Total Football, Total Control: FM26's Reimagined User Interface

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FM26’s reimagined UI is a product of a clear vision from our Design Team, direct community feedback and data on how you’ve navigated previous editions of FM. 

There were 3 clear principles when designing the FM26 UI: Efficiency, Familiarity, and Predictability. The first was about making info quicker to access, navigation around the game faster and reducing the number of button clicks. The second was ensuring that the game still fundamentally felt like the Football Manager you know and love, while the last was trying to make it easy to pick up and master.

What did that mean in reality? Well, it meant building something more intuitive and efficient in giving you the right information whenever you needed it. Overview screens provide you with key general information early and often, with more detailed information available when you explore and dig deeper. 

Across everything we did with the UI, we had a focus on raising the bar when it comes to accessibility, which meant correcting unreadable font sizes and defining our colour contrasts to stop information becoming illegible.

A further consideration was creating a shared core UI system across our Unity-based games, but ensuring that all screens are bespoke and adapted per platform to give you the best experience wherever you play. To do that, we’ve used the capabilities of the Unity engine to introduce a new ‘Tile and Card’ system that powers every screen in FM26. 

Tiles and Cards

Our Design team wanted to create something that would help build a sense of exploration for every player to reveal the depth and detail of Football Manager.

In FM26’s UI, tiles are the component parts of every in-game screen in FM26, providing key snapshots of relevant info. When clicked on, each tile opens up into a Card that carries more detail. 

This new system is clear, accessible and makes diving into the key details easier. It also means that you actually get more contextual game data served to you earlier than in previous editions, meaning you’re more plugged into your club than ever before. 

Introducing the Portal

You’ll become familiarised with the tile and card system immediately in your first save with the new-look Portal. 

Game data and design insights made us realise that use of the ‘Home’ screen in previous editions was limited, with most of your time spent in the Inbox. To drastically improve that experience and give you a true home screen, we’ve combined the two together to create the Portal – a one-stop shop for the key happenings in your FM universe. 

As a busy manager, you’re across every facet of your club’s day-to-day business and that means a lot of messages. To streamline your focus on what matters most, we’ve added 4 filters - All, New, Tasks and Unread – and made it clearer when your team needs you to take a decision by improving the action panel.

It’s not the only filter putting you seamlessly in control, with a new Advice dropdown enabling you to quickly engage your backroom team for guidance on Coaching, Recruitment, Development and Staffing. 

Supporting your messages is a revamped approach to news in-game, with more relevant, interesting and global news surfaced to you on a regular basis. 

To better plan your team selection and training workloads ahead of the season’s most important periods, we’ve integrated your upcoming fixtures and a two-week snapshot of the Calendar into the Portal.

The Portal is more than just messages. It’s a hub that acts as a gateway to your wider footballing world by putting results, news, your fixture schedule, calendar and more just a click away. It’s also a core part of navigating your way around in FM26. 

Navigating your way to victory

The introduction of the Portal was just one step to significantly improving your in-game navigation in FM26. 

The thing you’ll immediately notice is where the Portal itself lives – the new navigation bar. This has moved to the top of the screen and within it we’ve consolidated the categories to give you faster access to your key areas of responsibility. Bringing a fresh take on the familiar, the navbar brings all the strategic depth you’d expect from FM, but streamlined and smarter than ever. 

All the detail within each section remains, as when you click on each one, you’ll reveal an extensive sub-menu that’s perfect for when you need to dig deeper.

Supporting the new navbar is an overhauled Search experience which delivers more results, depth and assistance to you in the dugout. In previous editions of FM, you were only able to search for entities, meaning specific nations, players and clubs. Now you can use the Search bar to find those as well as objects, information and navigation. So, search for any football-related term or game area like Training and you’ll see the relevant tiles, messages, news items and guides. It’s a new system that gives you both critical information off the bat and unrivalled depth that helps you to become a better-equipped, more complete football manager. 

FMPedia – Your new in-game glossary

The other means of navigating in the new UI is integral to and embedded in the revamped Search – meet FMPedia. 

FMPedia is a glossary and user guide brought to life within your career, providing a base for you to navigate different areas of FM26 and brush up on your knowledge. 

FMPedia has guides for everything from Financial Fair Play and Board Confidence to the new tactical changes we’ve introduced for FM26 (more on those soon). All in a simple and easy-to-use system, you can access it any time through either the ribbon icon at the top of the screen or by typing whatever you’re curious about into the search bar and diving into the guides that pop up.

Perfect if you’re an intrepid first timer or returning to the franchise after some time out of the hot seat, FMPedia is there to help you learn more about every aspect of the beautiful game. 

Change your Bookmarks, Change the Game

Knowing that everyone plays FM differently inspired the entirety of our UI overhaul, including the introduction of the new Bookmarks feature.

Bookmarks are quick, direct links to specific parts of your game universe. The 6 you start with have been curated for you based on the most visited areas of the game, giving you easier access with fewer clicks to what matters most. It’s your experience though, and you’ve got 24 bookmark options in total to choose from. 

So, whether your passion is developing Wonderkids, innovating on the tactics board or dominating the transfer market, bookmarks allow you to customise your managerial world and tailor your game to your priorities. 

Change your Bookmarks. Change the game. Simple as that.

FM26’s redesigned UI means clarity without compromise. It’s all the depth and knowledge you expect, but simpler to use and more intuitive to navigate. It’s every part of your footballing vision united, accessible and customisable on your terms. 

We cannot wait for you to experience it. Get ready to step into the dugout.