EA Sports UFC News: Gameplay Will Help Players 'Feel the Fight'

EA Sports has offered users a wide variety of next-gen titles during the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but one game on their roster that may have been lost in the shuffle is EA Sports UFC. The game may not have appeared with other titles such as Madden NFL 25, FIFA 14, and NBA Live 14, but EA Sports is committed to bringing fans the best mixed martial arts games ever.

And just how does EA plan to accomplish such a feat? According to Creative director for the first licensed UFC game created by EA Sports, Brian Hayes, the goal of the development team was to ensure players really "feel the fight." 

"I don't think we're trying to teach anyone [how to fight], but hopefully for the more casual people, we can give them a broader appreciation for the multitude of different things that can happen in a mixed martial arts fight by getting them more immersed in it...Hopefully, that'll lead to growing fandom of the game, as well as growing fandom of the sport," Hayes said, according to Gamespot. 

To help the developers understand the nuances of competing in the UFC, Hayes and the development team trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu to gain firsthand knowledge of the moves they are animating. In addition, Kron Gracie of the famous Gracie Jiu-Jitsu academy has supervised the different animations for the submission holds that will appear in the game. Firsthand knowledge of MMA maneuvers have influenced the animations of the game as users will see bones break when pulled past their natural limit and the veins in an opponent's neck budge when chokeholds are applied. Hayes said that he is impressed by the amount of detail the development team has put into creating both the fighters in the game and the animations found during matches.

"I've been making this game for a year and a half, and I still geek out at what the fighters look like when they're walking out to the ring...Our goal was to bring the fighters to life like never before, and being able to deliver on that objective is probably the thing I think everyone on the team should be most proud of," said Hayes.

Hayes also revealed that some members of the development team got hurt researching the game, including him, and others eventually thrived in the sport.

"Producer Nate McDonald ended up getting his toe caught in between the mats and snapping a tendon, and one of our animators who actually won a Vancouver BJJ championship in his weight class...one day he armbarred me about six times in five minutes," Hayes conceded. "I couldn't go past 90 degrees for a while."