Like many "New Year" games, Football Manager doesn't change every year. Instead, British studio Sports Interactive is used to iterating on the development process, bringing freshness to players by optimizing gameplay, adding features, and more, while continuing the essence of the entire series.
But that's about to change.
Sports Interactive recently announced that in the new series "Football Manager 2025" to be released next year, the company plans to completely redo the game content and even change the development engine. According to studio director Miles Jacobson, Football Manager 2025 will be "the first true sequel" in the series' history.
"It was a real opportunity for us to evaluate all aspects of the game and think about where we could make a difference if we made it from scratch." "Right now, we're working on Football Manager 2024 and Football Manager 2025 at the same time, investing significant resources into both projects," Jacobson said. As a studio, we're going to think about game development in a whole new way. ”
Jacobson noted that this November, the release of Football Manager 2024 will mark the end of the first 20-year chapter of the series. He also revealed that Sports Interactive has already hinted at a shift in direction for the "Football Manager" series: a few years ago, Sports Interactive began to introduce cracks in the logo of "Football Manager 2022", and slogans such as "Tear Script" appeared in "Football Manager 2023" to foreshadow the upcoming changes.
"Probably only our developers pay attention to these details." Jacobs laughs, "But that means we're going to say goodbye to the past and move on to something completely new." In a sense, we just happened to 'spoil' the brand change ahead of time, and we are rushing to implement it this year. ”
An interesting question is: what exactly does Football Manager 2025 offer players before-seen compared to previous titles in the series? Jacobson couldn't share details, but he stressed again that Sports Interactive is building Football Manager 2025 from the ground up, based on 20 years of experience.
According to Jacobson, the studio was able to use the vast amount of data to understand how much time Football Manager players spend on the game's hundreds of screens and menus, track which features players use, and redesign Football Manager 2025's UI to create "the most efficient and easy-to-use user interface possible."
Previously, Sports Interactive had been developing the "Football Manager" series of games using its own technology known as SISO, but is now working on Football Manager 2025 using a third-party engine, Unity. Jacobson revealed that he is "very happy" with the state of the current version of the game, especially the graphics and the 3D game engine that simulates a football game.
"We have a very good group of artists, but if the tools they use aren't good enough, things go wrong." Jacobson explains, "If Picasso had to work with a Shappi pen or a Crayre brush, his work probably wouldn't be a classic, right?" By changing the game development engine, our art team was able to work more easily, so we were definitely on the right track. ”
"If you talk to studios that have been using their own engines, most of them can't invest as much money in engine technology as any provider." He adds, "We can improve our technology, such as optimizing the renderer, lighting system, etc., but if you analyze the costs and benefits, you will find that compared to using other engines, it is not cost-effective, it takes too much time, and it may even hinder the development of the game." ”
Jacobson revealed that the Sports Interactive engine team conducted an internal investigation, code-named Project Dragonfly, examined the pros and cons of various engines and then recommended the company to Unity. He also stressed that the entire engine team will be retained, although the responsibilities of some members will change.
Sports Interactive is working closely with the engine provider (Unity) to acquire the additional tools necessary to meet the individual needs of the Football Manager 2025 project. "Most studios that use third-party engines still need to do some extra work in order to implement specific gameplay in their games, and we're no exception... It's not like you buy a ready-made game home and it's up to work. ”
Over time, many studios turned to engines like Unity or Unreal. This allows game studios to both get additional resources from engine providers and make it easier to recruit staff familiar with the technology. However, Jacobson does not believe that the self-developed engine will completely retire from the historical stage.
"There are always teams that want to use their own engines and have complete control over everything." "From a scale perspective, if you only have one studio using a certain engine, it's very difficult... In contrast, studios owned by the platform side are more likely to use proprietary engines because it is easier to generate economies of scale. But there are also some really cool indie studios that don't have time pressures and can work slowly and patiently build their own engine technology. ”
"But if the development team is particularly tight on time, and we have to release one game a year like ours, then changing the engine is definitely the right decision. Of course, some of Sega's other studios have organized investigations similar to Project Dragonfly and decided to continue using their own engines. The situation is different in each studio, and we need to analyze it on a case-by-case basis. ”
Sports Interactive's team has also experienced significant expansion in recent years. Before 2020, the studio had only about 100 employees, but today the number of employees is closer to 290. Jacobson says studios are better organized and the game development process is more organized than in the past.
"I rarely organize design meetings for Football Manager 2024. Historically, we often met to discuss game design, and it took a long time to figure out what gameplay and features to design for the game, but now, we have a clear plan a long time ago. We set different priorities for the various gameplays, and if something exceeds [the team's] expectations, it may be put into subsequent titles... All in all, we have become more organized than in the past. ”
"At this stage, all the design sessions I attend are related to Football Manager 2025. As the way organizations change, there are good processes within the studio, rather than doing whatever you want as you used to. ”
Jacobson also revealed that the "Football Manager" series of games usually has around 2 million players per year, but in the past year, this figure for Football Manager 2023 has exceeded 5 million. "It's incredible." He said, "We're a niche game, right? But we have more than 5 million players. We want to thank Game Pass, Apple Arcade, PlayStation, and everyone who tried our game for the first time. ”
Jacobson added that this "won't necessarily change the way Sports Interactive designs games," but it will give the studio a better understanding of how more people play Football Manager. Sports Interactive spends a lot of time tracking how different types of players, from casual newcomers to die-hard fans, interact with the game, and how these player groups are growing.
"We need to make sure the game is balanced so that all types of players can find what they like." "Of course, we can't pick one person out of 5 million players and tell him, 'Hey, this feature is for you.'" ’”
After 20 years of development, the "Football Manager" series will usher in "the first true sequel". So, does Jacobson want to spend another 20 years building a new vision for the series and then tear the script again?
"I'll probably be back to the West in twenty years, so you'll have to ask anyone else." Jacobson laughs, "I'm in my 50s!" Inside the studio, I said we're going to prepare for the next thirty years, so the series probably won't release a real sequel in the next 20, 30 years, but I said no... If (Sports Interactive) has to make a real sequel again, I'm sure it will appear. ”
Original translation https://www.gamesindustry.biz/why-it-took-20-years-to-start-making-a-true-football-manager-sequel