“In the spirit of our studio values, we always consider the bigger picture – and the bigger picture here is that we need this additional time to deliver a game that we can all be proud of,” says developer Sports Interactive.

The Football Manager series sticks to its annual release schedule pretty consistently, but this year will see Sports Interactive and Sega breaking tradition a little bit. Football Manager 25 was recently announced, with the game being touted as the series’ biggest visual and technical upgrade in a generation, thanks to a switch in engines. At the time, it was given a November release date, though Sports Interactive has now announced a delay.

After touching on the difficulties that the studio has faced during Football Manager 25’s development, Sports Interactive explained in its delay announcement that it has decided to take additional time to ensure the game hits the expected level of quality rather than rushing it out for a November release. The game is now due out in March next year.

“It has been a difficult development cycle for the studio. Many things have been moving slower than we had predicted – despite everyone in the team working at an incredible pace to try and get everything done,” Sports Interactive said. “Timelines were already tight and, as rightly pointed out by many of your recent comments, we were simply rushing too much and in danger of compromising our usual standards. This has put an enormous amount of pressure on everyone working across the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best game possible.

“FM25 is the biggest technical and visual advancement in the series for a generation. We simply cannot compromise the delivery of this crucial juncture in Football Manager’s history by rushing to release it in November.

“Of course, this is not where any of us expected to be seven weeks out from our release but, in the spirit of our studio values, we always consider the bigger picture – and the bigger picture here is that we need this additional time to deliver a game that we can all be proud of.”

Sports Interactive has said that in spite of the delay, it plans to offer advanced access for Football Manager 25, and that it is “confident on how long that period will be”. The studio also says the game’s planned gameplay reveal has now been pushed back to January.

This is the first time ever in the history of the Football Manager series that it will miss its annual release schedule. It should be interesting to see how the series’ release cycle is affected going forward.

When it launches in March, Football Manager 25 will be available PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch.