Football Manager 2016 announced

Footie Times

Sega knows I know you know there'll be another Football Manager this year. I mean, this series has been updated yearly for more than a decade now, and it still sells millions of copies. It'd be bigger news if there wasn't a new one. Surprising no one, Football Manager 2016 will arrive later this year. Specifically, it'll be available on PC and Mac on Friday the 13th of November, which I guess shows that Sega isn't superstitious.

At some point after that, but before Christmas, Sega will also release Football Manager Touch 2016—a standalone version of what was Football Manager's Classic mode. While it sounds like a mobile-only game, it's actually a 'streamlined' Football Manager for PC, Mac, and tablets, with cross-save so that you can play on multiple devices. (There will also be a separate mobile game, called Football Manager Mobile 2016.)

As for what's new about Football Manager itself, the highlights are two new modes: 'Fantasy Draft' and 'Create-A-Club'. Fantasy Draft is a competitive mode where each manager starts with a fixed budget and builds a squad from scratch to pit against the others in a mini-league. The single-player Create-A-Club mode lets you custom-build clubs—choose a name, add yourself, choose the colours, etc.—and enter them in leagues.

Also new is 'Manager on the Touchline', i.e. the ability to create an avatar of yourself to stand on the touchline cheering. Aside from that, most of the changes are improvements that fans will appreciate but are less exciting to write about: more than 2,000 new animations, multi-match highlights, Prozone match analysis, more realistic injuries, more varied press conferences, and just generally more stuff.

I know these screenshots aren't quite as obviously interesting as those from more graphical games, but to a Football Manager player they tell you a lot. Here are the ones Sega has released so far.

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