Gamereactor's very own UFC nut, Thomas Blichfeldt, recently pinned down the game's creative director, Brian Hayes, and found out more about the new fighter coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
During the interview the pair discussed a variety of fight related subjects, including the online features coming in the game, but it was what Hayes said about the roster, and the process behind character creation, that was possibly most interesting.
"One of the big things that we're trying to do on EA Sports UFC is really create athletes in the game that are the most realistic, most lifelike characters you've ever seen in a video game," Hayes told us. "And so one of the things that we've been faced with right now is that, you know compared to a game like Fight Night Champion - which was the last fighting game I worked on, that had, if I may say so myself, pretty decent characters, you know very highly rated from a visual standpoint - the quality we're delivering with these characters, it takes us more than twice as long to create a guy for UFC as it took us to create a guy for a game like Fight Night Champion. Just with the amount of visual detail, like geometric detail, like the animation rig, the facial animation rig, the secondary animation rig, the physics, collision volumes.... there's so much that goes into it."
Hayes then continued: "So basically, our approach to the roster was; we know when we have to finish the game, we're going to make as many guys as we can up until that and that's what the roster will end up being. We have been sort of 'dinged' just a couple of times where we had a guy made already and then he got released by the UFC, and we were like ‘ohhhh, I wish we hadn't have made him.'"
"But we do obviously have the ability to do future expansions, and add new guys to roster down the road, but it's actually our goal from the get-go has been to make the most realistic characters as we can, and make as many of them as we can before we have to put a bow on this one and push it out the door," the game's creative director concluded.
EA Sports UFC 4 is back, but is it better than ever?
From PSU: "Without a doubt the best MMA videogame ever made, EA Sports UFC 4 supplements a welcome array of new offline and online modes with a revamped and endlessly sophisticated combat system that everybody can enjoy. For MMA fans it doesn't get any better than this."
Strange as a lot of YouTube beta players hated it. They've had years and just copied and pasted ufc 3 ith a few new haircuts
I agree with this review, I tried it only because it's free on EA Access and figured I'd hate it like I did the other games but lo and behold I loved it and plan to buy it now. The game is so much more fun now that they've made it so much less complicated and inaccessible to non-hardcore fighter fans.
A beautiful reminder of how much I miss Fight Night, check out my review on Watch-Loki!
...except that they'll cost $5 a pair to unlock, after the initial 12 that you get with the game
I don't care if this game has Andre the giant. They better nail the control scheme or it won't matter who is on the roster. Ditch the undisputed 3 format altogether. Think, fight night round 3.
Warm up the season pass sign.