Football Manager 25 is almost here, with developer Sports Interactive and publisher Sega Europe announced Monday that it’s set to launch on November 26 for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC, Mac, and Xbox Game Pass.
As with previous entries, the game will also be coming to mobile — only this time, it’ll be a Netflix exclusive, meaning you’ll need a subscription to get access. It’s also coming to Nintendo Switch with Football Manager 25 Touch, although that’s set to release on December 3.
The team released a trailer to mark the occasion. While the trailer itself doesn’t feature gameplay or any other information, the official website shows a locked roadmap at the time of this writing, with many announcements planned leading up to the release.
Arguably one of the biggest pertains to women’s soccer (sorry, American here), as Football Manager 25 is the first time the option to play through a women’s league has been available. Sports Interactive originally promised to add women to the game in 2021, but studio director Miles Jacobson said in a 2023 blog post that the team had been hindered by legal issues, although he didn’t reveal other details.
“The women’s game deserves to be the best it possibly can be when it is released — and the new graphics engine will help deliver that,” Jacobson wrote.
The other big change to the franchise is the move to the Unity engine for all versions of the game minus mobile (although that’s coming in the future). For most players, this means improved visuals across the board, including “new volumetric player animations taken from real football matches.” It also marks Sports Interactive’s first major engine update since 2017.
Finally, the game features the introduction of the series’ partnership with the Premier League, with all 20 clubs represented in game.
The studio has a lot of plans for the sports simulation series beyond this upcoming title. In a press release, Jacobson said that Football Manager 25 “is just the starting point for the studio’s next 20, 30 years.” It wrapped up the last Football Manager era with Football Manager 24, which at the time was called the most complete version of the series to date.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.