The magical world of gamescom is underway and with it a million announcements about games you will probably never hear of again, alongside those which you have had your eyes on.
One of the latter for us is definitely Football Manager. After a tricky old season last year with a brand new engine, all eyes are on this year’s iteration to see if Sports Interactive have learned any lessons and got some new tactics to try out.
A new community update presented by Senior Community Manager Chris Groves confirms that FM27 is now entering the final stages of development. An exact release date and the full list of supported platforms will come later, but every version of the game is currently scheduled to arrive during November.
Perhaps more interesting than the release window, however, is what Sports Interactive has planned for the game itself this time out.
“We’re evolving the current design whilst restoring ideas and behaviours you value and that worked well in previous editions,” Groves explained.
That line will likely catch the attention of long-time Football Manager players. FM26 represented an enormous change for the series following its move to Unity, but the overhaul also removed or altered a number of features and familiar ways of doing things.
FM26’s redesigned UI in particular proved controversial, and the game continues to carry a Mostly Negative rating from English-language Steam reviews at the time of writing.
So after 2026’s big changes, is 2027 going to basically go back to what we had before? That…doesn’t…seem like progress? I hope I am wrong.
Football Manager 27 pre-orders won’t open until we’ve actually seen more of the gamePreparing for kick off
— Football Manager (@FootballManager) August 27, 2026
Hear from our Senior Community Manager, Chris, with the latest on FM27 plans and what to expect this year. pic.twitter.com/x1v3otAaTj
There also appears to be a change in approach to the way FM27 will be marketed and that’s a deliberate choice with more information about FM27’s additions and improvements set to arrive before players are asked to put down any money after being burned by the missing FM25 and iffy 26.
Starting in September, we can expect a succession of feature deep dives, gameplay first looks, blog posts and development insight showing how Football Manager has changed since FM26.
Details of a possible Steam Advanced Access period, which has traditionally allowed PC and Mac players to begin their careers ahead of the full launch, are also being saved for later.
An official Football Manager Discord server will launch during September alongside one of the upcoming FM27 deep dives, providing another place for players to speak directly with the community team.
The emphasis on communication is hard to miss. Football Manager 25 was cancelled entirely in February 2025 after suffering multiple delays, with work instead rolling forward into what eventually became FM26. When that game finally arrived in November 2025, its ambitious reinvention of Football Manager didn’t receive the universally positive homecoming Sports Interactive would have wanted.
FM27 therefore finds itself in the unusual position of being both the next annual Football Manager and another important step in rebuilding trust in the series after its move to a new technical foundation.
We still haven’t actually seen much of Football Manager 27 itself, so September’s deep dives are going to be where things get really interesting. For now, though, the promise to restore ideas that worked in previous games may be exactly what a lot of Football Manager veterans wanted to hear, but there are still so many systems that most would love to see overhauled.
Football Manager 27 launches in November 2026, with its exact release date, platforms and pricing still to be announced.
The post Football Manager 27 will restore ideas players loved from older games when it launches this November appeared first on The Escapist.