The dressing room is getting a lot more interesting in Football Manager 18. The much-teased new feature coming to this iteration of the football management sim will now model player relationships within the squad, known as dynamics. As explained in this new video, players are now grouped within social groups based on their age, nationality, length of time in the club and more. Like how cliques naturally form and disband, players can dynamically change to other social groups given time.
There is also a hierarchy of influence you have to manage. Picking a team leader is now not just a matter of seeing the best Leadership stat, but also how influential he may be among his teammates. This goes both ways- have the leader backing you up can help get the message across better, but upset him and you might just riled up the whole squad. It also makes team talks, handling player requests and even signing players become a more intricate manner- understanding the current dynamics that are in place is key to keep the squad mentally prepared.
From the sound of it, dynamics is a pretty big feature being introduced in this year’s game and will change the way you usually approach the game. We will see how it plays out when Football Manager 18 is out in the field on November 10 for the PC.