Let’s talk Football Manager 26’s UI

Before someone wants to climb up me for being too positive or too negative, the actual review for Football Manager 26 will be coming soon. However, I want to talk about the biggest controversy surrounding FM26: The UI. The UI in Football Manager 25 turned FM26 is the biggest problem with this development cycle, for Sports Interactive and for users now, as they adjust from hundreds to thousands of hours with FM24 and its predecessors. Despite what some might think, Football Manager is a very UI-heavy experience. Especially in the face of many RPG-like games that let you manage/run businesses or other things.

Giving the entire game a facelift was always going to upset some, and I can’t blame them too much, as I have a moan with YouTube’s new designs every few months/years. However, the analogy doesn’t stop with being miffed off at YouTube’s redesigns, but also the fact that it is about “getting used to it.” Or, as Miles has put it in multiple interviews, it is about unlearning years or decades of muscle memory when it comes to doing things. I’m not saying that’s entirely right, and we’ll get to that, but there is some truth to unlearning how to get to something and learning another way.

Now, something has to be said here: at the time of writing, it is the Beta/Advanced Access period, so some things will be off and are known issues that are being worked on. Is it buggy? Yes, am I going to focus on that? No, not really. Though one of the things I want to bring up might be a bit of a bug, or due to my complete incompetence as a manager. However, I want to give the full context that I have played more than 40 hours of FM26 and played in the NWSL, SPFL, and the WSL 2, trying to get a feel for things/trying to find a team to work with when you have no budget.

With FM26, the big change is the tiles and cards system. All in all, this is just a case of being able to click on just about anything, and it will either pop up a window showing you something to do with the thing you clicked, or you’ll be taken somewhere else, where the back button may or may not return you from. I said no bug chat, but currently, that’s annoying. As a modern system, it isn’t too bad an idea, in fact, in places I’m liking it after I’ve clawed myself back from hating one or two things.

I think the biggest hurdle most are having with FM26, beyond the fact that they’re coming from “the most complete version of Football Manager,” is the lack of customizability. There is a lack of “I don’t like that” or “I don’t care about that information,” and being able to change it. Look at the “home” page you load into in FM24, and then compare it to the “Overview” page of the Portal (seen above) for FM26. It is very different and incompatible with a brain on autopilot.

I use the Toto24 skin for FM24 (seen below) so I’ve got competitions down the right, above that team news, in the center is the home view showing tactical details about the next opponent, above that is details listing when, where, and for what the next fixture is for, top left is the list of fixtures, and on the left generally is available jobs. With FM26, it is a bit more rigid, and we’re all seeing the same left to right: Messages, news, next opponent report tile, fixtures (not mine), calendar, fixtures schedule (only mine), and stages. Wildly different.

However, let’s go back to some of those FM26 tiles. Fixtures showing me Newcastle vs Sunderland while I’m playing as Southampton, just feel like a bit of redundant space. The same can be said of the calendar. My point is that it feels like there is a lot of information being shown to you, but the question is, how much of it is truly needed? How much of it is adding to the experience? Better still, what could be done to improve that experience? If I’m honest, I don’t think anyone really knows.

I know I’d like it when I hover over something when selecting individual training focuses for FM26 to tell me what will be changing. Or when hiring staff, and I’m hiring them to be a performance analyst, I’d like to know which of their attributes are important. Sure, I’ve played several hundred hours of FM24, but if you think I know what attributes are most important for a chief scout over a normal scout, you’re onto plumbs. I can take a stab in the dark that my Director of Football is supposed to be good at judging player ability and potential, yet also be able to negotiate, but will a new player know?

Initially, swapping over from FM24 to FM26, the wider things like changing staff attribute ratings to words instead of numbers bothered me. Navigating through the tiles and cards system felt slower, and it still does in some cases. I’ve only just found the ability to find previous managers, I’m told a lot are having difficulty finding mentoring, and the little things where we’re still figuring it all out. It is frustrating for those first 15-25 hours, and I know that’s a lot of time to put in, but given how many hours are typically played on one save alone, that’s nothing.

I have an FM24 save that was long enough to see Rangers and Celtic close to relegation spots. Which admittedly doesn’t sound like much time watching the back pages right now, but I’d also sent Falkirk to Europe and beat PSG, Barcelona, and such with 4-5 wonder kids a year. Is FM26 perfect when you first load it up? Probably not, I know I wasn’t getting that “one more match” feeling in the first few hours. Again, not trying to make this a review – just saying to keep with it, it is frustrating and different, getting tactics just right and managing teams on no budget is difficult, but isn’t that the point?

A lot of the complaints I’m seeing are “it’s too different, I don’t like it!” with a few more expletives in place of different. Saying “it’s shit!!!” doesn’t get anyone anywhere, because ultimately that’s not constructive. What is maybe a bit more constructive is that some things being shown in the UI don’t always register as important the first time for one reason or another. Other things feel like they are taking up space for things that could be important. However, some of it is all about getting used to it, figuring out the bookmarks, and finding your flow through the navigation bar.

I’m not saying it is perfect after 40 hours, I’m not saying you’ll love it, and I’m still not giving a review yet, but I think it is important to stick with it. I think what is also important to point out is that you’ve had it at most 5 days with a game in beta, where it is going to be buggy. Not only is it buggy at this point, but you saw last year’s game delayed because of the UI. So some are coming in with the idea “It must be perfect!” which is unrealistic with modern game development, especially with something as massive as Football Manager. Better question, what if Sports Interactive delivered minimal changes after 2 years?

Personally, I’m more interested in a game that’s going to feel like the base to build on for the next few years. I’m more interested in something that does feel like a new game than a database update, and I’m ultimately more interested in seeing where this goes with proper constructive feedback than throwing my toys out of the pram. The UI is a bit clunky. Initially, it is difficult to navigate after playing on autopilot for more than a month of game time, and there are problems.

I’m not saying FM26 is perfect and I’m not saying you should think of it as perfect, but I do think it does take time, and it does take proper feedback to improve. Don’t just use a single expletive. Think about why, play it to figure out why, write out in a sentence why it has gone wrong for you. For me, it is the little things I’m used to using, it is figuring out where things are still, and it is waiting on database updates online to play the SWPL instead of poaching half of Edinburgh for Women’s sides down south. That and getting those NWSL registrations done correctly is a ballache.