I Have 3000 hours on FM26, why did I wait so long to make a review? Tbh, i'm not sure. Here's my take.
Not an excuse or defending SI for the state of the game, but here's my current understanding.
SI miscalculated the amount of work it would take to translate C++ to C# and the Unity transition, they put all their eggs in the same basket and gave the players what they asked for and were crying about. Better graphics and animations to represent what the code is doing and our eyes see. Good job, fantastic foundation and exciting skeleton framework for the future. Just too bad that, they didn't understand that the game is 90% played in menu's that promote a curious mind for investigation. SI Forgot that what happens off the pitch, is MUCH more important. So, they ran out of time and outsourced the UI design to some idiots that CLEARLY never effin played the game before. I'm sure Mr. Miles Jacobson feels the same way as we do if he trully loves the game, probably just can't really say what's in his heart because big Boss Sega can't handle share holder trust to go lower after FM25's cancelation. It's a good game because the match engine saved it, everything else is an insult to fans of the series that have been playing this for 15+ years just to bring in new audience. SI is a lazy company that should have started working on this in 2022, even if it was with a smaller team to prepare the groundwork for FM26, I have no doubt SI employees are passionate, when I say Lazy, I mean the yearly releases that feel like a major patch rather than an actual new game, which we fans tolerated because we love the game. The game got the backlash it deserved, not because we hate it, but because we love it. That being said, I also believe that just like when our team is losing at home 3-0 and we gotta make subs and change tactics at half time, is when the supporters need to show up for the team, and the team needs to show up for them. Anyone that has the insane amount of hours like I do is that fan. If FM26 was made by a different studio, we would be praising the competitor for pulling off a close knockoff to the true FM experience, which is what FM26 is, a knockoff version with better graphics. I dont care about modern or pretty, I just want to not have to do 5 clicks to set a single training module and navigate aneurism inducing UI anymore. Give MODDERS the ability to fix your game, give us the tools, we'll fix it and make our own UI, since you can't do it yourself, thank you. I love FM, and I hope they give a call to the modding community that has made skins in the past, and understand what players actually want in their game.
