FM27: what the community thought of the first livestream

Sports Interactive finally showed FM27 running, with no trailer cuts, in a livestream of more than two hours on Thursday, 22 October. With the free Launch Preview only a week away, the obvious question was this: after the disaster that was FM26, has the community been won over?

We went and checked. We read the comments on the YouTube video, the Twitch stream chat (more than five thousand messages), the r/footballmanagergames megathread and both pages of the official Launch Preview topic on the SI forums. The short answer: there is optimism, but it is cautious optimism, and the match engine is still taking criticism.

Index

The interface: much better, but still not FM24

This was the most praised area. The most-liked comment on YouTube says the interface is much cleaner and singles out the finance and competition screens. On Reddit the same idea comes up again and again: «FM27 is what FM26 should have been». In the Twitch chat, people who like plenty of information on matchday were happy with the new match screen.

A few small details made more noise than you might expect. Switching between squads (first team, B team, U21) on the club page is easy again, and some people on Reddit celebrated that, half joking, half serious. The Director of Football advice (DoF), the return of customisable keyboard shortcuts, the cup draws and the end of the white boxes around names also went down well.

Not everyone is convinced, though. Players who spent years in FM24 feel the interface has improved a lot without getting there. The most common complaints:

a lot of dead space, especially in the bottom right corner of the in-match tactics screen;
too little information in the side tiles and squad lists with few columns by default;
the tactics screen, which one forum user compared, rather harshly, to Championship Manager 3;
player and ball circles that are too big and colours that are too loud in 2D.

Text size split opinion again. On YouTube some say it is still unreadable on a TV or a MacBook, but others were quick to point out that the game has a text scaling option, shown 38 minutes into the video. For people on big monitors, the return of interface scaling was welcome news.

Match engine: the attack convinces, the defence does not

This is where the tone changes. The matches shown had plenty of goals, and that is exactly what raised suspicion. On YouTube, Reddit and the official forum the same line keeps coming up: defenders are not marking anyone. Some talk about an attack that is «too strong» and a weak defence, with no balance. Others say they did not see a single tackle and that players still look like they are «sliding on ice».

One move in particular showed up in several places: a winger with no options on the flank cuts inside and, even with space, ends up passing backwards. It is an old FM26 complaint and it is still there. On Reddit there was also talk of a goalkeeper error on a Chelsea goal, and the Twitch chat had plenty to say about full backs defending near the byline.

Even so, there are positive signs. Several viewers found the animations more fluid, noticed a better frame rate than in earlier videos and liked seeing players and referees face each other when cards are shown. 2D appeared in the last match and was very well received by those who only play that way, with the stadium detail getting praise. One request kept coming back: players still celebrate (or don’t) before the VAR decision, which spoils the surprise.

What stayed the same (and what we haven’t seen yet)

Press conferences and player conversations look unchanged, and that disappointed plenty of people. One of the biggest sceptics on Reddit admitted they liked what they saw, but fears those interactions are still full of bugs. The inbox was also described as cramped in some cases and empty in others.

Many questions were left without a clear answer: youth management, Create a Club, numerical staff attributes, a customisable fixtures screen and the console version. In the chat, the SI team confirmed that international management is back and that the pre-game editor, as usual, should only arrive with the full release.

A free launch: the decision everyone is talking about

If the stream divided opinion, the announcement the day before was almost unanimous. FM27 will be free to play on PC and Mac from 6pm GMT on 29 October until 3 November, on Steam, Epic, the Microsoft Store and Game Pass. We explained everything in Play FM27 for free: the Launch Preview runs from 29 October to 3 November.

On the official forum, even the harshest FM26 critics congratulated SI. One person admitted they had sworn not to pre-order this year and changed their mind, and others called the move «ballsy». The most common reading is that SI would not open the game up for five days if it did not trust it. The more suspicious point out that it is also a way to win back lost goodwill and get thousands of people testing the game for free.

The practical details also reassured a lot of people. Saves made during the free period carry over to the paid version and to launch, and pre-ordering with a 10% discount lets you keep playing between 3 and 10 November. And there was the joke of the week: the eternal «waiting for the beta» thread is finally dead.

YouTube chat versus the rest of the internet

A separate topic was the tone of the live YouTube chat. On Reddit, several users, including some self-confessed sceptics, found it toxic and unfair on the two presenters who put their faces to the game. One of them noted that the Twitch chat seemed to have «way more adults». Anyone who followed both streams will confirm the difference: Twitch had lots of specific questions and jokes about the Brighton side the SI team managed in the stream, and far fewer insults.

Some even swore the «livestream» had been pre-recorded. A member of the SI team replied on Reddit that it hadn’t, and that they had spent a good part of the day setting the stream up.

What comes next

On 29 October at 6pm GMT, the free Launch Preview opens. For five days you can play as much as you like and, above all, see whether the match engine defends as badly as it seemed to in the livestream. From 3 November only those who pre-order (or have Game Pass) can carry on, and the full launch is on 10 November.

Our take

After FM26, FM27 didn’t need to impress: it needed not to scare people off, and it managed that. The interface is clearly tidier, things that should never have been removed are back, and 2D finally got some attention. But you should take all this with some distance. SI chose what to show, the matches were played on highlights, and the defending has already raised enough doubts for us to keep an eye on it when we get our hands on the game.

The good news is that you don’t have to believe anyone, not us and not the chat. In a week you can make up your own mind without spending a penny. Tell us on the forum what you thought.