Is FM 26 worth it yet? Yes, but with caveats

It's no secret that Football Manager 26 was not the game that either Sports Interactive or players were hoping for.

Indeed, when I gave it a three-star review, I was initially berated for being too harsh, before the game fully launched and I was subsequently berated for not being harsh enough.

There were all sorts of issues with the game. Whether it was performance and bugs, the UI or the match engine, players were not impressed.

Even now, FM26 racks up only 40-50 thousand daily players on Steam, with 20 thousand sticking with FM24.

But SI has been hard at work since that initial bumpy release, aiming to bring the game to a level that those die-hard fans will be happy with.

After months of that FM-shaped hole in my heart growing ever larger, I decided to give it another go and see if it's finally worth playing, and not to be supremely irritating, but the answer is a resounding 'maybe'.

But before we get into it, shout out to my boys PSIS Semarang who have just been promoted to the Indonesian Super League.

Now that's out of the way, let's deal with the elephant in the room right away – the UI is still absolutely god awful.

I still have no idea what SI was thinking with this, because from previewing it in the final months of development, through the beta and into the full release, there was not one moment where I felt remotely positive about it. That holds true to this day, and should be the first thing on SI's to-do pile for FM27.

Thankfully, enough time has passed that the community has been able to step in with fan-made UI skins.

Having always preferred to use custom skins in FMs of old anyway, I was delighted to see these pop up at last, and if you are going to give FM26 another go, then the very first thing you need to do is to install one of these.

It genuinely is tremendous how much a good UI can do for enjoyment of this game, and where I grew frustrated at the clunky, boxy default UI in a matter of hours, I am now happily chugging along after weeks.

If you don't know how or where to find skins, there's a whole list of them on the FMScout website, and plenty of tutorials online explaining how to install them.

On this point alone, I would say that if you already own FM26, or perhaps have an Xbox Game Pass subscription, it is absolutely worth playing it with a custom skin installed. You've already spent the money, after all.

But perhaps the more interesting question is whether or not it's worth buying the game if you don't already own it – a question posed to me semi-regularly by friends – and the answer to that is much murkier.

Now that I've got used to it a bit more, I do think that the new tactical system is superior to the old one.

Having separate formations, tactics and instructions for when you're in and out of possession opens up so many new avenues.

Considering plenty of players were justifiably tired of the 4-2-3-1 gegenpressing that had all but become a necessity in FM24, it's been a blast to be able to use all sorts of different approaches and have them be just as effective.

Ironically, my only issue with the tactical system is that because there are so many options, even with a skin it can still feel a bit clunky with regard to the UI – no wonder it didn't gel in the default skin.

If all you want out of the game is to tinker with your tactics and sign new players, then FM26 is actually just as good, if not better than FM24 now.

But unfortunately, FM26 is still lacking in a fair few other areas, and data is probably the big one.

This is another area that was sorely lacking at launch, and while it has seen improvements in the months since, I think FM26's data offering leaves much to be desired.

Previous games gave you swathes of data, be it overall player performances, post-match facts and figures, and much more. If you're the kind of player who gets really stuck into a save, this data was key to how you tweaked your tactics going into future games.

Training also needs a bit of an overhaul. I'm not saying that FM24 had a great training offering either, but FM26's training feels inconsequential, and something that I quickly delegated to my staff.

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But who cares about all of this nonsense – is FM26 worth it yet?

As I mentioned earlier, if you already own the game or have a Game Pass subscription, there really is no reason why you shouldn't try FM26 again – worst case scenario is that you bounce off it once more and return to FM24.

But if you haven't bought it yet, or perhaps refunded it back in November, then I would say that you should probably give FM26 a miss.

We're now only three months away from when FM27's likely release date, and with the final major patch for FM26 now out, it's hard to recommend it when what should be an objective upgrade is now so close.

FM26 was a miss, that much is certain, but I have seen enough from SI in the months since launch, and indeed in the years of truly excellent games in the years prior, to have faith in SI to deliver a return to form.

I said in my review of FM26 that I believed, even then, that SI has the nous to deliver the quality we expect once FM27 rolls around.

That may well just be blind loyalty on my part, or perhaps a delusion spurred on by my desire for what I know this new era of FM can be.

SI's updates since November have papered over the cracks, and it's time for them to start building on its foundations.

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