Fight Night and MMA to alternate

By Tom Bramwell Published 9 June, 2009

"A fighting game every year."

EA Sports plans to release a fighting game every year, alternating between its Fight Night and new MMA franchises.

"It gives us a rhythm of a fighting game every year," boss Peter Moore told Kotaku, so MMA will go next year and Fight Night Round 5 in 2011.

Announced at E3, MMA is a mixed martial arts game, but for once it sees EA going up against a serious licence-holder in the shape of THQ's critically acclaimed UFC 2009: Undisputed.

Moore said he had "nothing but the greatest respect for UFC and what THQ has done with that franchise", but said, "I think there's room for a contender."

In the meantime, Fight Night Round 4 is due out for PS3 and Xbox 360 on 26th June.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • TheMoonRat #1 3 years ago

    Sounds reasonable, maybe they should stick Tiger Woods into that rotation too, or into a seperate rotation with their tennis game.

  • Ranger101 #2 3 years ago

    Competition is good.

  • Toothball #3 3 years ago

    That doesn't sound like a bad idea at all.

  • uglygamer #4 3 years ago

    Excellent idea. 2 year lifecycles usually gives the developers ample time to produce pretty good games.

  • Malkotheslick #5 3 years ago

    I'm all for competition and playability is king but how well will a MMA game far without the UFC license? Affliction are on shaky grounds at best, WEC is Zuffa owned so that is out. Strikeforce are good but not as popular as the UFC. Dream and Sengoku hardly have a great following in the west. I wonder how EA will cope with this. They will be the Pro Evo compared to THQ's FIFA which is an unfamiliar position for them.

  • FooAtari #6 3 years ago

    This is something most devs should adpot

    Im looking at you activision.

  • Dark_Stranger #7 3 years ago

    What happens after "Round 12"

  • matrim83 #8 3 years ago

    Thats surprisingly good. I would have expected them to milk it for all its worth.

  • Barry619 #9 3 years ago

    Malkotheslick: I totally agree, personally i think with the talent of EA, they could make a game better than the recent UFC (which i enjoy, but i think it has problems), and being a huge MMA fan i will appreciate a game with none-UFC fighters in it, i think outside the UFC they just need the rights from the fighters themselves rather than go with a company, thats why for example Arlovski fights in Affliction & Strikeforce, and others go over to Dream for the tournaments etc, or i certainly hope this is what they will do so there will be a big and varied roster.

    But more that anything, it just surprised me that EA would even try and compete in a sport where they can't have the biggest license, i can't even remember a time when EA made a sports game that didn't have the biggest name possible attached too it, even back on the Mega Drive it was Fifa, NHL, Madden etc, i presume they think they can make a much better game and compete that way, but UFC dominate the MMA market to the casual MMA fan so much, there is no way they will outsell there game just on how good it is (unfortunately). But THQ only hold the UFC license until 2011 at this current moment. Would it be enough to make a better game in that time and then splash the cash on the UFC license as soon as possible? It wouldn't surprise me.

    And yes, i like the 2 year life cycle idea aswell, but i can tell you for sure it won't be happening on there biggest titles like Fifa or Madden, when they can sell so many titles each year, there not going to stop that and make it bi-annually instead. And in a way i don't want them too, it's the money from these games that is seeing EA (finally!) branch out into some original titles, last year Dead Space & Mirror's Edge, this year i can think of Dante's Inferno off the top of my head, probably more, so people keep buying your yearly updates so i can play great new games :-D

  • XdarXideX #10 3 years ago

    But is THQ's contract with the UFC for Zuffa franchises or the UFC brand? If it's the latter then EA probably wont have any problems aecuring rights to WEC branded games. The only problem with these kinds of things is getting the rights to individual fighters' names and likeness...es(?)

    I hope EA pull off a decent MMA game though I do love UFC Undisputed and I'm looking forward to the next one.

  • Malkotheslick #11 3 years ago

    Barry, while I do agree getting each fighter would be a pain to actively negotiate. I mean it is fine and well personally securing Randy Couture's right and Fedor's but going round each guy and trying to negotiate personally would be unwieldly. I have no idea how they are gonna pull this off.

  • XdarXideX #12 3 years ago

    CountFapula - I'm having no trouble pulling off submissions even on expert. All you have to do is block 5 or 6 transition attempts, lay in to them a little bit inbetween and then slap on the submission.

    Online play isn't really anything to do with luck. Learning to hit the reversals rather than transition block is the key to beating anyone, no matter their stats. That requires skill. The only real instance of luck is when a Flash KO comes out of nowhere, because you can't time that. The rest is skill and patience.