More Than a Fight: UFC 6 Finds the Heart of MMA

You wouldn’t think a game where your objective is to kick, punch, elbow someone’s head in would have heart but UFC 6 does.

This year’s Career Mode lets gamers guide the career of fictional rookie Chris Carter. You will experience the highs and lows of Carter’s triumphant and often heartbreaking rise from the mat as a collegiate wrestling prospect to the octagon as a UFC fighter. Carter is shadowed by his father’s legacy and his father-like coach at the Believe MMA, an amateur gym with leaky pipes, grungy mats and heavy bags but a lot of character and pride.

Produced by EA Vancouver, Carter’s story is the best thing about UFC 6 as its narrative communicates what fighters love about being a UFC competitor and mixed martial arts to begin with and why UFC’s fans are some of the most dedicated and passionate you will ever find in any sport. Besides his coach, Carter is also accompanied on his journey by a fellow fighter, Danny Robbins. They begin as blood brothers but one fateful night and one bad decision changes all that. They end up as bitter rivals with a deeply intense blood feud that pulls you in through every twist and turn.

Career mode isn’t the only aspect of UFC 6 that has received an upgrade. First and foremost there are the variety of fighters which range from flyweights like Valentina Shevchenko to heavyweights like Ciryl Gane and legends such as Alex Pereira, Amanda Nunes and Alexander Volkanovski. Each is as finely detailed as can be not just in their appearances but their strengths and weakness too. Depending who you pick, you will ‘feel’ a difference in how they move, strike and grapple sorta like how in a game like Grand Theft Auto in which driving a motorcycle is a far difference experience than driving a dump truck that you can feel when turning corners or weaving through traffic.

There is also the new Flow System. It represents a fighter being in their “zone”, a state of deep focus where an athlete is performing at their best, where everything seems natural. When your Flow meter fills up you can take better control of the bout as your innate skills receive a boost. What UFC 6 gives it also takes away as the Flow state is only temporary and can be interrupted by a skilled opponent.

Also new to your arsenal are Perks which work in conjunction with the Flow system. Perks work with your fighter’s style and momentum. There are Perks which are “always on”, part of your fighter’s natural base skills. Then, there are Perks which activate during a bout boosting your abilities. The final kind of Perk which kicks in during your Flow state.

For those like me who have mastered various wrestling games but still have issues remembering all those combos and finishers in Mortal Kombat, EA Vancouver has made some tweaks to the gameplay that will make it easier for rookies but the game isn’t playing for you, the system actually teaches you what to look for, what to do, so that you can pick up the actual unassisted gameplay. You can slow down time. There are cues to perform certain defences and moves. There is a very simplified control set-up too that is akin to something like Street Fighter, Tekken or King of Fighters turning the game into more of an arcade experience.

What I would really like though is to be able to skip the training and publicity segments, go right to the fights in Career Mode. I know, I know, it is all part of the realism but for some the game would progress far better if you could just automate all that stuff. It is the same thing that dragged down AEW’s video game.

I am not much of a multiplayer unless it is an asymmetrical multiplayer horror game like Friday The 13th or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but for those who do for the first time in franchise history, UFC 6 introduces cross-play functionality. Players on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S can now compete against each other in online modes, opening up a larger matchmaking pool and faster, fairer matchmaking.

The game honours some of the greats with The Hall of Legends. The halls are actually a series of interactive museums within the game detailing the historic careers of Max Holloway, Zhang Weili and Alex Periera.

Like Derrick Lewis at UFC 250 though, UFC 6 is hindered by so much bloat. The game’s momentum is pinned down by so many rewards, so much unnecessary grinding, so much premium cosmetics. There is screen after screen alerting you to this or that, with choices to make or stuff for sale. It can be a bit much at times. I just want to fight. I don’t care if a new pair of green shorts or yellow shorts are available to unlock or purchase. It is EA though. You have to expect and live with such distractions and shenanigans.

If you can ignore the EA excess, can click through it, UFC 6 is the very best instalment in the franchise where so much is already so polished. Some fans may scoff at it but the UFC franchise could benefit from Mortal Kombat’s X-Ray System where you can see in real time the damage you are causing to your opponent’s body. Seeing all those broken and dislocated bones would be a guilty pleasure this series deserves. Still, gaming sadists like me will never get tired of snapping a rival’s arm or kicking, punching or elbowing someone’s head in.

Rating: 8.5 / 10