The new installment of the franchise did not please many.
Football Manager 26 was fully launched recently. Those who pre-ordered already had the opportunity to play the early version and reported problems; the situation did not change by the launch.
As a result, the Football Manager 26 simulator received "extremely negative" reviews on Steam, with about 82% being negative.
Not only technical problems (optimization and bugs) are noted, but there are also complaints about some creative decisions — interface design, the quality of the visual component. Also, some lack innovation: the authors skipped the release of FM 2025, i.e., violated the tradition of annually releasing a new part of the franchise.
User Spittfire describes his impressions of the new FM 26 interface (PC version):
Where [the game] was ambitious but did not meet expectations was in the user interface: The redesigned interface is certainly visually impressive at first glance, but at the same time creates inconvenience in the gameplay and navigation through various menus and pages. The developers explain this by saying that hardcore FM players like me need to "forget" what we knew before, but I think it's more of a bad design. In many places it is simply unintuitive. In other places it seems uncomfortable, as it was clearly developed for console players.
As a result, Football Manager 26 ended up in seventh place in the list of the worst Steam games by user rating.
