Sports Interactive boss Miles Jacobson on the “personal disappointment” of FM23 and dreams for FM25.
Alongside all that is a shift from the studio’s own in-house game development engine to the ubiquitous Unity.
“But over the years, I’ve been able to have some lightbulb moments and realisations.
“Last year wasn’t the easiest, because it wasn’t just dealing with that reaction.
Jacobson says he’s keen to take responsibility for any missteps.
But he’s also keen to explain exactly how it went wrong with FM23.
“I don’t think that the majority of consumers, or journalists, understand how games are made.
I don’t think you do unless you’re on the coalface actually making them,” he said.
“It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle.
So if anything went wrong, it’s on me, it’s not on anyone else.”
Some other features that didn’t make it into FM23 will go “on the bookshelf”, meanwhile.
It’s something Jacobson says he’s wanted to do for some time.
“They don’t wanna lose their save.
So we’ve looked at everything.
FM25 is where Jacobson is at his most bullish.
The aim was for a big new vision to land with FM22 but Covid caused Dragonfly to slow down.
The target shifted to FM23 then, eventually, all the way back to next year’s FM25.
Why would we have this information living here?
Would we have rules in place that information can only live on one screen?
Or could you have that information in multiple places?
Should this be a screen in its own?
Should it be a pop-up?
If it is a pop-up, how do you then find it when you’re not going there?
Will it be a complete rework?
“It’s not a small change,” Jacobson teased.
“Whenever you make a change like this, it’s actually pretty dangerous,” he continued.
Because FM is a giant productivity tool, right?
You spend a lot of time in there.”
Has Sports Interactive had any conversations with FIFA about that freshly available licence?
So our engine in Football Manager is just not suited to be an action game.”
On the topic of licences, FM25 will at last bring women’s football to the game.
There’s a lot more work that we need to do under the hood.
That said, it seems like it will eventually be solvable.
