UFC 4 Review: Fight Island is Real

It’s been over two years since EA released UFC 3 to middling reviews and both the MMA and gaming landscapes are drastically different. Stipe Miocic and Amanda Nunes are the only two champions from early 2018 who still hold their belts today and today’s consensus pound for pound best— Jon Jones— was absent due to a lengthy suspension. The gaming industry was experiencing the rise of the battle royale and an intense backlash to microtransactions that forced major changes to several high profile games. In 2020 we’re looking forward to the release of two new consoles this fall but not before we get one last look at the world’s premier combat sports league in UFC 4, a game that has also seen extensive changes since its last release.

I won’t lie, I’m pretty disappointed that this game is releasing in mid-August but there are rumors of a next gen version coming this holiday. Since we no longer have a AAA boxing series I’m hoping that UFC 4 will be the visual showcase for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launch lineups. With that said, the overall visual quality here is good enough. It won’t wow you but it doesn’t hinder the experience either. Individual animations are very well done. There are some collision issues where fighters will react to strikes that didn’t land but considering the sheer number of moves and different fight styles, the team did a great job creating a good looking, smooth fight experience. Outside the cage there are a ton of customization options for your fighter: hats, masks, chains, short/long sleeve shirts, A variety of ufc shorts and novelty trunks, gloves, and mouthpieces not to mention the overwhelming options for tattoos. Unfortunately the best gear is locked and requires either in-game currency earned through completing fight related tasks or UFC points that you can purchase in the fighter store to access.

There’s a number of ways you can play UFC 4. Career mode makes up the meat of the game but you can also go to work in a surprisingly deep practice/tutorial mode and add to your repertoire. The create event mode allows you to live out your fantasy matchups in PPV style events where you select the venue, rules, fighters and referees. If you’re more of an online gamer you EA has several offerings for you as well. The Ultimate Team mode is gone but it was a concept that never really worked in this type of game anyway, what’s here is more than enough to keep you occupied for the foreseeable future. You have the classic fight now mode where you challenge friends or random online players, the blitz battle where you enter a one round, one minute tournament where the loser is eliminated and the winner advances up the ladder, or if you’re very confident in your skills you can enter the Online World Championship and try to prove your stick skills are tops in the world.

Kumite gameplay: Silva vs Souza

All these modes make for interesting window dressing but they all boil down to the in the cage action so let’s discuss it. UFC 4 is a fast, smooth arcade fighter that can be played in a more realistic fashion if you choose, but make no mistake, you’re not getting a simulation of the UFC. The stand-up, clinch, and ground games blend really well together making it easy to pull off amazing highlights on a regular basis. The problems I have with the gameplay come down to power and stamina. Clean, heavy strikes don’t do enough damage, you can land multiple unblocked head kicks with little effect but it can take less than one round to leg kick your opponent into submission. Part of the reason for this is stamina, on your feet throwing 3-4 consecutive strikes will leave your fighter gassed and on the run from a completely fresh opponent whether they landed or not. There are sliders in the game but not enough to address the varied fighting styles, I want much more stamina in the stand up but I’m fine with the current energy drain when trying to escape Khabib on the ground.

Dodson goes to sleep

Khabib by the way, is relentless. As an almost exclusively stand up fighter I was always extremely cautious when facing the lightweight superstar. He took any little opening as an invitation to slam me to the mat and hold me there for the rest of the round. Although I’ll avoid fighting Khabib in the future, this is something I really enjoyed about the game. Fighters fight the way you would expect and really force you to change up your tactics depending on your fighter’s strengths and weaknesses. The clinch and ground games were both made far more accessible and I think it’s a fantastic change for the series. They’re both easier to understand and more fun to play than ever before, and if you’re a fan of the previous controls don’t worry, they’re included as an option in the settings as well. Another relatively minor complaint is strikes, particularly in the ground and pound, don’t have land with the impact you would expect and it leads to some rather odd looking and at times unsatisfying finishes. As I said that’s a minor complaint since the game delivers on most fronts, especially the revamped career mode.

Career mode builds off what was there in UFC 3, with a few welcome additions. When you first boot up the game you’ll be tasked with creating your avatar, this will be your online character and you have the option of using them in career mode as well. Alternatively you can pick an existing fighter and attempt to rewrite their career or create a new fighter from scratch. When creating a fighter you’ll pick from a number of presets and then have the ability to sculpt their appearance to your liking. Once you're satisfied you’ll select your style: kickboxer, boxer, wrestler, or BJJ. Once you finish customizing your fighter you’ll meet Coach Davis, Coach will be there with you from day one and throughout your career. He’ll guide you through several amateur fights which serve as a tutorial and will be the voice in your corner and training sessions once you go pro. 

Speaking of going pro, another new edition to career mode is the branching storyline. You can start your career by earning a UFC contract on the contender series, or if you fail to impress Dana White you’ll end up in rival league WFA. Build your skills and get some wins and soon enough you’ll get noticed by the UFC and be offered a shot in the big leagues. You have to keep up a certain level of performance though or you risk getting cut and sent back down. Once you turn pro you’ll spend your time training and fighting. When you accept a fight you’ll be given a certain number of weeks to prepare, anywhere from 1-6, and each week you’ll have 100 points to spend on activities to get ready for the bout. You can spar, which will increase your fitness level and earn you evolution points, you can invite another fighter to your camp to teach you a new move, you can study your opponent to get an upper hand or you can spend your time promoting the fight in order to build your fan base. 

You’ll want to engage in several of these events each week but sparring is the only one that’s absolutely essential. Coming into a fight with anything other than peak fitness level will affect your in-fight stamina and could lead to an increased injury risk. The other benefits to training are leveling up your moves (you get better at particular moves by doing them in UFC 4. Want a better jab? Jab more) and evolution points. Evolution points are XP that are earned whenever you train or fight. They’re used to buy perks, which are special abilities you can equip like increased speed when moving forward or sideways or your strikes costing less stamina in later rounds. Evolution points are also used to increase your fighter’s physical and technical attributes. One change that keeps sparring interesting is that if you go too hard and knock out your partner, you won’t be able to train that discipline anymore during that camp. It’s an addition that forces you to treat it like an actual sparring session, or at the very least makes you try out different styles after you put your partner to sleep. 

If, on the other hand, you knock out an invited fighter that has much greater consequences. It will sour your relationship, potentially starting a rivalry and locking you out from training with that fighter’s friends. Which means you can prevent yourself from being able to learn certain moves. Relationships play a big role in the career mode. From the beginning you’ll be managing friendships and rivalries trying to build your brand as a respectful, fan friendly champ or be ready to clap back even at compliments to let everyone know how edgy you are. Managing is a bit of an oversell actually, it’s incredibly easy to stay on everyone’s good side, you have to actively try to ruin relationships. It does allow you to roleplay your character how you want though, so points for that. The last addition, and one that can have a profound effect on your career is the injury system. 

You can pick up injuries through sparring or fighting and you can dramatically increase your injury risk by taking fights on short notice. No matter how you get them, injuries will rob you of much needed training points (unless you use in-game currency to get them back) and reduce your longevity meter, the countdown to the end of your career. This is one of my least favorite mechanics in any franchise mode, I’d like to decide on my own whether or not my fighter can keep going. The fact that your longevity drops whether or not you actually take any damage in a fight makes me less and less excited about my career as it goes on, knowing that no matter what I do it’s going to end before I’m ready. It sucks that I won the championship at 21 against a 46 year old Yoel Romero and I know I’ll never be able to fight to that age.

Romero doesn’t have it anymore

Overall I had a good time with UFC 4. It’s fun and polished with a good amount of depth. It allows you to create your fighter with the exact look, fight style and move set you want and lets you enjoy a career that will be unique to you. It’s a game that’s easy to pick up and play a couple quick matches or lose a couple hours in career mode or creating your own events. The bottom line is if you’re a big fan of MMA or an online gamer you should buy and not look back, if you’re not an online gamer and only watch a fight here and there you should probably wait for a sale or catch it when it hits the EA Access Vault. UFC 4 is one of the better efforts from EA Sports in recent memory and the team at EA Vancouver have more than earned the benefit of the doubt and should be commended for their willingness to change and try new things to move this series forward.