Football Manager 2018

I’m delighted that after so many years the developers managed to find a room for improvements that enrich the experience in such meaningful and impactful ways and got another inch closer to blurring the line between Football Manager and reality. It’s hard to believe, but the game is even better than it was. [01/2018, p.66]

In my view, Football manager 2018 is an absolute triumph that revels in the cliche, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. The changes, and especially the new dynamics system have never had me feeling closer to my squad, the new engine is slick, and the additional motion captured animations really do freshen up the proceedings. This is another truly stellar outing from Sports Interactive, true masters of their craft and pioneers of the management genre.

The best and most human FM to date. [Issue#195, p.77]

These are changes that tilt the simulation closer to reality with captivating aplomb, and ensure that the armchair managers among us are kept busy for another whirlwind 12 months of 40-yard screamers and cup final heartbreak.

New features have brought Football Manager 2018 closer to the beautiful game than ever before. Personalities, the hierarchy and social groups all play a part in the way you interact with the players. The system is rusty but still revolutionary for the series as it brings an ever more emergent way of telling stories. In addition to this are improvements throughout the game in how data is viewed and represented.

In general, what all of this adds up to is a more sensitive game. All of the depth is there as before, but the humanity of football is represented in a greater way - whether that is through players striking up bromances that lead to goals on the pitch or you personally getting involved in pricing wars with clubs from Europe and, increasingly, China.

The quintessential football management sim is back with its most ambitious undertaking in years.

Football Manager 2018 builds a virtual world which can rival the real one, by using huge and complex database. Many new features in 2018 were designed just to let players experience a more and more realistic manager career.

Overall, Football Manager 2018 is as addictive as ever; packed with a plethora of options and tactics to choose from, it immerses you into the world of football management like never before. Quite simply, unless you’re up to date with your coaching badges, Sports Interactives’ latest effort is the closest you’ll get to becoming a managerial messiah. So, if you’re passionate about football and you fancy yourself as a bit of a José Mourinho, then Football Manager 2018 is an essential purchase.

Football Manager 2018 finally offers some new and exciting features in addition to the usual incremental improvements over last year’s version. We’re still not completely happy with the match engine and the overly bloated interface but this year’s FM is a good purchase.

Football Manager 2018 is not a great revolution compared to its previous deliveries, but it offers very interesting news in terms of professional and personal information about players, tactics and signings that makes it better than ever.

New year, new Football Manager: this time the people at Sports Interactive added some great features in the scouting department, the medical center and dynamics, but old problems like the frequency of injuries and the poor media simulation still lingers. All considered, a very solid effort nonetheless.

Football Manager 2018 is still the best and most complete managers game. The new features are really nice, but they aren't as innovative as we wanted to see. It would be nice if Sports Interactive takes more risks for Football Manager 2019.

Football Manager 2018 brings some good improvements on key areas like team dynamics and injuries, but old issues are still unresolved.

Football Manager 2018 is a bigger, deeper and more complex episode of the saga. The best football universe simulation features a lot of new mechanics which give to the managers the chance to feel, manage and understand even better their teams. The evolution is amazing, but lacks of a real update to the UI, too old and chaotic, a little bit of polishing, with some dynamics which need to be fixed with the upcoming updates, and some issues in terms of hardware optimisation.

Football Manager 2018 will not be remembered as a milestone in the franchise, but it is a game with significant improvements (like the dynamics system or the medical center) that will please die hard fans.

Progress? Sure. Nothing incredibly dramatic to move the football game world, but as you once jump into a new year, you will not return back to the previous one voluntarily.

Like Leicester winning the Premiere League, FM18 Touch knocks over its more fancied rival. [Issue#269, p.56]

An overhauled scouting system, squad hierarchy and better injury surveillance. Football Manager 2018 offers several new and exciting features, and even though none of them feels totally complete at the time of writing, they bring great hope for what's to come.

Football Manager 2018 adds some new features and overall improves the flow of the experience, but we're starting to feel the need of bigger and more relevant additions.

Football Manager 2018 is a very good manager game for soccer fans.

The best new Football Manager in several years, and although the improvements are still minor they create a more nuanced and realistic experience than ever before.

Not a revolution, but the same, old, deep, exciting managing experience.

Football Manager 2018 does not revolutionize the series. It is still relying on the facts of its success and refine them with new tools. You never change a winning team as a manager would say. You just need to train it again and again to make it better.

At its heart, Football Manager 2018 remains a compelling experience, delivering rollercoaster highs of conquering the world while battling the agonising lows of relegation and sackings. The problem is the first signs of weariness are really starting to show themselves in this year's edition. It is like an ageing star in the twilight of their career; more than previously, there is a lack of genuine innovation from a team of developers who are held up to an exceptionally high standard. For sure, there are some welcome additions; the performance of the 3D match engine, alongside the revamps of scouting and medical teams, for instance, show that Sports Interactive does take refinement seriously. However, the continuing focus on the aspects most fans of the series find the most tiresome - the social media and player conversations - portray a worrying trend of the wrong path being pursued. The fundamental strengths of Football Manager remain, yet it seems a better strategy these days is possibly to pick up the title every two seasons for the best 'bang for buck' factor. For the annual buyer, this year's might prove a tougher pill to swallow and could well be deserving of one mark lower.

Football Manager 2018 is a great game, but that’s mostly down to the sheer depth of the series on offer from previous years. A few new features here are fun as ideas, but I’d like them to have a more meaningful impact in-game...Still, after putting nearly 50 hours into FM 2018, I can’t see myself stopping anytime soon. The sheer number of things that you can do make it ridiculously addictive – and one of the best value games around. Just make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into first.

The king is finally back, though with different white hair under the crown.

Fundamentally, there aren’t many changes to the Football Manager core. This is a yearly update of a series that’s been around for a long time. All the same, there have been fundamental changes to elements of the game, and they’re welcome, and logical.

Football Manager 2018 is a nice football simulator that suffers from the lack of competition in the genre.

Football Manager 2018 is still an engaging manager experience, but focus on realism over fun combined with a lack of innovation leave the game less interesting over time.

Football Manager is an annual series that really only has to worry about competing with itself. Aside from a few pipe dream projects on Steam, there are really no other football management titles around. Despite not all the feature changes being an unqualified success, Football Manager 2018 is still to be recommended as an absurdly detailed simulation title. To this day, it has a propensity for generating narratives rivaled only by the Paradox grand strategy games. But if you do already own Football Manager 2017 I’d regard the yearly upgrade as gently desirable rather than an urgent necessity.