Despite the relatively short space of time between announcement and release, you can tell that work on EA UFC 3 probably started almost right after EA UFC 2 shipped in March 2016. There’s quite a few changes that have been made to the series, as those of you who have tried the game’s beta will have found out, and if you’re like me then some of them may take a little getting used to.
Heading into the overhauled career mode, you now attempt to become the greatest of all time or G.O.A.T. Past career modes in the series have usually lacked any kind of real atmosphere, pushing you from one fight to the next, but EA have now attempted to flesh things out a little by including big rivalries, being able to promote yourself and fights over social media, and travelling between different gyms to learn specific styles of fighting.
Training in career mode is relatively simple. Before each fight you choose which gym to train at and for how many weeks, though you’ll have to unlock gyms using money earned in the career, as well as pay for each weekly session. Once you’re in in the build up to a fight you’ll have 100 points to spend per week on different activities. You can quick train different exercises by spending 10 to 20 points, learn new moves which cost 40 points, promote your upcoming fight which can cost anywhere from 10 to 100 points, and spar which also costs 40 points.
Sparring is perhaps one of the most important aspects in preparation, as your sparring partner mimics your upcoming opponent. However the main issue here is the fitness counter. As you spar and train your fitness increases, and you want it in the realm of 95% to 105% for peak fitness. Going beyond that range leads to exhaustion and can negatively affect your fight. Bizarrely you can simply stand still and your fighter’s fitness level will keep crawling up, pushing them past peak fitness. You basically have to get sparring done in the first or second week of fight camp to keep at peak. Any later and you’re risking the fight.
The whole single player career mode does feel more streamlined with fights coming thick and fast, but this can be a double edged sword. Early fights feel even, but you’re quickly matched up against fighters whose stat ratings are 10 to 20 points higher than your own so that you could struggle even on normal difficulty. My main fighter is a striker and due to that I’m almost always likely to lose a fight against a wrestler or submission specialist thanks to having weak ground game. Adding to that, their stand up stats are usually equal to a striker’s too, so there is a bit of imbalance that needs addressing as stat increases do feel quite slow, even when you’ve had quite a lot fights.
The reworked submission mini game doesn’t feel right and natural just yet, but I’ll be spending more time with that as I create submission specialist fighters to work out the intricacies of the ground game. At the moment it feels cumbersome and may annoy a lot of people.
When it comes to online, it’s way too early to tell how perks in the Ultimate Team mode are affecting fights, especially due to the fact that there are only a handful of players online prior to release. Suffice to say you don’t know which perks or moves you’ll get in packs or whether they’ll be relevant to your team, as is par for the course for Ultimate Team modes. You can have up to four fighters on your team, with a mix of created or real fighters. Each one has a chemistry rating which is affected by the moves, perks, and buffs they are equipped with. The higher that rating the better they’ll perform.
You can avoid the Ultimate Team mode if you wish and fight in the online divisions using real fighters instead. You won’t need to worry about fighter perks and can focus on the skills they have honed in reality. The online divisions may be the mode that those with a distaste for microtransactions gravitate toward, so they don’t have to worry about the Ultimate Team meta game of crafting a unique fighter.
EA UFC 3 is shaping up to be a good improvement for the series, but we’ve still got some parts of the game to explore more fully before a final appraisal can be given. As mentioned, the career progression could be a bit too closely tied to fighter type, I’ve still got to fully master the submission mini-game, and we’re waiting for Ultimate Team and the online servers to be filled with players.
