Football Manager 26 Best Mods – How FM Modders Are Making a Better Game than SI

The launch of Football Manager 26 was heralded by Sports Interactive (SI) as the beginning of a new era for the franchise, marked by the long-anticipated shift from the legacy engine to the Unity engine. This transition promised significant graphical upgrades, modern rendering, and cross-platform flexibility. However, the beta release has lead to controversy and backlash, with SI receving widespread criticism and frustration across social media and community forums. The community sentiment quickly solidified around a critical thesis: FM26, in its current state, is fundamentally flawed, leading many to declare it unplayable without mods and skins. 

If you want a deeper dive in to what the issues with the Beta are, and what the patches SI have released have fixed or changed including Wednesday 29th’s new patch then give our article on that a read! The dissatisfaction from the community is not only cosmetic; it represents a rejection of SI’s design priorities. The delay and effective cancellation of FM25 had built immense expectation that FM26 would be a comprehensive, polished solution that addressed the series’ long-standing graphical and UI/UX shortcomings. Instead, the release appeared to swap polish for promises, embodying a “release now, fix later” model that frustrated the dedicated PC player base.

The technical and user experience dissatisfaction has created a vacuum which the highly capable FM modding community is able to fill. These external creators are no longer simply adding aesthetic polish; they are correcting critical flaws in usability, simulation logic, and analytical functionality that SI failed to stabilise before release. The reality of the situation is that the core audience now depends on the community to deliver a game superior to the official product produced by Sports Interactive – not a good place for SI to be in.

The path for community intervention in FM26 is complicated by SI’s cautious policy regarding the new engine and the technical difficulties inherent in the transition.

Sports Interactive’s Modding and Skins Policy

Sports Interactive has explicitly stated that skins and UI reskins are “not officially supported, or are only minimally supported”. While fundamental graphical packs such as face packs, logo packs, and uniform patches will apply normally, skins from previous versions of FM appear to be incompatible due to the dramatic layout changes.

The lack of official support is somewhat justified by the instability of the UI. Prominent community figures have argued that custom skins will not reliably exist early on because SI is expected to release frequent hotfixes that will fundamentally alter the unfinished UI structure. A custom skin developed over countless hours is liable to be instantly broken by the next official patch, acting as a massive deterrent for creators.

Technical Difficulties: The il2cpp Challenge

The biggest technical hurdle facing modders is not the switch to Unity itself, but SI’s choice of compilation method. Football Manager 26 uses il2cpp, a method that compiles the game code ahead of time. This approach is generally more performant but is inherently harder to reverse engineer and hack compared to older, runtime-compiled ‘mono’ methods often found in modding-friendly Unity games.

This technical barrier meant that initially, deep functional mods that alter game behavior, inject data, or customise UI panels through code were thought to be extremely difficult, making the game far less modding friendly.

The BepInEx Breakthrough: Code Injection and Plugins

Despite the technical adversity presented by il2cpp, the FM modding community has successfully achieved a critical milestone: the implementation of the BepInEx framework. This is not merely an adaptation; it is a breakthrough that allows for deep code injection and the use of plugins. 

The significance of BepInEx cannot be overstated. It moves the conversation beyond simple cosmetic modifications (like graphics packs) and into the realm of functional modding, enabling manipulation of the game’s internal code and data streams. This achievement, led by collaborative efforts including figures like Jonathan and xArthurRay, allows modders to explore how far they can push FM26’s Unity files. Immediate results include tools to change attribute colors which is a basic yet often neglected, quality-of-life feature, and the opening of pathways to inject custom UI panels with detailed, user-defined data. 

The successful implementation of BepInEx means that the technical barriers intended to protect the game’s assets are temporary, and the modding community is already preparing to fundamentally rebuild the game’s usability and analytical capabilities! Huge news for the FM community.

To achieve a functional and realistic experience, the FM26 player must turn immediately to community-created content to address the game’s systemic deficiencies. These mods fall into distinct categories, moving from essential visual realism to deep simulation correction.

Restoration ogf Realism and Immersion (Graphics Packs)

Even prior to functional skins, the community provides necessary packs to fill licensing gaps and enhance immersion. These graphics packs, thankfully, are minimally affected by the engine shift, requiring only minor folder structure adjustments. 

The necessity of graphics packs stems from the requirement for authenticity. The Real Name Fixes, for instance, are immediately essential for correcting unlicensed club, competition, and cup names. Similarly, the visual presentation is dramatically improved by comprehensive Face Packs, such as the DF11 Megapack, which provides over 240,000 realistic player and staff portraits, including a dedicated women’s edition for the newly integrated women’s leagues. These aesthetic realism packs deliver a professional look and feel that significantly enhances player recognition and the visual game experience. For graphics like face packs and logo packs, the installation process is streamlined in FM26, automatically loading the assets upon restart without requiring the user to clear the cache or reload the skin—a small concession by SI to the established modding culture – much appreciated SI (I suppose).

The Custom Skin Mandate

The primary functional requirement is the restoration of data density lost in the console-focused default UI. Custom skins are thus a mandate for the core PC audience.

By leveraging the recent BepInEx breakthrough, mod developers are expected to create bespoke UI and Data Density Skins designed to undo the damage done by the new console-oriented layout. These new skins will aim to restore the information-rich squad views and detailed player profiles, restoring the strategic layout that veterans rely on. Previous examples of highly successful skins, such as the TCS GOLD or Mustermann skins, serve as blueprints for the necessary navigation and best utilisation of screen space that the vanilla FM26 experience lacks. The community is effectively undertaking the project of designing a functional PC user interface that SI failed to execute. 

AI Simulation Mods

The most compelling argument for the superiority of modded FM26 is the correction of fundamental simulation logic errors.

The FM Match Lab’s Training Mod is the definitive example of a modder making a better game than Sports Interactive. By identifying and patching the code that limited training recognition to Tuesday and Saturday home matches, the mod corrects a fundamental flaw in player development and conditioning that was present in SI’s initial release. This shows an external commitment to simulation integrity that supersedes the commitment of SI to that sim integrity.

Additionally, BepInEx-enabled Analytical Tools are required to salvage broken SI features. Plugins can be developed to scrape the necessary data and present it in custom panels. This means that modders are essential not just for adding content, but for restoring core functional features promised by SI but delivered in a broken state in the Beta.

Database and Realism Updates

Finally, community efforts ensure the game remains current and realistic. Database Update Mods are released constantly, providing up-to-date transfers, loans, managerial movements, and changes to player current/potential ability (CA/PA) based on real-life performance. 

These files created by fan teams, allow players to start a save with accurate 25/26 season data immediately, effectively delivering features (like updated leagues and transfers) that SI’s internal cycles cannot always do upon release. This level of commitment ensures that the game remains ultra-realistic and difficult, providing the managerial challenge that veteran players crave from FM.

Final Thoughts

The launch of Football Manager 26 represents a crucial time for the series. Sports Interactive delivered on the graphical leap promised by the Unity engine and integrated new features like the Dual Tactics system. However, this ambition came at the expense of polish, core simulation integrity, and, most frustratingly PC usability.

This functional regression has been met with incredible technical adaptation from the modding community. By successfully implementing deep code injection tools like BepInEx, modders have quickly proven that the technical challenges presented by the il2cpp compilation method are not insurmountable. This achievement allows modders to move beyond aesthetic solutions and into the code base itself, allowing them to fix fundamental errors in managerial logic, such as the training schedule flaw identified by the FM Match Lab team. 

For the dedicated PC FM player, the only pathway to a refined, usable, fun experience is through modding. Custom skins are needed to restore efficiency and data density; realism packs are required for immersion; and deep functional mods are needed to correct the game’s core intelligence and fix broken features. The resilience, skill, and rapidity of the FM modding scene confirms that, in 2026, the community itself has become the essential layer of quality control and innovation, delivering a game experience that is legitimately better and more playable than the version released by Sports Interactive.

 

Do not miss the most comprehensive list of wonderkids at every position in FM26 made by our resident FM expert!

Can Skins and Modding save FM26? Find out here!

Do not miss out our best tactics discovered so far in FM 26 article which will be updated weekly with more tactics!