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Meet the new football sim, the same as the old football sim? – Football Manager 2023 Quick Review

22K View2022-11-09

Football Manager 2023 is the next in line of the long-running sports sim series, and it’s a good game. It’s a really good game, actually. This is an established fact, as has been the hallmark of the last decade of this football management simulator. This version, however, appears to expose some cracks in developer Sports Interactive’s sphere.And what sphere do I speak of? It is a sphere of absolute control of the football simulator market—considering that it does not compete in the same market as EA’s FIFA and Konami’s eFootball. Sports Interactive created this sphere on its own merits, and of that, there can be no doubt. It created it through consistency and innovation, with each new edition relying on improvements in interface and authenticity, not the occasional new license that the publisher was desperately trying to promote as revolutionary. But does this installment truly live up to that legacy?

THE STORY

There really isn’t any story to speak of in Football Manager 2023. I mean, unless you count the story of a team competing throughout a full season...which can indeed have its dramatic ups and downs for sure.

PLATFORMS

Football Manager 2023 is available on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S, and iOS devices. I downloaded and played the Xbox GamePass version on my PC and had no issues whatsoever.

TIME PLAYED

I put four hours into Football Manager 2023, and that’s really just scratching the surface of what’s offered here. This is realistically one of those games you can play forever by just creating new seasons/years after you are finished with the current one.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• UEFA licenses. Everyone likes to play as their favorite squads (without resorting to modding and the like), and getting this license back is huge for a football/soccer game of this scope.

• The Squad Planner. It’s the perfect implement for this kind of game as it really distills what it is like (and the decisions that you face on a daily basis) when you are the coach/manager of a sports team. Where was it until now? Bravo to Sports Interactive for bringing this kind of design elegance to a sim game.

• It sweats the “petty” things. Football Manager 2023 is complete and meticulous even on insignificant details...especially when it comes to on-the-pitch tactics.

WHAT SUCKS

• Few (if any) graphical and animation updates. This kind of speaks for itself, right? Football Manager 2023 lacks the polygonal punch and fluid animations that FIFA and eFootball typically bring to the table.

• Injuries. Even in the short time I was playing, it seems my dudes were all made of glass or something. I know injuries, and the subsequent management of those injuries, are a big part of every sport, but what was going on here seemed excessive.

SHOULD YOU PLAY IT?

Sure, if you like keeping up with the latest and the greatest tweaks. Otherwise, as is the case with most sports titles these days, you’d be perfectly fine with last year’s edition too…which in a rather shady turn of events has now been delisted from Steam. Football Manager 2023 is the natural evolution of the series and brings with it some innovations aimed at making the gaming experience more comfortable and immediate. The new Squad Planner tool is something I didn’t realize I needed until I had it available. Once I became accustomed to it, it was hard to do without it. UEFA licenses bring atmosphere to cup matches and market dynamics are increasingly realistic, although still perfectible. Once again, the smallest progress with this title is in the technical sector, which was and unfortunately remains the area with the widest room for improvement. Overall, though, the limited movement on that front does not undermine this footie experience totally.

💬 What are your thoughts on yearly installments of sports franchises? Are these roster updates truly worth paying full price for? Should developers wait to release a new installment in a long-running franchise until they add some real innovations? Let me hear your thoughts down in the comments below!

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