Undisputed Review – Managing the Fight

The indie studio, Steel City Interactive, has a tough uphill battle to win considering the high-class act they have to follow up on: EA’s Fight Night Champion, considered by many to be the greatest boxing game of all time. Yes, that makes Undisputed the first officially licensed boxing game in over a decade, and it manages to put up a good fight despite being a clear underdog. While Undisputed’s budget does show in spots, notably the bland Career Mode, the graphics and moment-to-moment gameplay punch well above their weight providing a worthwhile boxing experience.

"Fighters have a lot of detail to them and the lighting and sweat look great."

It’s in the graphical presentation where one begins to really feel the decade-long advancement in technology since the last licensed boxing game. These are the best graphics for a boxing game yet, which admittedly isn’t saying much since the last licensed boxing game was in 2011. Still, the realism that Steel City managed to portray here with the Unity engine is rather astounding. The 70-plus roster of fighters all look like their real-life counterparts. They didn’t just perfect the tattoos likenesses of cover athletes like Canelo Alverez, but perfectly captured every detail of Connor Benn’s fully covered body tattoos. Fighters drip with sweat as the fights progresses and the lighting displayed within the game’s 20-plus venues is exquisite. There’s no two ways about it, Undisputed features the most realistic graphics in any boxing game to date, capturing the likeness of the comprehensive roster of fighters in great detail.

Just as important as graphics are the animations, and I’m pleased to say that Undisputed excels in this department just as well. It’s not easy to capture body-to-body contact with complex arm motions without embarrassing clipping and frame warping breaking the immersion. Thankfully, almost every motion in Undisputed looks natural, with combo punches and fleeting footwork avoiding the uncanny valley. Fighters appropriately angle their body when doing an uppercut and pivot their feet realistically when stepping into a heavy KO-intentioned punch. Whether you’re switching up different stances in combos or blocking with straight jabs, the motions manage to look natural and realistic.

"Legendary fighters display their signature stances and quirky movements, though lesser-known fighters aren’t given such personalized animations."

While the full roster of fighters don’t all feature their unique stances and quirks, many of the notable fighters do. Unfortunately, a fighter’s unique style doesn’t translate over to their entrance or post-fight behavior. For example, Oleksandr Usyk doesn’t kneel down in his corner before fights, instead standing around with the stock animations the rest of the fighters have when not engaged in the ring. All in all, the graphics and animations are the highlight of this entire experience for me, managing to feel and look every bit as authentic and visceral as a professional boxing bout should be.

There’s more to a game than graphics though, and it’s in the modes where Undisputed may disappoint some players. The game’s modes are made up of Quick Match, Career, Prize Fights, and Online Ranked and Unranked. Prize Fights are weekly rotational special fights intended to challenge the player in interesting ways. I wish you earned something to transfer to your Career Modes after successfully winning a Prize Fight, but the only reward is your place on a leaderboard, as well as bragging rights and some trophies/achievements upon a particularly skillful performance.

"Career Mode gives you full reigns over a fighter’s management and statistical parameters, including licensed fighters and your custom character."

Undisputed doesn’t attempt to fill the shoes of Fight Night regarding its Career Mode. The Career Mode here lacks any story or presentation value outside of the spectacle of the fights themselves, rather supplying a sim-like experience progressing and managing your fighting career. Everything is text-based with no voice acting or immersive training mini-games like most other sports titles have. Once I realized what this Career Mode wasn’t trying to be, I quite enjoyed what it had to offer, regardless of its shortcomings.

"The character creator is delightfully expansive, allowing a full range of facial customization and stat allocation"

Meanwhile, Undisputed’s character creator is surprisingly versatile, allowing for a wide range of body types and facial features. Just take a look at the stuff I created as an example of the horrors or beauties you can craft. The game provides a generous offering of body part sliders as well as a solid selection of different hair styles. It’s safe to say fans won’t be disappointed with the character creator here. As expected, you can allocate all the different stats as you see fit to your character, as well as give them a stance, gloves, shorts, taunts, and walkout music. The selection of gloves, shorts, and shoes is pathetic, offering under 10 selections for each, so hopefully the studio patches a wider variety post-launch.

Once you’ve created your character within Career Mode and overcome the beginner tournament, it’s time to hire your three staff members to prepare for some real fights. You’re given a salary for winning fights, which will need to be carefully managed buy paying staff and medical expenses. Staff with superior stats cost more to sign, just as Gyms that offer higher stat bonuses during training are pricier. I found this financial balancing act pretty fun, scratching that managerial itch that other games’ Franchise Mode gives. Not only do you level up your own fighter after bouts in the ring, but your manager’s stats as well.

"Training sessions allow you to improve fight sharpness, weight, energy, and a host of stats before an upcoming fight."

I also enjoy the balancing between between my fighter’s weight management and fight sharpness during week simulations. You’ll often have to wait a couple weeks or months before you’re sharp enough or within the weight limit to join a fight , adding an extra pinch of sim salt to the game. Even worse is when you get badly injured with a KO. Waiting times are longer for injuries, or you can opt to pay a medical fee for your staff to patch you up immediately, if they’re good enough that is; my cutman was cheap but ineffective, so they failed to heal me, costing me much-needed money in the process. Although the presentation values are non-existent within these Career Mode activities, management sim players will appreciate the balancing act that comes with the money, training, and staff aspects of Undisputed.

"Injuries will occur to various body parts if you aren’t careful during a fight, requiring costly fees to patch up."

I’m especially amused at the potential to build yourself into a losing career if these aspects are managed poorly early on. It can feel like an uphill battle paying medical fees for those poorly timed blocks that got you cut up in the last fight, making your choices within Career feel all the more impactful and urgent. That said, there’s no heightened bout presentation within Career Mode, even when you win a belt. It’s the same commentary team and intro/outro cutscenes from other modes in the game, making Career Mode feel less special and worthwhile than it could have been.

Unfortunately, the servers weren’t available for me to play any matches within the game’s Online Modes, as I played during the limited pre-launch window and not the beta period earlier in the year. Those who’ve played the beta have had mixed experiences with matchmaking, citing occasional lag and ghost punches as problem areas. But this is a review of the current iteration of the game and not the beta, so I have no comment to give on the state of the Online servers at this time. The online modes themselves allow for quick matches, tournaments, and ranked matches; you can even use your horrific created characters to scare other players into a coma if you so desire.

"You can sway your head backwards to narrowly avoid heavy punches."

Finally, let’s talk about the meat and potatoes of any fighting game, the gameplay mechanics. The punches you throw in Undisputed consist of four general types: body, straight, uppercut, and quick jabs. It’s impressive how the studio has expanded these basic punch types into over 60 variations of punches depending on footing, angle, and combos. Part of that variety lies in the ‘strong’ modifier you can apply to any punch using the right trigger, the go-to option when initiating a devastating KO. Like the real sport of boxing, expending a lot of energy in repeated strong punches results in a quicker decline in stamina, which of course gets has its own meter that must be managed throughout the fight. Stamina isn’t the only meter you have to watch, you also have a health and block meter that decline as those parts of your fighter’s body gets hit. The various meters brings me to the many stats that comprise your fighter’s output in Undisputed. Stats are divided into five broad categories, which are then subdivided into three smaller categories each.

I like how, not only can your head and body be damaged over time, but your block as well. This is another little realistic wrinkle that helps adds authenticity to the experience. You really cannot rely too heavily on any one stance unless you want that part to get fatigued early on in the fight. The way the individual parts of your fighter get drained is balanced quite well, encouraging players to stay on their toes switching up their offense and defense to spread around the damage just like the real sport. This attention to detail regarding individual fighter parameters translates to the strategy involved with picking your opponent. For example, if your Career Mode fighter has weak blocking and strong body stats, it may be wise to choose an opponent that doesn’t typically wear out the opponent’s block with rapid jabs.

"Your stamina and health bars deplete as you expend energy and get hit, resulting in sluggish movements and weaker punches over time."

Micromanaging the stamina of your various parameters through a fight provides a fun strategic layer that orients Undisputed as a more sim-based fighting game while allowing for accessibility through difficulty modifiers and the like. That said, some punches do ‘slip through’ and clip through well placed blocks occasionally, making your risk/reward efforts go to waste. I don’t want to make it seem too common for this to happen since it is rare for punches to clip through blocks, but it did occur to me nonetheless and bears mentioning. Another issue that a majority of players, including myself, have noted is how tethered to your opponent your fighter is. You’re always facing in the position of your opponent, which makes bouts feel on-rails sliding along an immovable axis, negating freedom of movement. Sure, you can sway and bob around, but even that comes at the expense of your punches since you cannot input both sways and punches simultaneously. Undisputed comes close to being a truly authentic sim boxing experience, but the inability to punch while swaying or dodging feels particularly limiting.

Pound for pound, Undisputed is a worthy enough boxing game for fans of the genre wanting something to fill the void left by EA’s Fight Night series. It doesn’t supply any of the compelling narrative that EA’s legendary series offered with its Story Mode, but Undisputed provides a fun Career with fun management elements. Undisputed is perhaps most noteworthy for being the most graphically impressive boxing game to date, and with an amazing roster of 70 licensed fighters to boot. Is Undisputed worth the $59.99 asking price? Maybe not, but it’s a solid choice for the boxing game enthusiast and one that will satisfy until a more worthy adversary join the ring.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.