Football Manager 2022 Review: 8 Ups And 2 Downs

by Andrew Pollard

1. The Matchday Experience Is At Another Level

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As alluded to elsewhere, it feels as if Football Manager 2022 may end up splitting opinion amongst some franchise fans when it fully makes its way out into the wild.

It may well come down to personal preference, but this writer gives FM22 a huge Up for how close it feels to real-life football.

Football Manager - and Championship Manager before it, for that matter - can have a habit of becoming somewhat cyclical in how to play it. Find one base set of tactics that work on one FM game, and it's likely those tactics will be work just as well on the next release, and the next release, and the next.

Here, falling back on your old FM21 habits will only get you so far. For the first time in a long time, it feels like Football Manager is a major challenge once more. That's not to say previous entries weren't enjoyable and didn't bring their own challenges, but FM22 is challenging because it requires a thorough eye for detail, a want to always be thinking of new approaches, and those who tend to find one solid idea and stick to it run the risk of being punished for their slackness.

Of course, some may find this off-putting on a first playthrough, but with every bigger challenge comes a bigger sense of reward.

Football Manager 2022 is released on 9 November.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.