EA has announced that it is reviving its long-defunct boxing game franchise, Fight Night. In a social media post announcing this, the company didn’t really offer any details aside from the fact that it will be titled EA Sports Fight Night. Rather, EA simply noted that, “To everyone who stayed in our corner: Fight Night is coming back.”
The message is paired with an image showcasing a pair of boxing gloves hanging over a ring with a caption stating that “The fight is never over.” EA has also not revealed which one of its studios will be developing the upcoming boxing game. The franchise used to be developed by a number of studios, with EA Chicago making Fight Night Round 2 and 3.
The Fight Night franchise made its debut in 2004 with Fight Night 2004 on PS2 and Xbox. Developed by NuFX and EA Canada, the title was praised at the time for its unique take on the boxing genre where, rather than having players pressing down buttons for various boxing moves, players instead had to move the analogue sticks around to mimic the direction in which their punches and jabs would be thrown. However, since it was the first game in the franchise, it would go on to see further evolution as time went on.
2005 would see the release of Fight Night Round 2. It featured a more refined take on the same controls, and even brought in an entirely new move that players could pull off – the EA Sports Haymaker. This move could cause a massive amount of damage to opponents, and even stagger them, opening them up for a potential punch that could cause an instant knockdown. The title featured Bernard Hopkins as its cover athlete.
The franchise would make the jump to the next generation of consoles in 2006 with Fight Night Round 3. With Oscar De La Hoya serving as the athlete for the box art, the title also introduced several changes such as a more fleshed-out career mode where players had to work their way up to main event status, and even an ESPN Classic mode that put players in the shoes of boxers in the midst of important matches in the history of the sport. Interestingly, the PS3 version of Fight Night Round 3 even included a platform-exclusive feature: the ability to play matches in first-person.
EA then started slowing the boxing series down, with a follow-up being released three years later in 2009. With boxing legends Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali serving as the cover athletes for the title, Fight Night Round 4 also included the return of the classic control scheme that allowed players to use buttons rather than analogue sticks to pull off boxing moves.
The last entry in the franchise was 2011’s Fight Night Champion, which brought in an entire storyline where players take on the role of a boxer serving time in a correctional facility – Andre Bishop – and experience his rise to prominence in the sport before he was arrested.
