Football Manager 2024's Early Access period - until now called an open beta - is now live, silencing the usual screams of desperation from fellow FM addicts.

For those unfamiliar, this is generally how new FM games roll out each year, with a period of up to a month before the official release date - in FM24's case, 6th November - being marked out as a kind of final public test, which you can gain access to by pre-ordering the game with a small discount.

It's the same again here, albeit with just two-and-a-half weeks until it's out this time, and with the shift to calling it Early Access from now on, as Sports Interactive gaffer Miles Jacobson is keen to emphasise.

By the way - please use #FM24EarlyAccess this year NOT #FM24Beta. Pretty please. With big fat cherries on top.

Earlier this year, we spoke with Jacobson at length in our feature the future of Football Manager, where the studio head discussed the "personal disappointment" of FM23 and the potentially huge changes coming with next year's FM25 - including a desire to become one of the best "productivity tools" around.

There are still significant improvements coming with FM24, mind, as the developer's keen to emphasise. New features this year include a long-awaited set-piece revamp, transfer system tweaks, the addition of Guardiola-inspired positional play to the match engine, and a range of smaller "quality of life" tweaks to the little things.