EA Sports UFC 5 Preview – Championship Rounds

EA Sports UFC was released in 2014 as the first MMA video game by the company since its 2010 EA Sports MMA, which wasn’t licensed to the UFC. Although the debut of EA Sports UFC was not as successful due to its lackluster features and series’ inability to gain traction, it was still a great first try.

Frostbite Engine

Frostbite Engine

With each subsequent entry, which has traditionally been released at a two-year cadence, the franchise iterated in meaningful ways, adding new fighting mechanics, improved animations, more feature-rich modes, and larger fighter rosters. The last EA Sports UFC is due in 2020. It’s been three years now since the players last stepped into the Octagon. If my time seeing the game in action and talking with the development team is any indication, that extra year was put to good use; EA Sports UFC 5 brings EA’s in-house Frostbite Engine into the cage for the first time in series history.

The developers of EA Sports UFC 5 have seen the bungled transitions other sports franchises have made when moving to another engine, with glitches and unnatural animations plaguing some of them, but the UFC team has the advantage of not being released on an annualized basis. It took us three years to finish this game. [transition to Frostbite] right,” producer Nate McDonald says. It’s very important for us and our players to give the best possible experience, particularly on current-gen consoles. It was really all about making sure that we deliver the best possible experience, which is polished and free of bugs. It takes time to do that, but here we are.

This results in highly detailed character model, new lighting and shading techniques, an improved rendering, as well as several presentational elements that involve the environment and visual effects. The comparison of UFC 4 and UFC 5 character models shows how dramatically improved the fighters appear in the upcoming version. Skin and eye shadings, facial animations, body technology and stranded hair give the fighters a more lifelike appearance. 

Fighter Damage

Fighter Damage

EA Vancouver also focuses on the brutality that is synonymous with the sport of MMA. UFC 5 includes the most real damage, such as cuts, bruising and swelling, that occur in real-time over the course a fight. The team that developed the game describes it as “unedited authentic”. The damage is accumulated in eight different regions, with each having multiple levels. Combining all these stages and regions of damage allows fighters to create 64,000 unique combinations of damages. The blood will be flowing and there may even deep gashes. However, if you are squeamish you can avoid the gruesome, rarer injuries such as compound fractures or explosive cauliflower ears.

Damage to the fighter is not just for display. It can have a real impact on their performance. As an example, a fractured nose will lead to less stamina and a reduced ability to fight. Meanwhile, a cut on the eye can cause vision impairments, which in turn, increases vulnerability. A accumulated amount of leg injury will slow down your movement, and make it harder to takedown an opponent. Referees may call an end to the match if they feel you’ve taken too many injuries. They will then have a medical professional examine your affected area. The doctor may stop the fight if he deems that the injury is too severe. A highly injured fighter may need to be extra defensive over a body part that is already hurt or they might decide to take a risk to prevent the doctor from stopping the fight. While the person who inflicts the injury may continue to target the affected areas, hoping to force a stoppage. EA Vancouver says that 90 percent or more of the times the doctor has been called, the fight continues. However, you should keep this in mind when strategizing.

EA Sports UFC 5 has been rated “M” for mature. Last year’s Fight Night Champion was the last EA Sports fighting-sports title to receive an M rating. It was developed by the Vancouver-based team. McDonald explains that, “From the sport’s perspective, we wanted to be able to present UFC as accurately as possible to what it is like to play in real life.” The only way we could do this in a way that was as authentic and real-as it gets, was by going for the ‘M’ for Mature rating. The game is intended to reflect the real-life sport with its authentic damage and realistic looking fighters. We all know that MMA is a sport with a lot of violence, so damage is a major part. We’re not trying to portray the sport in a way that is overly gratuitous, but this was what we needed to do if wanted to get it right.

Animation Upgrades

Animation Upgrades

The 60 frame per second speed makes these new features look amazing. The new slow-motion cinematic replay includes improved visual effects, and sounds that focus on the impact. When the footage is slowed, sweat and bleeding sprays off, and the faces and body are briefly distorted as the blow strikes. Sometimes, even the camera lens may be covered in blood.

You can see the new animations in these slow motion replays. They include reactions that are based on physics. This is the most visually impressive entry yet in the series. It features new animations of ground-and–pound elbows (including spinning attacks), calf punches or body-punches, as well improved likenesses of the fighters. 

Submitting Seamlessly

Submitting Seamless

The grappling system has been a major issue for fans in the previous four games. UFC 4 introduced a Grapple Assistance system to address some of this criticism. However, UFC 5’s default grappling is now transition based. This allows for more fluid submissions. The U.I. minigames, which occupied a large portion of the screen in UFC 4, are gone. Instead, the grappling systems focuses on the immersion of the game within the context and fight. One video allowed me to see high-level grapplers Charles Oliveira (left) and Islam Makhachev (right) trade submissions and battle for position. This grappling system was not only smooth but also well animated.

Raman Bassi is the UFC 5 Seamless Submission producer. The minigames have been removed; nothing is over the screen to block our beautiful transitions. […]The submission can be countered and turned into your own. There are endless possibilities for submissions, as well as a more fluid, authentic ground game. “And much faster and intense.”

Grapple Assist is still available for players who don’t know the intricacies behind the game. They can also enable the Legacy version, which still allows you to control your transitions, sweeps and submissions. It will be a while before I can tell if it’s a more advanced system, but I hope that they listened to feedback from the community.

Career Mode

Career Mode

Coach Davis is back from EA Sports UFC 4 to provide a movie-like experience for players outside the Octagon. This time, he’ll play a bigger role in the story beyond the opening experience – in one of the scenes, I see Coach Davis delivering a pep talk to a created fighter ahead of a big fight. The new Onboarding Experience features former UFC Champion Valentina Shychenko, who will be leading an introductory camp prior to your Contender Series match. This camp is designed to introduce you and your team to the UFC Performance Institute. It will also teach you about the basic skills of fighting, grappling and health.

A.I.-driven training and enhanced cinematics will highlight the journey you take to achieve the ultimate goal, becoming the “GOAT”. Make it more interesting to reach the top. Upgrades to the Sparring Challenges, challenges with an updated grading scheme, and improvements in A.I. It becomes harder as you increase the stakes. If you want to be a champion, then the Simulation mode is realistic and realistic. It has realistic stamina and fight clocks.

UFC 5 adds a new Online Career that combines elements of Ranked Championships with a promotion where players can battle against other created fighters. Fighting against other created fighters will earn you evolution points. These points are then used to build your fighter. Once you have maxed them out you can also prestige him, like in other online multiplayer video games. You can experiment with various builds and characters.

EA Sports UFC 5 will also integrate with UFC real-world events. Daily Fight Contracts offer you a new challenge against CPU fighters every day, asking you to complete certain tasks to earn UFC coins or other rewards. Daily Fight Contracts are seven-day contracts that expire at the end of each week. They get more challenging as you progress through the week. While Monday’s might be a lot of work, Sunday’s will really test your abilities. Correct picks will earn you UFC Coins and other prizes. Alter Egos unlock variants for fighters who have looked or acted differently during an important era in their careers. The first wave includes the younger versions of Israel Adesanya, Jon Jones and Alexander Volkanovski dressed in rugby gear and Valentina Shchenko wearing a kickboxing outfit.

EA Sports UFC 5 is coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 27. Sports games have been criticized in the past for the iterative approach they take, which has to be done because of an annualized schedule. If everything that was shown to me and that I heard about works as it appears, then this new evolution will have my highest hopes. EA Sports UFC 5 is coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in October. Pre-ordering gives access to bonus fighters such as heavyweight MMA star Fedor Emelienko as well as boxing heavyweights Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson. Bruce Lee Alter-Egos are also available to preorderers.