UFC 5 is upon us releasing on October 27th of this year. UFC 4 is the best MMA fighting game available. But after three years, this game’s community is ready for a change of pace. And after so many quick fights and Online Championships, I have a few ideas of what improvements can be made to make the next game better.
Some suggestions are new features and others are from previous games that will hopefully return.
Make Improvements to Submission Mini Games
There is only one submission mini-game in UFC 3. And it is better than both mini-games in UFC 4. In UFC 3, it is very difficult to submit people and defend submissions. The Mini game relies on quick reactions to unpredictable events dictated by your opponent in a very high-octane situation. This tutorial posted by EA Sports UFC’s YouTube channel explains exactly how this mechanic works.
This is in stark contrast to either of the submission mini-games from UFC 4. UFC 4 has two separate mini-games for submissions granted they are either joint submissions or chokes.
The choke mini-game is a wheel, which is constantly visible to both players. The person choking his opponent must cover his opponent’s ribbon with his own inside of the wheel long enough to fill a bar and finish the choke. The person in the choke must stay cool and not move his ribbon too fast as this will make it increase in size. Wheel subs are super easy to get out of granted the player knows what they are doing. This mini-game lacks the stressfulness of UFC 3’s. It is incredibly easy to not get choked especially if one has a decent amount of stamina. Legendary competitive player Pryoxis has a tutorial on his YouTube channel for each submission.
Joint subs are even easier to defend and will never be finished on anyone except for players who have just started playing the game. Being frantic was an advantage in the UFC 3 sub mini-game and that made it exciting. UFC 4’s sub mini-games’ focus is on escaping through calmly keeping one’s composure, this makes them too zen and relaxed. This is a department where improvements are necessary.
Rubber Banding/ Slingshotting
This glitch happens so regularly that most players don’t even notice when it happens anymore. The opponent is flung across the octagon after getting kicked in the body. Or after receiving any other strike for that matter of fact. Bugs like this definitely detract from the realism of this game, albeit they are hilarious. YouTube creator coolie wit da toolie uploaded a YouTube video of one of his wild encounters with this glitch.
To say this glitch also heavily disrupts the flow of combat is a gross understatement. One of the best improvements UFC 5 can make is removing annoying gameplay bugs like this one.
Nerf Spinning Side Kick
This strike is not balanced properly and is overpowered. The tracking on this kick paired with the fact that it can be landed for full damage while standing chest to chest with your opponent makes it broken. It is a simple block breaker and can easily knock someone out while they are guarding or trying to dodge it. This YouTube video from Mac17 shows just how ridiculous this kick is.
Round Restart
Among the most triggering bugs in the game is the random round restart glitch. This occurs randomly during online quick fights and can either happen once in a fight every so often or during every round in some cases. There is a horrible feeling that comes with a round resetting while winning a close fight. This feeling is on the same coin as the relief that comes with having a round restart when the fight is starting to slip through the cracks. Sometimes it gets so bad that one of the players decides to quit to the main menu. It happens in this video from TMKT Studios on YouTube at 1:15.
Remove Intro Emotes
These just waste time. In UFC 5‘s ranked mode, the game should have a realistic intro with maybe a walkout and a tale of the tape. The fighters should face off and a touch glove feature should cap off the fight intro. None of these goofy emotes before the matches in UFC 4 which are mostly just corny and out of place. In-game taunts should remain, but these introductions should not be in the next title. Create-A-Player on YouTube created a massive compilation of every emote in the game, the pre-fight emotes are at the beginning. I can’t make it through three of them before the cringe gets to me and I have to stop watching.
Make Improvements to the Clinch: More Detail
In UFC 3, clinching has many layers. You can freely transfer from a Muay Thai plum to an over-under, and then a collar tie using the legacy grappling interface. Striking from the clinch and securing takedowns/ subs from it is more fluid in UFC 3 than in UFC 4. The biggest thing is that there is no visible grappling interface in UFC 4’s clinch. A more detailed clinch with better and more diverse strikes and submission opportunities is one of the improvements I’d like to see in UFC 5. This video from YouTube creator Ambitious Nublets shows how in-depth the clinch work in UFC 3 is.
Make Improvements to Ground and Pound (Bring Back Ground Elbows)
The ground-and-pound mechanic is another thing that UFC 4 did worse than UFC 3. UFC 3’s ground and pound was awesome. You could throw ground elbows and finish a fight once it got to the floor with ease. UFC 4 made offensive wrestling worse by making strikes from top positions less effective. An insider article covered by SwaggyDrKush on YouTube shows that the elbows are coming back and will be joined with new animations. There is also footage of ground elbows from the new game floating around the internet.
Claim All Button to Improve Interface
This is one of the easiest improvements the development team can make. UFC 4’s event progress menu has no “collect all” feature for rewards. Ranking up through achievements then becomes a laborious task of redeeming each reward individually. Players like myself with at least 20 levels worth of challenge rewards would rather not spend two hours claiming their XP.
Among other improvements, this is really needed. I will never know how much time it takes to claim all of my rewards. They will sit here forever.
Less CAF-Focused Gameplay
Something I find to be a disappointment about the current UFC game is the fact that the gameplay so heavily focuses on the player’s Create A Fighter. (CAF) A career mode is compulsory for any sports game, but it doesn’t need to take center stage as it has in UFC 4. These custom characters’ skill move presets for online gameplay are plainly bad. It is also like every player on this game is in a competition with the next to see who can make their CAF look the most idiotic.
Who can forget the mythical fighter created by penguinz0 on YouTube?
This is why most seasoned players will matchmake with the “CAF Not Allowed” filter enabled. The previously mentioned rewards are redeemed to purchase equipment for the player’s CAF, this makes the in-game currency close to useless. UFC 5 moving away from placing such a strong emphasis on the Create A Fighter feature is one of the most welcome improvements the new game can bring.
Special Legacy Characters By Year
EA Sports UFC could take a page from WWE2K’s book and diversify its roster by adding fighter variants from different years. Similarly to how McGregor, Anderson Silva, and Georges St. Pierre received legacy editions for their regular characters, it could be cool to see this replicated throughout the entire lineup. Every fighter who has been champion could get a special champion kit with boosted stats. Variations of fighters from their best years could also be special unlockables.
In WWE2K, there is John Cena, and then John Cena ’08, John Cena ’02, as well as other years. These special year editions of John Cena are unlockables that players must earn through a showcase mode. UFC 5 could have a special Charles Oliveira ’21, or a Chris Weidman ’13 plus many more if they chose to go this direction. This is one idea for moving away from CAF-centered gameplay. Making this choice could also give the in-game currency more of a purpose if players can buy new characters with it.
Beloved Franchise
Overall I don’t want to see this game change too much. From UFC 3 to UFC 4, the core gameplay is faithful. To me and others, there has never been anything wrong with UFC games’ core gameplay outside of glitches and bugs. But even these moments have brought many good times and laughs. UFC 5’s release guarantees graphical improvements, updated fighter stats and models, along with tweaked gameplay mechanics. Surely not all revisions will be constructive, but this dev team is not entirely out of touch with its player base. So I am ready to invest hope and 70 dollars into this game no matter what.
