"Football Manager 2020" is currently available for free on Epic Games' store, which has helped the game's player base surge nearly a year after its launch.Sports Interactive's studio director, Miles Jacobson said that more than one million new players have started playing Football Manager 2020 thanks to Epic Games' promotion. He compares this number to the number when the game was free to play for two weeks on Steam in March of this year.

"More people have tried the game within 36 hours on @EpicGames than when it was free for 2 weeks on Steam!" said Jacobson on Twitter. Since Football Manager 2020 went free on Epic last Thursday, more than 1 million players have picked up Football Manager 2020 to date.

On Sundays, Jacobson often tweets the number of players in the game. The usual peak is between 80,000 and 90,000, but today it's three times that number, more than 250,000. 'I think it's the highest it's ever been,' Jacobson said. 'I'm not very good at searching Twitter, and I don't want to disturb the Business Intelligence team on Sunday, so I'm relying on my memory. (5]

The Sports Interactive series has seen sales increase over the past few years. When Football Manager 2019 surpassed 2 million units last year, it was the first in the series to do so. If this number of downloads counts as sales, I would guess that "Football Manager 2020" will hold this record for some time.

"Football Manager 2021," or whatever the next title will be called, has been delayed because of COVID-19, but a final statement from the studio says that "a new "Football Manager" will be released later this year." [Football Manager 2020 and Watch Dogs 2 are now permanently free on the Epic Games Store. The promotion will last until 11 a.m. ET on September 24.