EA Sports UFC 6

If there's one thing EA Sports gets absolutely right with the UFC series, it's that it isn't released every year, which is something other sports games should follow suit with. UFC isn't even released every other year anymore; there were three years between UFC 4 and UFC 5, and now UFC 6 is here, three years after the last game. Three years is a long time for major sports games, but the new features in the ring after this long wait make me think: "Is that all there is?"

Don't get me wrong, this is still an absolutely excellent martial arts game, but while UFC 5 introduced more realistic injuries and a revamped submission system that removed the old mini-game-like element, UFC 6 has... flow states. This is basically the equivalent of when someone in real-life is in that zone where everything just clicks. When everything seems to be in slow-motion, the crowd fades away, and everything goes your way. Total focus, quite simply. Each fighter has a mix of five perks (special abilities) and a flow state, and there are 30 different flow states, each with three distinct components. There's the base, which makes the fighter stronger in a specific area; the flow boost, which consists of conditions that must be met to ultimately reach the flow state; and once you've reached it, you get a substantial bonus for a few seconds. These effects can be both offensive and defensive.

Two examples are the offensive Stinger, which Conor McGregor has, among others, and the defensive Last Stand, which Alexander Volkanovski has, for example. The former provides a base bonus where straight punches are more powerful and precise, and to fill up your flow boost (which is a meter), you need to hit your opponent from a long distance with a straight punch while they are striking. Do this enough times and you'll enter a flow state where straight punches deal more damage to the health meter and have a higher chance of causing actual damage, that is, making your opponent bleed and so on. On the defensive side, Last Stand gives you stronger submission defence when you're on the bottom on the ground. The meter then fills up by escaping from submission attempts, and when it's full, the flow state provides increased stamina recovery, regenerates the submission meter, and reduces damage to it. If you compare these two, it might look on paper like the former is much stronger than the latter, but you shouldn't underestimate how important defensive traits are.

They say offense is the best defence, but what do you do when you're completely exhausted after trying to fell that stubborn tree? It's hard to keep chopping. What the developers want to achieve with this system is for every fighter to feel distinct and encourage you to play like their real-life counterparts. That is, if you choose someone who's an expert at counter-punching, you should be rewarded for playing that way, and I can see some of these flow states becoming the meta online and dominating the game, which will most likely be one of the offensive ones, but that remains to be seen.

Flow states are a very good addition, but they're really the only new addition in the Octagon. Gameplay-wise, it's mostly the same as it was three years ago, which isn't a bad thing since the game was already very good, but it still feels like there could have been a bit more after this long development period.

The biggest changes, however, come outside the mat in the form of game modes. Two new game modes have been added, one of which is called The Legacy and is a story mode. It follows a former wrestler with a famous father and his training partner from the same gym. After some difficulties, they go their separate ways, and you get to play as the wrestler who must fight his way back up through the WFA after an injury to make it to the UFC. It's a typical "redemption story" and doesn't offer any major surprises, but it's still worth playing, mostly because it's something new and different. You don't get to play as your own character as you are locked into the main character, where after an introductory sequence, the setup is exactly the same as in Career Mode. You choose which fighters you want, how many weeks the training camp should last, and then how to structure each week. Each training session costs a certain number of hours, and you only have a specific number available each week, where you can spend them on training to improve and boost your physical level, or spend time on social media and other activities to hype the match, gain more followers, and earn money.

Career Mode, a separate game mode, is exactly the same experience except that you can use a real fighter or a custom-created one. It feels a bit odd to have two identical game modes, just with different fighters as the focus. While I like the setup of Career Mode, it quickly becomes monotonous since the build-up to each fight is almost identical. I would have preferred to skip it, but that means my fighter won't be in good physical shape going into the match.

The second new game mode is the highlight of the game, as I love it when we get the chance to experience classic events and play them ourselves. WWE 2K has its Showcase mode where we get to walk through someone's career, MLB The Show has Storylines that focus on the very interesting history of the Negro Leagues, and NBA 2K introduced the Eras mode a few years ago, where you can play with classic team rosters. This year, UFC 6 gives us Hall of Legends. In this mode, we get to walk around in third-person with our created character and learn more about different fighters. There are information boards that tell us more, and video clips to watch, and it's also possible to play three classic fights, mixed with real video clips, for each person. To start with (I hope there will be more), we can experience the story behind three different stars, where these are Max Holloway, Alex Pereira, and Zhang Weili. By completing missions in the matches, we can also unlock the appearances of these fighters from the matches, which can then be used in other game modes. UFC 6 is, by the way, a collector's dream since there is a lot to unlock.

If we look online, we actually have quite a bit to explore. In addition to quick matches, there are also three types of ranked play, where the first is the classic mode where you fight against others and try to climb to the highest possible position; the second is the same mode but with only stand-up fighting (i.e., kickboxing); and the third is what they regard as the online career mode, where you can compete in seasonal divisions and more.

EA Sports UFC 6 is once again a very solid martial arts game, and while there isn't much new in the ring, what's there is good enough. The hits feel great, and I love landing a solid kick to my opponent's head, the kind of strike that makes me go "oooh" with the controller in my hand. The game does have a ragdoll physics system that's mostly good, but at other times it just seems laughable, where it's especially funny when someone falls to the ground after a hard punch to the face. Real people's legs don't bend like that at the end of the day... It's not on the level of WWE 2K20 in terms of disaster, or anything like Goat Simulator, but it just feels so out of place in an Octagon where everything else looks so good.