The Franchise Hockey Manager series returns for its 11th version in 2024-25, with new additions that will further expand on the most authentic hockey strategy gaming experience you can find.
Choose one of dozens of leagues around the world and select a team to guide to glory, including a chance at the ultimate prize: FHM11 is licensed by the NHL®, allowing you to take the reins of your favorite franchise to capture the Stanley Cup®. Or, take control of a national team and try for international supremacy.
You can also choose a historical game, where you can begin in any year in NHL® history, play in a legendary international tournament, or (new this year) play in a historical minor league.
If you’d like to create your own customized league, you can do that, and FHM11 brings international play to that mode as well. If you’ve been playing FHM10 and can’t bear to part with your team, import the save into FHM11 and carry on with the addition of FHM11’s new features.
However you choose to play, you have control of your team and can oversee finances, select strategies, hire your staff, make trades, sign free agents, and draft the newest generation of stars as you try to build a championship team – and then make it into a dynasty!
Game Features
- International play has been added to custom games; the makeup of the international tournaments will adapt to the way you’ve set up your custom league(s)
- Playable minor league hockey has been added to historical mode, starting with the full history (including all players) of the American Hockey League from 1940 to the present
- Many improvements have been made to the AI trading behaviour; the AI will now draw from a bigger library of potential trade models, and some loopholes in the existing trading logic have been closed
- Similarly, the transfer system AI in Europe has also had some significant improvements of the same type the trading AI received
- The NHL’s new 4Nations Faceoff Tournament has been added to modern games
- Owner goals have been added: your owner will ask you to make changes to your team; failing to comply may put your job in jeopardy, but keeping the owner happy will help you stay employed
- Additionally, job security mechanics have undergone a major revision and should feel more realistic now
- Development tracking has been added for your players, so you can see how they’re progressing
- Coaches can now have specific tactical preferences and will be more effective when employing their preferred tactic(s) (and they’ll use them more often)
- Major adjustments have been made to the pool of younger players in the database at the start of the game, to fix the growing issue of there being too many NHL-caliber young players in the early years of the game
- Long-term player generation has also been adjusted to improve the top end quality of new prospects; combined with the above database change, the overall talent level should be maintained at a much smoother level over the course of the game
- We’ve improved the 2D engine’s play execution logic to build upon the play calling improvements in the previous two versions, so teams tend to stick with their set play execution longer, and also made a major change to the passing mechanics to allow for more use of indirect passing
- New league reports, including (among other things) a Demographics report for the league and a review of Draft Sleepers/Busts from past drafts
- The AI’s roster management in the period between the playoffs and the start of a new year has been improved, particularly in how it grasps the roster changes that will happen on July 1 due to things like losing free agents
- Playoff series will now get a preview in the news
- As always, complete team and player updates for the new 2024-25 season, as well as smaller changes like a mid-season award candidate preview and “Exceptional” status in the Major Junior leagues, new interface additions, and many other improvements!
