Football Manager 2019: 10 New Features On Our Early Wishlist
8. Further Improvements To The Match Engine
Football Manager's 3D match engine makes minor improvements each season, with features such as weather effects and victory celebrations added over the years. Photorealism is a long way away, not that state-of-the-art visuals are necessary.
The purpose of FM's match engine is to represent the way players move and position themselves out there on the pitch. It's very much substance over style, but there are subtle improvements Sports Interactive should make pronto.
More animations would be a good start. Right now, players are shown performing a limited array of moves: how about adding bicycle kicks, diving headers and nutmegs? Stats such as flair and technique could be tied to these moves.
Moreover, why not include more reactive animations, such as players responding angrily to being substituted? Managers can learn a lot from studying their players' body language, so this would be a worthwhile visual variable to add.