Football Manager 2021
New additions and game upgrades deliver added levels of depth, drama and football authenticity. FM21 empowers you like never before to develop your skills and command success at your club.
Your like matters. Every heart nudges this game's GamingPickz Score and where it ranks (a small 5% of the score), so the lists get better for everyone.
- Released
- 2020
- Developer
- Sports Interactive
- Platforms
- 1 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- playable
- Download
- 7 GB
What is Football Manager 2021?
New additions and game upgrades deliver added levels of depth, drama and football authenticity. FM21 empowers you like never before to develop your skills and command success at your club.
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 23 November 2020 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Sports Interactive |
| Publisher | SEGA |
| Platforms | PC |
| Genres | Simulation, Sports, Strategy |
| Languages | 17 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata , seeded TBA. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was Football Manager 2021 received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | Not stated |
| Cloud saves | Yes |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Single-player only |
| In-game purchases | No |
| Steam Deck | playable |
| Download size | 7 GB |
| Add-on content | 1 DLC listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
Is Football Manager 2021 worth it?
94% of 23,849 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. Its price is not listed. About 1,122 people were playing at once when we last checked, so it is still active.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is Football Manager 2021? How long to beat it
Total play time for Football Manager 2021 is about 1507.4 hours to do everything, and around 165.1 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 165.1h | 12 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 602.4h | 5 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 1507.4h | 4 |
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where Football Manager 2021 sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueFootball Manager 2021 plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
Is Football Manager 2021 still active? Players right now
Football Manager 2021 has a modest but active community: 1,122 people were playing at once when we last read Steam on 19 October 2026. This is a snapshot, not a live counter, and it is a recent concurrent reading rather than an all-time record. For what is trending across the catalogue right now, see the pulse.
How many people own Football Manager 2021
This is an estimate, not a sales figure, and the two are not interchangeable. SteamSpy samples public profiles and publishes a range; the range here spans a factor of 2.5, and that width is the honest part of it. We show both ends rather than a midpoint, because a midpoint would look like a measurement.
Steam only. Console and storefront sales are not counted, so a game that sold heavily elsewhere reads low here. Read on 19 October 2026. Where a publisher has announced a real unit figure, that appears separately and carries its source.
Estimated sales for Football Manager 2021
These are estimates, not reported figures. Sports Interactive has not published unit sales for Football Manager 2021, and nobody outside the company can measure them. What follows is arithmetic on the review count, with the method printed below so you can check it or reject it.
How this was calculated
Steam sales track review counts closely enough that dividing one by the other across games with published figures gives a usable multiplier. This is the standard method for estimating sales from outside a publisher.
| Reviews on Steam | 23,849 |
|---|---|
| Sales per review | 30 to 60 |
| List price | Not recorded |
| Assumed average selling price | 33% to 66% of list |
| SteamSpy owner estimate | 2.0M–5.0M, a different measure, see below |
What this cannot tell you
Steam only. Console, Epic, GOG and retail sales are not in here. For a game that sold heavily on PlayStation this is a fraction of the real number.
The band is wide because the method is imprecise. Review rates vary with price, genre, launch era and how insistently a game asks. Published analyses put the ratio between 30 and 60 for paid games, and we show the whole range rather than picking a point in it.
The owner estimate above measures something else. SteamSpy counts accounts that have the game, which includes free weekends, bundles, giveaways and gifts. It sits higher than a sales figure for that reason, and the two are not alternative answers to the same question.
Revenue is the shakiest line. It assumes an average selling price well below list because most copies move in sales, and it ignores regional pricing, refunds, key resellers and whatever deal the publisher actually has with Valve. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not a figure.
If Sports Interactive publishes a real number we will use that instead and say where it came from. Our editorial policy covers how we handle figures we cannot verify.
What readers say about Football Manager 2021
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
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Where Football Manager 2021 appears
The ranked lists and finder pages Football Manager 2021 qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Games like Football Manager 2021
24 games overlap with Football Manager 2021 on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are Football Manager 2019, Football Manager 2022 and Football Manager 2020.
Part of the Football Manager series
Football Manager 2021 is one of 7 Football Manager games we track. See the whole series ranked by the GamingPickz Score, plotted on the grid, and listed in release order:
Football Manager 2021 head to head
See Football Manager 2021 compared side by side, on score, price, specs and more:
More Football Manager 2021 comparisons: vs Beat Saber, vs SpeedRunners, vs theHunter: Call of the Wild, vs MX Bikes, vs F1 2020, vs Rec Room, vs Assetto Corsa Competizione, vs DiRT Rally 2.0, vs Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, vs Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection, vs Total War: WARHAMMER II, vs Age of Empires II (Retired), vs Company of Heroes, vs Sid Meier's Civilization V, vs Anno 1800, vs Tropico 4, vs Age of History II, vs Beholder, vs Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, vs Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, vs Day of Defeat: Source, vs Door Kickers, vs Dungeons 3, vs EA SPORTS FC 24, vs EA SPORTS FIFA 21, vs eFootball PES 2021 SEASON UPDATE, vs ENDLESS Space 2, vs Europa Universalis IV, vs Frostpunk, vs Hearts of Iron IV, vs Insurgency, vs Kingdom: Classic, vs Men of War: Assault Squad 2, vs Overcooked! 2, vs Payday 2, vs Poker Night at the Inventory, vs Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad with Rising Storm, vs Soda Dungeon, vs Stronghold: Crusader, vs Stronghold Crusader HD (2012), vs Victoria II
Common questions about Football Manager 2021
What platforms is Football Manager 2021 on?
Football Manager 2021 is available on PC. It first released in 2020.
Do players recommend Football Manager 2021?
94% of 23,849 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
Does Football Manager 2021 work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates Football Manager 2021 as playable on the Steam Deck, from its own testing.
How big is the Football Manager 2021 download?
7 GB on PC, from the storage requirement on its Steam listing. Console versions differ.
Who made Football Manager 2021?
Football Manager 2021 was developed by Sports Interactive and published by SEGA.
Is Football Manager 2021 worth it in 2026?
94% of 23,849 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and its price is not listed. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
Is Football Manager 2021 dead?
No. About 1,122 people were in-game at once when we last read Steam's concurrent-player figure. Peak activity is higher; this is a recent snapshot, not the all-time peak.
How long does it take to beat Football Manager 2021?
about 165.1 hours for the main story, 602.4 hours with the main extras, 1507.4 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.