EA SPORTS Q&A: EA SPORTS UFC and the Power of a New Generation

Powered by EA SPORTS IGNITE™ technology, “EA SPORTS UFC” brings the action, emotion and intensity inside the Octagon™ to life in ways that were never before possible. Check out the Xbox Wire exclusive interview below with Brian Hayes, Creative Director of “EA SPORTS UFC” and stay tuned for more news and insights from other renowned developers of the hottest and most anticipated games coming to Xbox.

What are you most excited about for developing on new generation hardware?

More powerful technology gives us more ability to be creative, to be innovative, and to deliver higher quality in every area of the game. I’m really excited about how realistic the fighters are going to look in “EA SPORTS UFC.” However, I’m even more excited to see what happens over the course of this console generation. If you think about what the very first games were like on the Xbox 360 and compare that to what games are capable of today… it’s going to be exciting to see where games go.

How does a new generation of hardware improve and enable the development of future of “EA SPORTS UFC” titles?

In simple terms, more powerful technology allows us to create more impressive, higher quality experiences. To put it another way, throughout development the number of times a software engineer looks at a designer and thinks, “I hope you are joking right now,” is significantly reduced. This next generation of hardware is almost as new to us as they are to the consumer, and it’s capable of a lot of things that we have only begun to explore how to bring fun, exciting, new experience to the players.

How will EA SPORTS replicate a realistic sense of a fighters weight and momentum in “EA SPORTS UFC?”

We’ve developed a new locomotion system, called Precision Movement, that allows us to more realistically simulate the way a fighter moves around the octagon. The fighter’s feet are actually connected to the floor in a way we were unable to do before. It sounds like a simple thing, but it’s really not, and it has an enormous impact on the believability of the athletic performance recreated in the game. When the fighter looks like they are really connected and interacting with the environment, it makes every action they perform more realistic.

How will the dynamic striking and precision movement features create an authentic experience for players in “EA SPORTS UFC?”


The Precision Movement system doesn’t just work on the floor of the octagon, but on the cage walls as well. There is a tremendous amount of animation variety that allows the user to express themselves in the octagon and that will include dynamic attacks off of the cage. With how quickly the sport of MMA is evolving, it’s one of our biggest priorities to make sure that the fighting styles and techniques being utilized by the UFC’s most dynamic athletes are represented in the game. It’s certainly possible that some players will try and use the cage more …read more

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