Sports Interactive has released a video showing off all the new features added to its annual ‘spreadsheet to end all spreadsheets’ Football Manager series. Better set some time aside to watch it, though - it clocks in at around 30 minutes.
Features on the way in Football Manager 2015 include; a redesigned user interface with a streamlined sidebar, customisable management styles, better animations and visual effects in the match engine and a bunch more stuff that only hardcore FM nuts will find at all exciting.
I’m one of those nuts. There’s some neat concepts here, though as always with FM it’s more about evolution than innovation. I’m not completely sold on the new managerial style options, which decide how involved you are in the day-to-day running of the club - that’s kind of all in the game already, and I don’t really see the need to complicate things. Match engine changes are nice, but the 3D graphics nad player animations still look pretty shonky - I’d be interested to see how many FM players switch straight over to the 2D overview.
Still, the interface definitely needed redoing, and most of the tweaks to tactics and general manager busywork (a faster search engine? Oh good god yes) seem like smart choices.
Football Manager 2015 is out on November 7. Damn, I’ve only got a month or so until all my free time gets devoured once again.
