If you’re playing a tactical sim, which consists mostly of menus and text with little conventional gameplay, you’ll want the layout to please your eyes.
With Football Manager 23, thankfully, there are plenty of skins to choose from to make the hours you spend governing your teams as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
The default skin might be right up your street (ignore us if it is!) but keep reading to see some of the swanky alternative skins available for FM 23.
How to change FM 23 skin
Before we tell you how to change to custom skins, there is one issue we should flag: fans of previous Football Manager titles will no doubt be aware of the infamous “Crash Dump Error” that occurs from time to time.
Unfortunately, custom skins can play a big part in this because they’re not frequently updated (like the default ones are). If this is a risk that doesn’t bother you, and you still fancy those glistening custom skins, read on!
The process of downloading and applying the new skins is relatively simple. To start, download the skin from the source of your choice, then extract the file using Winrar, before pasting the skin in the “Sports Interactive – Football Manager – Skins” folder which you should be able to locate using Finder. Once it’s in there, make sure to enable the skin in the game by accessing the advanced preferences menu.
The best FM 23 skins
Now you know what you’re doing, we’ll cover some of the custom skins available. If you find you don’t like any of them, remember you can go back to the default whenever you want to. It’s not a tattoo, it’s completely reversible.
Stato Skin
![""]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2022/10/Football-Skin1-a98efd5.png?quality=90&resize=620%2C349" "\"\"")
Created by Ian Mills, this is an adaptation of their previous skin (from Football Manager 22). It’s been polished, and features nice background images for certain pages.
If this skin takes your fancy, fair enough! What are you waiting for? You can download it here.
Dark Skin
![""]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2022/10/Football-skin2-aad5abf.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C349" "\"\"")
The “dark mode” option is available for most apps, here it’s available for Football Manager. A very popular aesthetic, however simple.
Like what you see? You can download the Dark Skin here.
Narigon
![""]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2022/10/Narigon-skin-21e2bb9.png?quality=90&resize=620%2C330" "\"\"")
This one is more about pragmatism rather than aesthetics. Created from the Base23 Skin, it puts a bigger emphasis on the information and data in the panels.
We recommend choosing this one if reading the default (or any of the other custom) skins is giving you a headache. If you want to try out the Narigon skin, you can download it at this link.
This concludes our list, but there are plenty of other skins out there to be found! Just be wary of the in-game risks. We hate to see the perfect game compromised by a crash dump error.
Follow Radio Times Gaming on Twitter for all the latest insights. Or if you’re looking for something to watch, see our TV Guide.
Visit our video game release schedule for all upcoming games on consoles. Swing by our hubs for more Gaming and Technology news.
The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now and get the next 12 issues for only £1. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.