Football Manager 2023 is set for a worldwide launch on Nov. 8, 2022. According to developer Sports Interactive, players are flocking to play the beta version of its newest release. There’s a good reason for this success. FM23 is a mostly polished product that comes with the quality we’ve come to expect from the series.
If you’re planning on playing Football Manager 2023, you’re likely to have a decent experience at the bare minimum. The series staples are all present, there are some quality-of-life improvements and exciting new licenses. The stage is set for players to enjoy their latest attempt at lifting the Champions League trophy with Boston United.
You may even have a great time with this game, as long as you are only managing a club, don’t use the 3D match engine, don’t care about set piece variety, and have time to spare for some meandering tasks with no feasible workarounds.
Football Manager 2023 is exceptional in some regards but can be frustrating in others by virtue of not addressing long-standing issues with the series, and actually downgrading other areas of play.
Game modes
When you first open the FM23 menu, you’ll be greeted by a choice of five different game modes: two single-player and three multiplayer options. Career is the classic experience, the one each other game mode is inherently tied to.
Create-A-Club allows you to—you got it—create your own club and essentially play Career with it. Online Career is Career mode but online. These names aren’t peak creativity, but at least you can’t get confused.
In Fantasy Draft, all players draft from a selected pool of players to fill up their squad and go against each other in a format of their choice. Finally, the newest of these modes, Versus, allows you to see how your best squad from an existing FM save matches up against similar opposing squads. You need a verified FMFC account to play the Versus game mode.
There were some rumors this summer that Football Manager 2023 could move the series closer to becoming an esport. Rest assured this isn’t the case. Online play is limited to the modes previously available in FM22.
For our money, the available online options are satisfactory. You might see Online Career, Fantasy Draft, and Versus as being a slight variation of the same thing, but that’s kind of how this thing works. You can only do so much with Football Manager’s core gameplay.
The center of attention is, of course, the base Career mode. It’s where most hours in the game are spent and it’s the root of all other game mode variations. As we outlined, Football Manager 2023’s Career offerings should match the minimum expectations of anyone who decides to give it a go, from series veterans to new players who’d never touched an FM game in their lives.
Core gameplay
Upon beginning a new game in Football Manager 2023, you get to personalize your looks, background, and managing style. You can choose from an absurd number of teams to start your managing career, or start unemployed and hawk around for a job at a later point. FM has always been very open on that front and nothing’s changed.
Once you are hired, you will be greeted by several staff members that will introduce you to the various aspects of the club and your responsibilities. These introductory messages will get you acquainted with your main and youth squads, squad dynamics, the tactical screen, team training schedules, the medical center, team scouting, and in the very first meeting, the club’s history and expectations.
To a new player, this may seem like a lot to swallow at once, while returning players will recognize every one of these features because all of them return from previous installments. To Football Manager 2023’s credit, each of these features is easily accessible through the main menu. If you still feel a bit lost, you can switch on the tutorial prompt when starting a save to enjoy the benefits of a short and easy-to-grasp explanation of every mechanic.
Newbie or veteran, if you don’t want to take on all of these responsibilities, FM’s freedom shines once again. Most of them can be distributed to your staff. How much you engage with the day-to-day tasks is entirely up to you.
If you choose a more hands-on approach, you’ll enjoy the biggest strengths of Football Manager 2023. Every section, from the basic squad screen where you simply see who’s on the team, to the Medical Center, with its injury reports and risk assessment graphs, is optimized to perfection so you can gather all the information you can possibly want.
Sports Interactive made sure this statement is more true than ever via some new features.
New features
One section of the game menu that we didn’t previously mention is Squad Planner. As it is Football Manager 2023’s flagship feature, we wanted to keep it as our flagship for this section of the review.
The new Squad Planner will show you exactly what you got at your disposal, will allow you to rate players at each position as you personally see them without the players ever finding out, and will help you to plan accordingly for up to three seasons ahead while adjusting expiring player contracts.
Squad Planner was described by SI as “something you never thought you needed, but something you’ll wonder how you played without.” We kindly disagree. It is a neat feature and it’s certainly enhancing the experience, but it’s a quality-of-life feature at best, and a minimal upgrade over the old Team Report at worst. Team Report was a thing more than a decade ago, by the way.
We have much better words to say about the modifications made to scouting and scouting reports. Recruitment Focus gives you a quick and precise tool to send out scouts to find exactly what you’re looking for. Scouts will return with reports on perfect fits and players that are just off the set Recruitment Focus, dubbed Near Matches. We really like this setup.
Scouting reports themselves are less confusing. SI has done away with the percentages and now scouting knowledge of a player is rated from minimal to extensive. Seems like a minor change, but our experience with the game left us feeling like this is that little something we don’t know how we played without.
Another small, yet effective feature is the direct conversations you can have with agents prior to making a direct offer for their client. Spares us potential prolonged negotiations that wouldn’t lead anywhere anyway. Trimming the fat isn’t something FM always excels at, so this is a very welcome change of pace.
The last entirely positive paragraph in this review is dedicated to the enhanced role of fans through Supporter Confidence. We’ve always been able to see what fans think of our actions as managers, but Football Manager 2023 promises that, for the first time, you might get fired if you neglect your supporters’ wishes.
We didn’t notice a strong effect coming from this feature. It would be a bit of a shame if SI decided to limit its impact in fear of frustrating players because it does have the potential to be the most interesting feature introduced in FM23—if balanced right.
On the licensing side, the big news is securing UEFA’s European club competitions. As superficial as it may be, seeing the original real-life squad introductions just feels nice. That feeling plays against Football Manager 2023 too. As usual, a lot of leagues and teams are not licensed, so prepare yourself for many “what club is this supposed to be” moments.
What’s lacking
Unfortunately, things aren’t as glamorous in areas more directly related to gameplay. The 3D match engine is the biggest culprit. It’s yet another year of Minecraft stadiums, but what is much worse is boring gameplay. That would be a crime in any game, but it’s truly egregious in a game where you get to watch the boring gameplay.
Another critique of the 3D match engine that extends to the last few titles is the simulation speed. FM23 felt worse than ever before, with anything even close to the fastest simulation speed becoming unwatchable. We either had to spend an unreasonable amount of time on a single match or watch 22 iterations of the Flash moving around a green screen in constant spasms. It is a real shame because this was a non-issue in FM games from over a decade ago.
The other gaping hole in Football Manager 2023 is international management, as has been the case forever. It’s beginning to look like a vicious cycle of SI receiving data that very few players choose to manage internationally, not bothering with that aspect of the game as a result, and players not choosing international management because the mode is underdeveloped. Rinse and repeat for years upon years.
Set pieces and training haven’t been touched either. The former, in particular, is in dire need of a revamp. Soccer has evolved so much that not being able to customize set pieces beyond a simple “stand there” setup looks ancient at this point.
Sports Interactive claimed to have gone out of its way to reduce the space mashing in the inbox in FM23, which is admirable. But, the results, especially if you want to keep a keen eye on every aspect of your club, are questionable. Even the most dedicated managers are bound to find most meetings boring, some reports unnecessary, and all press conferences overly long, slightly repetitive, and at times random.
The question in the example below was asked after a derby with Chelsea:
Is Football Manager 2023 a good game?
What’s been said last often stands out the most, and we did end up on a bit of a tangent there, so we want to make it clear: Football Manager 2023 is a good game. That’s been the case for virtually every title in this series. The consistency is what keeps fans coming back.
That being said, Football Manager as a series has a problem. This problem is called a yearly release schedule with full premium game pricing. Sports games launched like this have to battle with the label of being mere roster updates. The key to winning this battle is to either improve gameplay, improve graphics, or ideally, both.
Sports Interactive doesn’t really do either with FM23. The headlining new features are all welcome, but should really have been supplementary to a major international management overhaul, a new set piece system, or an improved 3D match engine.
As it is, Football Manager 2023 is a solid experience for any would-be manager, returning or new. This an experience that will likely leave you wondering if the Squad Planner is a worthy substitute for still not being able to train international players.
