Sports Interactive, the developer of "Football Manager," has recently remained silent on the status of the sporty management simulation, but studio director Miles Jacobson has broken that silence with an update confirming that a new "Football Manager" will be released this year.

Developers are adjusting to the challenges of telecommuting, the sport itself has been affected, schedules have changed, and plans for the new season are still in flux. This has naturally slowed things down a bit, but not significantly.

"What I can confirm today is that despite all the problems going on in the world, there will be a new Football Manager release later this year. It will be released a little later than originally planned, but will have a very powerful feature set: ...... However, it is not what I thought we had decided on back in January when I completed my "dream feature set."

It is not clear what features were decided on earlier this year or what has changed. A new release date has not yet been announced, but December seems likely. Almost all Football Manager games have been released in late October or early November, and if Sports Interactive was aiming for the same time frame this time around, then there are not many other options for a 2020 release.

"It took a tremendous effort to make this possible," Jacobson added.

"The flexibility the team has shown throughout this period has been incredible, changing the scope upward and downward on an almost weekly basis (and often as a result of changes in people's personal circumstances).

There is no specific mention of Football Manager 2021, only "Football Manager games," suggesting that there will be multiple versions. Currently, Football Manager is exclusive to PC and Mac, but there is a Switch version and a mobile version of Football Manager Touch, which will probably be released in 2021. The update also mentions that Football Manager will be released on more platforms and stores than ever before, suggesting that more console ports will follow.