Praise be, Hallelujah, and all that comes before it, we’ve finally got an eyes-on look at FM26, it is real! Given the hell that Miles Jacobson described in several recent interviews, I can understand why we didn’t see anything last time out before FM25 was canceled. However, it is true that Football Manager 26 got that match-engine showcase at the end of last week. I was slightly too busy and spent yesterday at a derby game too, so a little bit late is better than never, right?

I won’t do a blow-by-blow of the entire trailer, but there are a couple of things to highlight, and I think some people are misunderstanding. As you might expect, Reddit’s infinite wisdom to feed and fester hatred and resentment calls the new trailer terrible. Not all of Reddit, but sections of it, as the “First Look Reveal” showcases the new Premier League license and a whole lot of (60-second) in-match engine footage.

The first thing that’s noticeable, of course, is the fresher look to everything. Particularly the grass, the stadiums, and a bit of the presentation; the Premier League stadiums look a bit more Premier League than before, the grass and general look are a bit brighter, as pointed out by Omega Luke on Twitter, and correct me if I’m wrong, do I see a new camera angle? As Omega Luke says, “The Glow Up we all dreamed of.”

I will say what everyone has said, though, the footballer models themselves look a bit… 2005 Doctor Who Auton-like. However, I’ll say what I’ve said about FM for a while now. It isn’t about the bald White man with a mop glued on his head, or the Black guy with the over-the-top looking Perm that’s meant to be an afro. The game is about that little white ball thing and the men running after it, looking a bit convincing, and to a degree, that’s what this trailer showcases. The FIFA 2014 graphical style in the match engine isn’t bothering me as much as the color correction.

This is a nitpick I’ve not seen anyone else pick at, but the color correction on players looks a bit off, especially under the new-ish roof shadows. If you watch a bit of the trailer and see players run in and out of the shadows, you’ll see they look a bit bright – maybe that’s what the “Actual Game Footage – Not Final” is for, but it is the first thing I noticed. That, and there is a floodlit scene with four shadows on the players. Otherwise, I’m not really complaining. Sure, players ice skate here or there, and it could still improve, but as the trailer notes in the bottom left, the footage isn’t final.

It is nice, I like it so far. No word on where or when we’ll get another look at something else FM26-related, but we did get other news alongside this one trailer. Alongside the trailer came the Steam (and other storefronts) page with match engine screenshots, a vague description, and, more importantly, the hardware requirements for PC.

The minimum for PC is fairly broad, an i3-530 and 330M for laptops will do for CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a GTX 960 are surprisingly “cheap” system requirements in an age of i9s, 16GB of RAM, and a 5090 as minimums. The recommended specs are a bit more modern, featuring an i5-9600 or i5-1035G7 for laptops, 12 GB of RAM, and an RTX 2060, which are not particularly demanding requirements.

I don’t want to be THAT person, but while phones are upgrading every six months, I think a game cutting off 15-year-old tech requirements isn’t a terrible idea. Holding everyone else back because you want to play Football Manager on a 2003 laptop isn’t helping anyone. Do I think the graphical upgrade is massively important? Not really, FM isn’t about that match engine graphical quality, and some play on the 2D mode (how?), but parts of FM24 were built on top of 20-year-old tech, so something needed to change.

Still no release date or acknowledgement of my suggestions I made a couple of weeks ago, but it seems like FM26 is actually going to come out this time. I also noted at the top that we are still to get details on when we’ll next see something from FM26. Hazarding a guess, the next look at Football Manager 26 will, in fact, be the management side that we’re actually faffing around with as players; the improved version of UI that broke and canceled FM25, I assume. I’m excited to see more of that from Sports Interactive, and hopefully, soon after (just for me at least), we get a look at Women’s football.

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