The tried and tested version of Sports Interactive’s new football manager Football Manager 2023

For a fan, the start of a new football season consists of little rituals. First pre-season friendlies, draws for European competitions, last day of Sunday, fantasy football auction with friends. Each of these events is now carved into a kind of advent calendar that recurs annually, bringing with it customs and traditions. A key step in many fans’ love for the ball is to get the latest copy of Football Manager, football’s management historian. Sports Interactive For many, football has become so ingrained in their habits for decades that it has become an integral part of their way of life.

We were wondering what innovations this year’s edition would bring, and the opportunity came true thanks to a long gaming session that took place directly at the Sports Interactive studios, where we spent almost five hours with the new episode. . From the release of official UEFA licenses to the introduction of new tools to support virtual coaches, ours Tried from Football Manager 2023 It will review all the news of this issue before it hits stores on November 8. Here are the innovations below.

Chaaampions!

Football Manager is an institution for football fans, so every year the development team always has a working formula, applying some minor improvements here and there, without wandering around in search of useless revolutions that will only result in breaking that strong sense of familiarity you feel when playing one of Sports Interactive’s managers. So, once we got the pre-build, we were not at all surprised to find that Football Manager 2023’s interfaces, menus, manager editor and all other elements remained intact during the transition from one version to the next. , as in the change between the 2020 episode and the 2021 episode.

In an effort to refine the gaming experience every day, Sports Interactive has made its simulation significantly more faithful this year, making it a real success in the market. From this release Football Manager 2023 will include: official licenses Champions from all three UEFA competitions will appear at the end of the Europa and Conference League with real names and logos. From the television interfaces to the pre-match presentations, every detail of the matches has been faithfully reproduced, including the anthems of the three tournaments that marked Europe’s most important nights. Listening to the notes of the Champions League anthem before your team’s cup semi-final will give the simulation a whole new flavor, we guarantee it.

game news

With the introduction of UEFA licenses, the draw system (for every competition, not just in Europe) has also been improved, even if the most important innovation of the new edition is the most important innovation of the new edition. Squad PlannerA tool to help coaches carefully plan the recruitment of new players so they don’t suddenly find themselves with untapped roles on the team. Thanks to very convenient diagrams, the Squad Planner shows the list of athletes available for each division of the field each year, giving a perspective on the future composition of the squad in subsequent seasons. This way, we can always react in advance to expiration of contracts and withdrawal of team members, having all the information we need in one place.

To reflect the increased impact prosecutors and agents Sports Interactive has chosen to combine Squad Planner with a wider range of interventions to the buying dynamics of new players, and this will now largely depend on the view a player’s roster has. After gaining the goodwill of a manager, he may agree with you long before the official bid to put a little more pressure on his client’s club, but can also rally in the last minute of stalled negotiations, or even intervene throughout the season. To solve all these psychological problems that can affect an athlete’s performance. In short, even in Football Manager 2023, prosecutors have become a coach’s main interlocutor on behalf of those who can’t stand them.

In reality, starting with this edition, there will be another factor that we need to follow very closely as long as it can affect the results of the team. let’s talk about publicIf we look at its needs, it represents what is perhaps the antithesis of management. In a new screen, we will be able to examine the opinions and wishes of the board that may act in the opposite direction. Imagine all the decisions made during the transfer campaign, a happier president and a warring supporter, or vice versa? It won’t always be the right solution beforehand, because every audience is built differently: big clubs are largely backed by occasional fans, while country teams are backed by loyal ultras fringes where a former fan has returned. The flag will be a greater satisfaction than any trophy.

Match

Although much more time is spent on menus than on the football field, the beating heart of any Football Manager is still there. racing simulation, so many of the innovations in the new section are concentrated in the four corners surrounding the lawn. We didn’t have enough time to test this aspect in the given time, but Sports Interactive praised the new AI, which, according to the company, is dynamically responsive, supporting coaches’ decisions against each other during the presentation phase. to our tactical plans to counter them suddenly. As the match approaches, the technicians will prepare the match by paying attention to the environment in which the match is played, for example by trying to be more cautious in defense if you come from a big back-to-back streak.

To examine these innovations it will first be necessary to face a large number of matches, playing just a few games gave us the opportunity to observe the match simulation up close, unfortunately it suffers from the same limitations that every Football Manager has always characterized. To enter the field of the game when exiting the menus. While various tweaks have been applied to the animations and players are now responding more effectively during the defense phase,IA he is still the victim of serious blunders we witnessed, which included a crazy exit from the opposing goalkeeper. In addition, the simulation lags far behind in terms of graphics effect. True, no one plays Sports Interactive on the pretext of photorealism, but the technical quality of the matches is fully in line with at least two generations old FIFA or PES, and we were a little disappointed by the lack of tangible improvements. games, models of football players and models of stadiums and spectators.