EA Sports UFC 3 hits the octagon on February 2
Nearly two years after the last entry, EA Sports UFC will return with a brand new game, UFC 3, as announced on Friday with a rather notorious cover athlete.
After leaks of a new game surfaced recently, EA Sports pulled back the curtain on their latest entry into the MMA world. UFC 3, developed by the annual NHL and FIFA makers over at EA Vancouver, got a shiny new trailer and a release date much closer than anticipated. It also unsurprisingly features the promotion’s first-ever two-division champion in Conor McGregor despite his recent comments about getting back into the octagon after his boxing match with Floyd Mayweather.
The game will be out on February 2 on PS4 and Xbox One (sadly still not on PC), which is a month from it being two years since the last game in the series. Oddly enough, McGregor graced the cover on that title as well alongside former Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey. Those who pre-order the “Champions Edition” will get their hands on the game on January 30 plus some Ultimate Team goodies. Here’s the trailer, in case you missed it:
One of the big new features this time around looks to be the “Real Player Motion” technology. EA claims fighter animations have been rebuilt from the ground up, and feature over 5,000 new movements. There’s also a new “risk vs. reward” damage system that can reward strategy, new footwork and striking enhancements. The visuals also look beefed up even compared to the last game, but it’s unclear whether or not UFC 3 will run on the Frostbite engine.
There also looks to be a big push toward Ultimate Team with this iteration. Instead of beefing up a custom fighter, now players can create a stable of UFC’s finest to take on the world with. A custom fighter will still be brought along for the ride, but now the mode will basically work like every other Ultimate Team mode that EA Sports has to offer, which is either going to make people really happy or really upset. There also look to be improvements with career mode with an emphasis on balancing training, fighting and promoting that looks to imitate what real-life fighters deal with. A new tournament mode will also be there, though there weren’t many specifics given on how that will work just yet.
If you really can’t wait to throw hands, UFC 3 will offer a beta starting on Nov. 27 and end on Dec. 1. That’s a whole five days to try out Quick FIght, Fight Now Classic, a slice of Ultimate Team and a Practice Mode. Sign-ups for the beta can be found here, and you will need an EA account in order to participate. Just sign in, pick your platform and region of preference and you’re all set to hop back into the virtual octagon with many others at the end of this month.
