so-successful series. But Sports Interactive are determined to end the current era with a bang. And Football Manager 2024 looks set to do just that!
OK, so we are still awaiting a number of details about what exactly the up-and-coming Football Manager 2024 brings to the table, but we know that the Studio is committing vast resources to make this the best FM version to date, and that sounds very promising. This is especially true when you add the major new feature of being able to transfer saved games, thereby being able to continue your managerial career from one season to the next.
There's a lot still to learn about the next installments of the FM franchise, and we'll be sure to fill you in with the details as soon as they are revealed, but one thing's for sure, the future's looking bright. Very bright indeed! And, with the official release date likely to be in November, we won't have too long to wait till we can check out FM 24!
Pre-order Football Manager 2024 right here, right now!
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