- Menus
- Portal, Squad, Tactics, Recruitment, Training and Club, with drop-downs, control panels and fewer cards.
- Your layout
- Choose landing screens, swap tiles, remap shortcuts, rearrange bookmarks and pick a scaling mode.
- Match day
- New crowds and stadiums, seasons, a time-of-day system, wetter and snowier pitches and varied cutscenes.
- On the pitch
- Hawk-Eye-based movement, new jockeying and skill moves, Tactical Tweaks, rebuilt Shouts and more match data.
Before you read
This page sets out what Sports Interactive says in its FM27 deep dives on the interface, the match day experience and the match engine. Sports Interactive says the footage comes from a development build: the layout and direction of the interface should stay largely the same at launch, but the background skin and colour scheme were still being finalised. Nothing here has been tested. FM26 appears only for comparison.
Getting around
- The primary navigation menu has six renamed sections: Portal, Squad, Tactics, Recruitment, Training and Club. Each opens straight onto its main content, so Squad shows your squad and Tactics your tactics.
- In FM26, tiles were both how information was shown and how you moved around: clicking a tile opened a card. In FM27, Sports Interactive says tiles are mainly for information, and almost all navigation sits in the primary and secondary menus at the top of the screen.
- Most menu options have drop-downs. Squad, for example, leads to the overview, first team, youth team, dynamics and loans, some with drop-downs of their own. A toggle button returns in the secondary navigation for switching between screens of the same area.
- Each main area has a control panel near the top with its key actions. On Recruitment, Sports Interactive lists staff advice, budgets, creating a recruitment focus, scouting range and budget, and delegating responsibilities.
- Many cards become full-screen screens, so there are fewer windows to close. Sports Interactive also mentions performance work and much lower input latency.
Messages
- Messages are colour-coded by topic and make better use of space.
- Content arrives inside the message: a Scout Report message contains the report itself, and actions such as answering a transfer offer can be taken without leaving it.
- Duplicates are merged, so several offers for the same player arrive in one message. There are also more tooltips, and more club colours in the top navigation bar.
- The other message changes, such as monthly reports and the NXGN 50, are on the What's New in FM27 page.
Make the layout yours
🛬 Landing screens
A setting in Preferences chooses where each option of the primary navigation bar takes you, for example Squad straight to the first team instead of the overview.
🔁 Tile swapping
Drop-downs on some tiles in the Portal and elsewhere swap them for another tile of the same size, such as replacing Recruitment's Transfer Window tile with affiliate clubs or transfer history. It also works in the match day interface.
⌨️ Shortcuts
The in-game keyboard shortcuts can be edited again, from Preferences.
🔖 Bookmarks
Bookmarks, which FM26 already had, now show text labels and can be rearranged by drag and drop.
🖥️ Screens and scaling
Ultrawide monitors are supported, and tables rescale to show as many rows and columns as fit. There are three scaling modes in Preferences, first called Default, Detailed and Condensed and later renamed Large, Medium and Small; Sports Interactive says they only apply on QHD or 4K monitors (1440p and above). The first deep dive's text says HD and 4K, but its own footnote and the later accessibility dive say QHD or 4K.
Match day atmosphere
- Crowd models are overhauled to show emotion. Fans wear their club's shirts, add layers in cold weather or open stands, and wave flags, more of them at a cup final than at a pre-season friendly. Crowd audio varies with the level of the club.
- Sports Interactive promises the widest variety of stands, corners and roofs so far, with better shading and colour variation, and designs from different eras of football.
- The surroundings follow the seasons: grass, trees and other outdoor features change colour through the year.
- A new time-of-day system moves lighting and shadows through the 90 minutes, so a December afternoon match can start in sunshine and end under floodlights.
- Rain makes the pitch look wet and snow builds up during a match. Pitch types vary, and pitch wear follows the weather.
- Pre-match cutscenes use several camera angles per shot, chosen by the match's importance, the stadium and the location, so the same sequence can play out in hundreds of combinations. Close-ups show 3D grass, and a manager who has become a club legend may see tifos and more flags.
- Player models gain musculature in calves and forearms, a wider range of body types and hair physics.
The match engine
🎥 Hawk-Eye animations
Sports Interactive builds on its partnership with Hawk-Eye Innovations, using real match clips and motion capture for more on- and off-the-ball animations, including body feints, Elasticos and Heel Chops. Players with higher Flair and Dribbling use them more.
🏃 Speed and stamina
Running speed and acceleration are reworked against Hawk-Eye data, so players no longer recover or turn unnaturally fast. Stamina weighs more on repeated sprints and on condition late in a match, which Sports Interactive says gives substitutes more impact.
🛡️ Jockeying
One-on-one defending uses new jockeying movements instead of bursts of acceleration, and Marking and Anticipation count for more.
📦 Attacking the box
Attacks are meant to be less repetitive, with more cutbacks, double movements and crosses. New Player Instructions tell a player to arrive late or attack the defensive line, at the near post, far post or centre, depending on position.
Managing from the touchline
- Tactical Tweaks are a new system for changing instructions during a match without going to the Tactics screen. Examples Sports Interactive gives: wingers swapping flanks, the goalkeeper joining a late attack, more urgency, longer passing, using the width or pressing less.
- Tweaks stay active until you deselect them, and there is no limit on how many you use, though some contradict each other. Your staff report the opposing manager's changes through the dugout system and advise when to start or stop a tweak.
- Shouts are rebuilt: they now affect players' mental state instead of giving small attribute boosts, have clearer descriptions and new names, and your staff sum up their effect in the dugout feed while the squad bar shows players' reactions.
- Between highlights, the match screen supports tile swapping and adapts to your monitor. Heat Maps and Action Zones return during matches, and Pass Maps return in the Data Hub after the match.
The 2D view
- For people who watch matches from above, Sports Interactive says the ball and player discs are smaller, the ball has a stronger shadow, the discs use feet instead of arrows, and the goal nets are more transparent.
- Past matches get their own playback speed settings, separate from live matches, and highlights can be watched as soon as you leave a match.
Cross-checked
Cross-checked on 22 October 2026. The feature details come from Sports Interactive's own FM27 deep dives on footballmanager.com (on the interface and navigation, the match day atmosphere, Tactical Tweaks and the match engine, and the 2D match engine), of which TheSixthAxis (22 and 30 September 2026) and Radio Times reported the interface and match day atmosphere dives. They are one source, the studio's own, restated by the press, not independent confirmation. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it.