Dynasty Places Greater Emphasis on Coach’s Role

Like last year’s iteration, Dynasty Mode remains built around your coaching decisions, but College Football 27 asks you to mould your program around each school’s expectations and values. See, each school now has a clearer identity, shaped by organisational priorities, how much patience the board has for your process, and what the fans believe is important – winning a championship or getting one-over on your rivals, for instance. Your role as the coach is still central, yet College Football 27 brings new levels of external pressure.

Expectations Evolve as Your Program Progresses

And, your chosen school’s expectations aren’t set in stone. No, as your program progresses, so does their expectation of you, with evolutions determined by both the fanbase and the Athletic Director. Of course, if you’re doing well, projections rise, but if you’re underperforming then patience wanes. Yet, College Football 27 brings more nuance than a simple, binary up-or-down. Each success becomes a new baseline, yes, but each school’s demeanor dictates how responsive they are to success or failure too. For example, priorities can shift from winning championships to becoming a class-leader in recruitment. Furthermore, you can forge an elite team, but if you keep losing to your state rivals the fans will demand change.

All-New Dynasty Blueprints Finetune Program Control

While the Athletic Director’s expectations shape what success means at your school, College Football 27 introduces Dynasty Blueprints to put you in greater control of how you achieve this success. Here, Dynasty Points can be spent across three areas: coaching staff, school facilities, and Name, Image, Likeness (NIL). Investing in backroom staff streamlines your program’s efficiency, while spending on facilities supports long-term player development. Focusing on NIL gives you greater leverage to compete for the strongest talent, but no-two schools are the same. Blueprints are part of a wider program-building puzzle, but taken in isolation they highlight obstacles standing between your program and the Athletic Director’s expectations.

Scholarships No Longer Available in Pre-Season

As NIL has grown into a more significant roster-building, decision-making process with this year’s iteration, scholarships can no longer be offered during pre-season. See, real-life College Football has seen a rise in prospects who understand the terms they can command even before arriving on campus, with anticipated NIL influenced by star rating, position, school prestige, and so on. Mirroring this in-game, NIL is more of a long-term commitment, with scholarships now tied to your program’s ever-shifting expectations. For this reason, pre-season is now entirely focused on scouting, with the aim being for you to better identify targets that fit your program and then shaping NIL around your budgets and expectations.

My School Sees Expansion

Like last year, My School grades in College Football 27 continue to define your program’s potential, impacting recruitment, player management, and more. However, this year’s iteration expands and updates several My School grades in three key areas: Brand Exposure now tracks a school’s progress over a rolling five-year timeframe, while Championship Contender assesses your rank and rating to outline how likely you are to reach the championship finals in your present guise. Proximity to Home better calculates a precise distance between a recruit’s home and your school, giving you a major recruitment advantage for home-state players.

Weekly Practice Plans Bring Finer Control Over Wear and Tear

While College Football 26 allows you to test out plays and evaluate squad depth via Free Practice, College Football 27 brings more structured control to managing your roster. Weekly Practice Plans govern recovery times and practice limits, and can be customised player-by-player. And because you can adjust each individual player’s practice plan, College Football 27 allows you to carefully manage wear and tear, reducing the risk of injury.

Two New Coaching Archetypes

Coaching in earlier College Football games was built around the premise that no coach can be great at everything. And, while that philosophy still underpins your program’s progress in College Football 27, this year’s version introduces two new coaching archetypes: Visionary and Rainmaker. Available with pre-orders of College Football 27 or Madden NFL 27, Visionary tracks long-term career growth and professional potential through exclusive abilities that let you maximise practice sessions through deeper control over players preparation, recovery, and development. Rainmaker, available to MVP+ Members, hones in on Dynasty Blueprints, focusing on NIL, Dynasty Points, and making the most from your school’s resources.

College Football 27 Introduces Major Presentation Overhauls

As we mentioned in our already published “15 Things to Know” feature, one of the overarching improvements EA Sports is focusing on is more authenticity. This year, they’re ramping up the pageantry, atmosphere, and pre-match traditions, embellishing the individual personality of each school. Unique entrances, mascots, lighting, runout pyros, band tunnels, detailed traditions, crowd chants – College Football 27 brings plentiful updates to game-day atmosphere, ensuring that the presentation is more authentic and immersive compared to last year.

Rivalries Have Been Enhanced

College Football 27 understands that big games hold a certain gravitas, and a school playing against their rival is one-such event. This year, the energy, the tension, and the atmosphere of a rivalry matchup has been intensified: commentary describes their history, rival trophies become available for winning a big game, and more aggressive, tempestuous animations support the rival games’ greater emotional weight.

Road to Glory Brings a New Presentation Style

A standout addition to College Football 27’s Road to Glory mode is an all-new presentation style which gives you a player’s eye-view of the action direct from the sideline. You’ll still experience the runout, the pageantry, traditions, and fan atmosphere, but for those moments you’re on the sideline you can observe the play, adjusting camera angles to get as immersive a view of the game as possible.

College Football 27 Features a New Broadcast Package

To make College Football 27’s TV broadcast match a real-life telecast, this year’s version features an all-new package. New visuals, banners, action shots, and playcall panels offer new ways to support the game’s emerging stories, while halftime show overhauls, commentary support, and refined camera framing boost authenticity. The broadcast team now includes ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe, who’ll provide updates on injuries, weather, individual performances, and more. Elsewhere, Joel Klatt joins the commentary team, with the booth on-the-whole bringing a stronger awareness of the on-field action.

Max Potential Redefines Custom Athlete Growth

In College Football 26, Player Potential was divided into three tiers – low, medium, and high – with each determining your player’s long-term ceiling. This year, that system has been replaced by Max Potential, giving you direct control over how high each of your custom athlete’s attributes can realistically develop. Working in tandem with Physique customisation, your chosen physical attributes establish a theoretical upper limit while Max Potential determines how much of that limit your player can eventually reach. Because raising attributes consumes a limited pool of points – and elite ratings become increasingly expensive to obtain – you’ll need to make meaningful trade-offs when shaping your build, creating a far more flexible and personalised progression system compared to last year. However, the real innovation over College Football 26’s more rigid archetype structure is Max Potential allows your player’s identity to emerge naturally from your investment decisions rather than being locked in from the outset.

Legends Templates are New Preset Player Builders

Yet, if you want to hit the ground running with an established foundation for your custom athlete, you can select an all-new Legend Template. These are preset player builds derived from the physical traits, archetypes, playstyles, and attributes of real-life College Football icons. Each Legend Template outlines a Max Potential allocation, so the long-term development strategies born out of wholly custom athletes are still replicated. In other words: you can shape a legendary athlete into the type of player you want them to become.

Mental Abilities Now Tied to Off-Field Decisions

College Football 26’s mental abilities functioned as fixed gameplay perks, remaining static throughout a career. College Football 27 now ties mental abilities to off-field activities, making the decisions you make during the week far more impactful on gameday. They’re upgradeable too, beginning at bronze tier, all the way through to platinum, with you progressing through each level by completing gameplay goals and objectives.

Coach Mode is a New Way to Play

An altogether different type of simulation, College Football 27’s new Coach Mode allows you to experience the action from the perspective of the person managing on the sideline. When enabled, the CPU handles the post-snap gameplay, leaving you to focus on the pre-snap decisions real coaches make and experience the pressure that goes with it. It’s a mode that places far less emphasis on stick skill and more about planning, strategising, and sequencing your squad, and it’s a mode EA Sports is looking to support post-release with new camera angles and immersive tools.

But the fantasy of managing a college football team, which is arguably the crux of a simulator aimed at recreating the real-life experience in a digestible, digital format has always been Dynasty Mode. It’s the home of college football, and we’re quite eager to get started with it in College Football 27. That’s because EA seems to have gone beyond merely recruiting players to play games and then have you simulating seasons.

Things are different this time around, and the latest iteration of Dynasty Mode after two years of tweaks and modifications looks like it’s the real deal, with the entire experience coming close to managing an entire program. That includes managing expectations, dealing with spreading limited resources across the board, staffing challenges, negotiating NIL deals, facing the pressures that a coach would face, trying to retain players who would rather take their talents elsewhere, and establishing a team’s long-term identity one step at a time.

That’s a long list of things to do, but that’s precisely why we think this year’s iteration of Dynasty Mode might be the real main event in this year’s take on College Football. Join us as we take you through what’s made us so optimistic about it.

The Third Time’s The Charm

If CF 25 was the comeback after a very long hiatus for the franchise, CF 26 was a title that brought in a lot of refinements that proved quite popular. Based off of that trajectory and everything we’ve seen of CF 27 so far, it’s certainly looking like a big swing from EA, going past incremental improvements to present a bold, confident take on the sports sim that could easily find fame and glory thanks to what it’s bringing to the table.

EA is positioning College Football 27 as the third step in its rebuilt Dynasty roadmap, following the comeback foundation of 25 and the refinements of 26. And from what we’re seeing, it isn’t just about adding in new features and calling it a day. That would be too easy, and a potentially lazy solution to the vision it has presented. Its latest deep dive into Dynasty Mode showcases how it’s clearly being pitched as a deeper program-management experience rather than just another recruiting-and-season sim loop.

Instead, we’re looking at a program management mode that feels akin to what it would be like to manage an evolving landscape of players with many variables for us to control. Or at least, try as life attempts to wrest that very control out of our hands in a take on franchise management that’s bringing all of the chaos from the real world to our screens.

Where Road to Glory is about a single player and Ultimate Team puts you on a hamster wheel where you’re collecting players and grinding out levels, and Road to CFP is about simulating the competition, Dynasty brings all of that into one place, putting you right at the center of the broader fantasy of a college football simulator. It isn’t about a single season, but about building a lasting legacy within the framework of the game.

Athletic Director Expectations are the clearest example of that shift. Instead of treating every job like the same climb with different uniforms, CF 27 gives each program its own pressure points, patience level, and definition of success. A powerhouse could expect you to put them front and center of playoff runs, and perhaps not take too kindly to a decision to hold them back. A school that’s still trying to make a name for itself might give you a bit of breathing room as you try to help it get on the map. One job might hinge on rivalry wins, another on owning a recruiting pipeline, another on building an offensive or defensive identity, and another on keeping facilities or rankings at a required standard.

All of these parameters become part of an ever-changing landscape that you’re then expected to manage, just as a talented coach would have to do in the real world. A solid record may buy patience at one school and still feel like underachievement at another, depending on what the program believes it should be competing for. The new Dynasty isn’t just about winning, but doing so in a way that serves your school’s interests and expectations.

Of course, that can get chaotic without the game’s systems giving you a bit of control over the chaos. That’s where Dynasty Blueprint comes in, turning those expectations into an annual resource puzzle rather than just a list of objectives. You could choose to allocate a significant amount of funds to secure NIL rights for a recruit, or perhaps use that money to create facilities that secure your team’s long-term growth. You could also invest in staff to better support your team, or perhaps spend it all on ensuring a win-now season if that’s what your school really wants. Because Dynasty Points operate as a yearly, use-it-or-lose-it budget, the mode pushes you to make short-term calls instead of hoarding resources forever.

It’s about handling pressure, and handling it well enough to cement your own position within growing teams. And that’s just scratching the surface on systems that go a lot deeper.

A More Hands-On Approach

There’s a reason we mentioned NIL when talking about using your Dynasty Points as effectively as you can. In the real world, it’s a factor that gives players a fair bit of control over the trajectories of their football careers, and CF 27 is making that a factor of the experience by ensuring that the onus of retaining them or letting them move on to greener pastures is on you. Recruiting was already a major part of the experience in previous titles, and making retention become a factor makes things all the more authentic.

Given that you only have a limited number of Dynasty Points to reflect your budgets, you’re going to be smarter with resources in smaller ones while having to manage high expectations on powerhouse programs. It makes retaining your best players as important as recruiting new ones, and it’s a great way to link factors like prestige, deal breakers and school strength in a way that’s both comprehensive and cohesive all at once. The new approach to NIL makes Dynasty less predictable, which is something the mode has needed.

Factor in facilities and staff, and the NIL system’s unpredictability gets amplified, its scope extending beyond your team’s potential on the field. Once again, it’s a showcase of how the entire management experience is more all-encompassing this time around as your facilities and staff become long-term investments that can shape your program’s identity while making coordinators matter a whole lot more. Program grades then become a part of the long-term loop, making rebuilds feel different from merely stepping in to take over a well-established program for a national contender.

Those differences are a welcome addition, and a fine way to ensure that the coaching carousel actually has an impact on how things go for you and your team. You’re not just grinding out levels, which was something we couldn’t help but notice in previous iterations, but building a resume that gives you as much negotiating power as your powerhouses. It’s an effective way of making successes or failures work both ways between players and a coach, tying job openings to school expectations in a way that gives you a lot of choices, but with enough tradeoffs to make those decisions feel as agonizing as they might be in the real world.

Of course, all of that feeds very well into the new Dynasty storytelling engine, that brings in dynamic weekly recaps, Heisman Watch updates alongside a fully animated ceremony, and so much more. They’re all great ways to give a season context and flavor while making you feel like your decisions and hard work actually matter, being as impactful to your team’s journey as they can be. If everything else we’ve talked about lets you manage numbers to achieve the best possible advantage, or perhaps even a compromise between your school’s expectations and your team’s potential, this is where the drama comes in, presenting it all in a way that gets you immersed in the spectacle and realism of it all.

It’s all shaping up to look like this could be the most personal take on College Football’s Dynasty Mode, and the Team Builder now bringing in customisable elements like unique backgrounds and signature accents is a great touch. It lets you imagine yourself in the thick of the action at a stadium, your personal attachment to a program you’ve built represented well in the atmosphere around the games you’re a part of.

Building Balance

You’re probably wondering if everything we’ve said so far makes things look like they’re too good to be true. Believe us when we tell you that the thought has crossed our mind. Ambitious changes like the ones we’ve been talking about so far come with a lot of risk. The new NIL systems could become an unending maelstrom that sucks in your limited budget leaving you at the mercy of a treacherous sea of unpredictability.

The Athletic Director systems could be seen as too random, running the risk of generating expectations that seem unfair thanks to how unrealistic they are perceived to be. The logic between the Coaching Carousel and recruitment and retention must land as perfectly as it can in order for it to be believable, holding up across multiple seasons in a way that makes sense to us all. There needs to be a balance, and it has to be one that holds up under the duress of multiple concurrent seasons for the entire simulation to work.

All of these are reasons to be wary of getting too invested in what’s coming before we get to try it out. But they’re also a great showcase of how EA hasn’t just added new things to Dynasty and called it a day. It’s evolving what the mode is supposed to be in the modern era of college football. If it manages to get things right, it could make Dynasty go from being just another mode to indulge yourself in, and become the one that defines the entire game.

We’re rooting for that to be the case, if only for the selfish reason that it would mean hours upon hours of entertainment. But hey, that’s what we’re all tuning in for, right?

Thankfully, we don’t have to wait too long to find out!

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

EA and Codemasters announced last year that F1 25 would be expanded with 2026 season content instead of receiving a traditional standalone F1 26 release. What ultimately led to that decision? And how did the idea of a 2026 Season Pack fit into the broader strategic reset for the F1 franchise, especially with the next full game now planned for 2027?

Both of these questions really come back to the same thing. Formula 1 has changed significantly over the last few years. The audience is larger, more diverse, and engages with the sport in different ways than it did even a few years ago. We felt it was important that the F1 franchise evolves alongside those changes.

As part of our long-term plans for the series, we made the decision to support F1 25 with a premium 2026 Season Pack rather than release a traditional standalone F1 26 title. We believe this approach allows players to keep enjoying F1 25 while experiencing the new teams, drivers, regulations and MADRING that will define the 2026 season.

It also allows us to take a longer-term approach to what comes next. While we’re continuing to support F1 25, we’re also able to focus on delivering the next major step for the franchise.

"It also allows us to take a longer-term approach to what comes next."

The 2026 season represents a major reset for Formula 1 itself, with new cars, new regulations, new teams, and new racing systems. From a development perspective, what was the biggest challenge in translating that into F1 25?

The new regulations for 2026 are the biggest overhaul the sport has had in quite some time. It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity, but yes, that certainly represented some sizable development challenges. The first of which was to understand what to expect from the racing experience and capturing that within the game. We kept a very close eye on the official paperwork, really making sure we understood the changes to ensure we could achieve the level of authenticity we wanted. The next aspect was communicating these changes to players. Some of the terminology now has drastically different meanings. For example in 2026, Boost mode is more akin to what was previously known as Overtake mode. The functionality of Overtake has a very different strategic effect in 2026.

Beyond the updated teams, drivers, cars, and sporting regulations, what would you say are the biggest additions players should expect from the 2026 Season Pack?

The driving itself. You as the driver must operate very differently from what you’re used to. To some players, the driving can be described ‘restricted’ but others call it strategic and we have managed to capture the essence of this in game. Smart driving and circuit knowledge is way more rewarding in these regulations.

The 2026 update introduces Audi and Cadillac to the grid. How much work went into representing these new teams authentically in terms of car identity, presentation, performance, and overall feel?

Representing a team in the game is a combination of close collaboration with the F1 teams and attention to detail from the Dev side, making sure every detail from the model to the performance accurately represents the sport.

MADRING is being introduced as a new Madrid-based circuit built for the 2026 season. What can players expect from its layout, rhythm, and racing style compared to the existing tracks in F1 25?

This year players will be able to experience the MADRING circuit before the real drivers will, before it’s even built. That took an incredible effort from our environment art team, digesting the CAD data we were provided and bringing it to life, so credit to them for making it happen.

To drive, the circuit itself is a high speed street circuit, but what sets it apart is the flowing nature and elevation changes. With the barriers nearby it’s a real driver’s circuit. It rewards accuracy and bravery. The fastest laps come from carrying speed through the flowing sections while remaining accurate enough to stay clear of the walls, which should make it both rewarding to master and exciting to race on.

"This year players will be able to experience the MADRING circuit before the real drivers will, before it’s even built."

The 2026 cars are lighter, smaller, and more responsive, with active aerodynamics playing a major role. How significantly does that change the handling model and moment-to-moment driving experience?

Those are all important factors, as are the slightly narrower tyre widths. Although the lap times are only around a second slower than the previous generation of cars, they achieve that performance in a very different way.

At times, the acceleration can feel incredibly intense, but the cars carry less speed through corners, particularly the faster ones, due to the relative reduction in downforce. One of the first things players are likely to notice is that the cars don’t feel quite as planted as the 2025-spec cars, which were comparatively stable and predictable.

Active aerodynamics and the new Overtake Mode appear to be among the biggest gameplay changes in the Season Pack. How do these systems alter race strategy, especially when it comes to attacking, defending, and energy management?

The racing they produce is also quite different thanks to the introduction of Active Aero, the revised Overtake Mode and the highly powerful Boost Mode. Wheel-to-wheel racing becomes more strategic, with drivers constantly balancing energy management against opportunities to attack or defend. There are often multiple ways to approach a battle, which creates a lot of interesting tactical choices throughout a race.

Of course, we were mindful that these new systems add complexity. That’s why we’ve included assists that can help manage elements such as energy deployment, allowing players to tailor the experience to their preferred level of involvement while still enjoying the unique character of the 2026 regulations.

Overtake Mode offers a major electrical boost when players are within range of the car ahead. How did the team approach balancing that so it feels powerful without becoming too easy to exploit?

Overtake Mode can be a powerful addition, but its effectiveness is tied to the same constraints and opportunities seen in Formula 1. We’ve replicated the key characteristics of the system, including the one-second activation window, the increased harvesting allowance and the revised deployment behaviour that enables greater electrical deployment at higher speeds.

As a result, it far from guarantees an overtake. Players still need to think carefully about when to use their available energy and how to position the car to maximise the benefit. That strategic element is a big part of what makes racing under the 2026 regulations so engaging.

"Overtake Mode can be a powerful addition, but its effectiveness is tied to the same constraints and opportunities seen in Formula 1."

The 2026 Season Pack requires fresh 2026 saves for Driver Career and My Team. Why was it important to separate 2025 and 2026 career progression rather than allow existing saves to carry over?

As with everything in game development, it’s about making the decisions that deliver the best overall experience for players. Throughout development we’re constantly making decisions about where our effort is best spent and what will have the biggest impact.

Supporting existing Driver Career and My Team saves is a much bigger piece of work than it might first appear, so for this release we made the decision to focus our effort on delivering the best possible 2026 Season Pack experience.

It’s always about making the right trade-offs to deliver the best experience for players.

In My Team, players now enter as the twelfth team on the grid because the official F1 grid expands to eleven teams in 2026. How does that change the structure and feel of the mode?

Honestly depends on what type of player you are. If you’re the type of player that enjoys a challenge and likes to fight their way from the back, catching one or two cars every lap, then this is a great season for you. Then on the other hand if you’re the type of player that likes to fight at the front, then beyond the new racing style and the first turns chaos, you won’t feel much different, but your focus will shift on how to defend while managing your energy.

Which modes will benefit the most from the 2026 Season Pack, and how different should players expect the experience to feel across Driver Career, My Team, Grand Prix, Time Trial, split-screen, and unranked multiplayer?

Any mode that is supported in the season back was selected because they had a unique experience to offer to our players.

Will the 2026 Season Pack include any platform-specific visual, performance, or technical improvements, or is the focus primarily on content, rules, handling, and gameplay systems?

We introduced PSSR 2 on the PlayStation 5 Pro, Updated to XeSS 3 for Intel GPUs on PC and included bug fixes and quality improvements to the F1 25 EGO Engine across rasterised, ray traced and path traced lighting.

This guide for UFC 6 is all about mastering the stand-up striking game while conserving stamina and health.

Movement And Striking

The basics of striking are as straightforward as they can be, with the real edge coming from your ability to move in and out of striking range when required. Curb your instinct to always push the stick forward into your opponent, which has a negative effect on the striking power of some moves, as well as limits which ones are available.

It is also okay to simply stand still once you have a good range on your opponent, and deliver strikes at their maximum damage potential. Just avoid that tendency to bear forward headlong into the striking range of your opponent.

Defense And Countering

Practice reflexive and consistent head movement which is performed by pushing the right stick in the cardinal directions. Head strikes are all about damage, and handing your fighter’s head on a platter for a consistent target will needlessly lose you fights.

Timing a combination of the right trigger to block, while flicking the right stick towards the rear of your fighter, i.e. a lean back or pull in the opposite direction of your opponent, will allow you to perform a parry block that reduces damage. This is useful in situations where your block meter is running low, and costs practically nothing in terms of stamina. These are also visually distinct between several fighters.

Lunges are done by holding the left bumper and pushing on the left stick in the desired cardinal direction, with the exception of some fighters. When timed correctly, it can be combined with the parry block for greater mitigation of damage if the attack connected.

Steps are performed by lightly flicking the left stick in a cardinal direction. These are good for quickly evading attacks without too much effort, and open up unexpected angles of offense.

Critical Settings

It is recommended that you turn off Strike Assist, as it will lead to an inconsistent experience between your online and offline fights.

While Time Dilation is unavailable in multiplayer matches, it can be very useful to at least practice with, as you will get a much wider timing window within which to react.

Combined with the Frame Timing Meter, you will have a clear visual representation of strike timing windows to test and observe.

That is everything there is to know about proper striking and defense in UFC 6.

This guide for UFC 6 is all about the gameplay mechanics in the new submission system, with tips on stamina depletion, grapple advantage, as well as transitions and their denial.

Stamina Depletion Through Strikes

Submission success relies heavily on your opponent being fatigued enough, and you can accomplish this by depleting their stamina as quickly as possible in a short span of time. If your opponent is passive, you will have to repeatedly strike them in the torso by holding the left trigger and pressing the relevant face buttons for your platform. Facial strikes without holding the left trigger only serve to chip away at their health, but have no effect on stamina depletion.

Be wary of mashing strikes though, as this will have the negative effect of draining your own stamina, potentially to the benefit of your opponent via a transition. Moreover, strikes cannot be cancelled, thus preventing you from denying their transition attempt.

Transition Denial

Opponents that are actively trying to escape will naturally attempt to transition. This presents a far better opportunity for you to drain their stamina in large chunks each time the attempt is made, by denying it. Pay close attention to the prompt indicating a transition denial quick time event. You will need to be quick on the right trigger as you push the right stick in the indicated direction.

The ideal tactic is for you to simply do nothing yourself, including body striking, thus baiting your opponent into attempting transitions, and allowing you the opportunity to then deny them for massive reductions in their stamina. You can accomplish this by simply holding on to the right trigger and patiently waiting for the deny transition prompt indicating the specific direction to push the right stick. With enough observational practice, you may eventually even be able to proactively predict the direction by watching the animation itself.

Repeated transition denials will widen the timing window within which you can pull off further denials due to the increasingly reduced stamina of your opponent, and holding the right trigger in anticipation should make it even easier to pull off successfully every time.

Success in online matches depends on your ability to successfully read the transition animations, as the button prompts are not visible in multiplayer. Also bear in mind that based on your positions, there really are only two possible contextual directions in which you could possibly be prompted to push the right stick.

Grappling Advantage

In the top middle of the screen is an easily missable meter indicating which fighter has the grapple advantage. The meter is very sensitive in direct response to the ongoing context of the fight itself, and fills red in your favor, and blue for your opponent. Always attempt to press any advantage gained, as your speed for accomplishing moves is enhanced, allowing for faster completion of transitions and submissions.

Submission Selection

Once your opponent has been fatigued sufficiently in the moment, you will have a fairly short amount of time to attempt a submission. Do this by holding the left trigger and observing the contextual button prompts for the position you and your opponent are in at the time. You will have seconds to do this successfully, while both the grapple meter is in your favor and the stamina bar of your opponent is at its lowest.

Fighter Ground Game Rating

Fighter selection also plays a role in how wide the timing windows are during submissions. A higher ground game rating will afford you a lot more time to pull off button prompts, and this is in addition to any advantage gained through depleting the stamina of your opponent.

Your own submissions will trigger faster as can be observed from the red dial that rapidly closes on the left side of the screen.

Time Dilation

A lot of the on screen button prompts during submissions have slim timing windows within which to press them, and you can mitigate this through the bullet time or slow motion setting known as Time Dilation. While only available in offline modes, this hand-holding mechanic can accustom you to the timings involved in pulling off the moves displayed on screen.

That is everything there is to know about successfully using submissions to win matches in UFC 6.

This UFC 6 guide is a selection of ten essential tips and tricks for both new and returning players of the series.

Preserve Stamina

While rapidly spamming moves may initially work out with some degree of success for you amongst casual opponents, there is no room for error in player ranks that are intermediate and above. Stamina is a precious resource and you should play close attention to its rate of depletion in the early game.

Maintain Distance

With the massive selection of fighters, moves, and combos, it can be difficult if not impossible to learn every possible counter to every potential attack. However, you can guarantee that a strike won’t land if your fighter is outside of its effective range. Learn to retreat instead of always bearing forward face first into striking distance.

Frame Timing Meter

The practice mode is essential to make use of in UFC 6, and not just to merely memorize combos either. The Frame Timing meter can give you a readily understandable visual representation of the speed of your moves, and the duration of their windows, which can be especially useful in order to properly counter fast fighters.

Fighter Perks

The five Perks for a given fighter can have a significant effect on the outcome of a fight and it is important to know which ones synergize properly with your move list. Be sure to view the Perks for your fighter from the pause menu and commit them to memory.

Flow Boost

When fighter Perks are leveraged in certain contextual conditions they trigger a Flow Boost to accelerate the filling of the Flow Meter. This allows for more frequent use of the Flow State, a powered-up effect which is unique to each fighter.

Flow State Perk

One of the five Perks has an additional effect once the fighter is already in the Flow State. Try and lean on that required move as much as possible, in order to extract the maximum value of that Perk during that short span of time while the Flow State is active.

Disable Flow State Visual Effect

The onscreen effects when entering Flow State can be distracting, if not outright annoying. Fortunately, this can be turned off entirely through the settings menu, for a simple HUD icon instead.

Move Variation

Avoid getting caught up in a hyper fixation for filling the Flow Meter with an excessive reliance on the handful of moves that contribute to Flow Boost. This will make you highly predictable to a vigilant opponent and allow for consistent hard counters of your now readily readable moves. Try and identify alternative moves if any, or at the very least, cycle through different sequences of the five Flow Boost moves in order to mix things up a little.

Range Variation

It can be instinctive to always advance forward while striking, but this can be detrimental to variation in striking power and moves. Learn to let go of the movement stick, or at least try to keep a light touch on it once you have found your fighter’s optimal strike distance for maximum damage output.

Strike Target Variation

Another instinctual habit to bear in mind and possibly break, is the consistent targeting of your opponent’s head. Ignore body strikes at your own peril, as counters to your predictable attacks will open you up to a flurry of follow-up moves.

Those are a handful of tips to remember while learning the ropes in UFC 6.

This UFC 6 guide is all about transitions and how to effectively deny them and even turn them around on your opponents.

Denying Transitions

Performing a transition denial is simple enough, as there is a highly visible button prompt for the quick time event right on screen. Simply hold the right trigger while grappling, and then push the right stick around in the indicated direction to initiate the denial of your opponent’s transition.

Recognizing which transition you are denying is where the real difficulty lies, and for this you will need to lean on the practice mode and the Frame Timing meter. The former will allow you to observe the animations for visual hints, while the latter will give you a sense of the speed of the move and the window you have to counter it.

Effects Of Transition Denials

The greatest effect of denying a transition is the depletion of your opponent’s stamina in large chunks. Doing this consistently will lengthen the window of opportunity for you to continue denying transitions, as well as permit you to eventually turn the tables entirely into a transition of your own.

The ideal time to pull off a transition of your own is immediately after denying a transition, when both the grapple meter is in your favor, as well as the largest chunk of your opponent’s stamina meter has been depleted.

Transition Tactics

Your best bet with reversing a submission is to allow your opponent to attempt to make the move into a transition first, while you wait patiently to deny it with a mere push of the right stick while holding the right trigger in readiness.

Continue remaining passive, as your opponent blindly attempts to transition with no regard for their stamina meter. Eventually it will be depleted enough for you to leverage your practically full stamina bar into a successful transition of your own.

Remember that you can simply hold the right trigger all the while, thus reducing the required button input during the denial window to just the right stick.

Transition Cancellation

It is possible to cancel your own transition by holding the right trigger during the attempt. This can be useful to feint a denial initiated by your opponent or otherwise throw them off.

Time Dilation

Time Dilation can feel like a cheat in the vein of Matrix-style bullet time, but can be a boon for early transition denials when the window of opportunity to push the stick can still prove to be too slim for your reflexes. While unavailable in online matches, you can and should use it offline until you get a good sense of the timing required.

That is everything there is to know about transitions while grappling, and denying them effectively in UFC 6.

Series Distinguishes Itself Further From Madden

EA Sports College Football 27 continues to sculpt its own identity, distinct from Madden’s comparatively rigid NFL simulation with a faster, looser, more chaotic brand of football. In “Saturday Football”, the emphasis is on explosive play-by-plays, momentum swings, and a sprinkling of unpredictability, with innovations in gameplay forming the backbone of this year’s entry. We’ll get into the gameplay iterations during this feature, starting with defence.

Defensive Systems Reworked

Yes, defence is one of College Football 27’s most significant reworks. The game puts more tools and control in your hands, while smarter coverage logic and expanded defensive playbooks – from nine to thirty-one unique playbooks – ensure that reaping the rewards of a solid defensive line is more attainable and enjoyable. Making the correct read demands higher skill compared to earlier entries, resulting in this suite of overhauls bringing satisfaction which better-reflects the intensity of decision making in real-world college football.

Three-Yard Control Has Been Overhauled

Assessing last year’s trench battles and goal line stands, EA Sports found that College Football 26 presented these scenarios differently compared to real-life. These moments, amongst football’s most exhilarating, felt automatic and inauthentic, so this year’s iteration brings overhauled short yardage control. Beginning with the pre-snap, the game now evaluates push strength across the offensive line against defensive shed strength. Tools like the QB Sneak Meter further reinforce the physicality in those ‘fight-for-inches’ moments, where your perfect snap and timing push against other factors such as ratings, late-game pressure, home field advantage, and more.

More Control Across Blocking and Defense

Beyond short yardage adjustments, College Football 27 places renewed emphasis on giving you more control in the run game, protection game, and defensive front. Updates to ID Mike bring more precise targeting of defensive threats, while new protection options include deciding how the offensive line targets specific defenders. Additions such as Gap Integrity and Defensive Aggression let you choose how disciplined your defenders are to their assigned run fits, and how fast they play against each run. Pass-blocking customisation comes in the all-new Chip Block mechanic, giving new ways to disrupt elite edge rushers. Taken together, these new systems embellish risk-versus-reward, where executing high-risk plays successfully is now firmly in your hands.

Custom Adjustments Streamline Strategy

One of this year’s deepest strategy additions is Custom Adjustments, allowing you to save your preferred setups and execute them instantly, making the right play happen faster by reducing the number of pre-play inputs. Via the Create and Share menu, nearly every offensive and defensive tool is available to be built into your own custom package that can be recalled in-play without getting bogged down in sub-menus. This system doesn’t just maintain momentum though – no, with just ten custom adjustments out of a possible forty brought to matches, you’ll need to plan your strategies before gameday.

Physicality and Tackling Have Been Improved

Physical play has also seen refinement, with more impactful collisions and greater weight thrown across the playfield. A significant addition to tackling, however, is the all-new Tackle Stick, which maps different tackle types directly to the right stick’s directional input, giving you more intuitive control when making defensive stops.

Smarter AI Through Machine Learning

College Football 27 enhances AI ballcarrying through a form of machine learning called “behaviour cloning”. In a nutshell, the system learns from real-life examples of good, human-made decisions. The result: AI ballcarriers should make more natural choices – picking better lanes, recognising cutbacks, improving leverage reads, and reacting instinctively to space.

Timing-Based Catching Adds Ownership

Another one of this year’s biggest additions is Timing-Based Catching, which is a new offensive system designed to bring clarity and ownership over catches and dropped balls. Here, after releasing a pass, you can choose your catch type – aggressive, possession, or run-after-catch – with perfect meter timing rewarded with a clean, controlled catch. The result is a more expressive, skill-driven system which gives you the power to execute the right read and manoeuvre, even as various other factors might shrink the perfect catch window.

Dynamic Weather Impacts Gameplay

In College Football 27, it isn’t just AI ballcarriers that are set to appear less static but weather has been overhauled to shift dynamically within matches, tangibly impacting gameplay. Rain can clear mid-match, or snow could arrive to blanket the field at halftime. With weather evolving throughout, the feel, the pace, the visuals, and the atmosphere of the game can shift too. Crucially, player degradation can accelerate during particularly harsh conditions, providing visual authenticity to underpin the impact on gameplay.

Road to Glory Focuses on Managing Potential

This year, Road to Glory places greater emphasis on your off-field journey, with systems built around managing your development, expectations, and long-term potential. Three new playable positions – Tight End, Edge Rusher, and Free Safety – plus pre-determined max potential and attributes which reshape through the decisions you make will continuously define and redefine your journey from high school to Hall of Famer.

High School to College Now a Fully-Defined Career Arc

And on that note, once your player has been created and they’re stepping foot onto the Friday night playing field, it’s up to you to maintain their projection, earn scholarship offers, and ultimately choose the path that defines their career trajectory. A slate of visual tools make tracking your career a breeze, with weekly-updated projection graphs plotted with Memorable Moments – both good and bad – which impact your Draft Projection.

Road to College Football Playoff Emphasises the Journey Too

College Football 27’s competitive online mode places renewed emphasis on every match throughout the regular season having weight. The end goal is the same: reach the championship playoffs, but this year introduces all-new Objectives. Thousands of gameplay-tied mini-accolades, more specific milestones, team specific accomplishments, and conference challenges give you more reasons to absorb the journey.

Road to College Football Ranking System Rewards Risk and Skill

Road to College Football’s tweaked ranking system doesn’t treat every win the same. See, beating a top team with a lower-tier outfit is deemed more impressive than if it was the other way around. Likewise, road victories reward more points than home. It’s a dynamic competitive experience designed to give extra impetus to you if you want to take on extra challenges.

Playoffs Feel More Meaningful Than Ever

And, if you make it to the playoffs you’ll notice a stronger sense of pageantry, with the games themselves taking you through new-to-the-series stadiums the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl before the climactic national championship match in Las Vegas. This end-of-season progression presents a true sense of escalation, with the final stage feeling like a genuine achievement.

Mascot Mashup Adds a Low-Stakes Twist

If you’re after a less pressurised experience then Mascot Mashup is the mode for you. Offering a low-stakes, arcade-like alternative, here you’ll take to the field with a team of fluffy, 99 OVR rated mascots, engaging in the same skillful gameplay in a more immediate, light-hearted tone. Unique tricks and exclusive rewards make this a mode suitable for purists too.

UFC 6 is placing a much bigger emphasis on fighter identity and personal stories this time, especially through The Legacy, Career Mode, and Hall of Legends. What was the core creative goal behind making the experience feel more personal, rather than just building another fight-to-fight sports game?

One of our core ambitions for UFC 6 was to deepen players’ connection to the fighters and the sport. We felt that if we were going to invest heavily in making fighters look, move, and fight more authentically than ever before, we also needed to give players a reason to care about who those fighters are.

That philosophy shaped a lot of the game. We wanted to move beyond simply recreating fights and instead help players understand the journeys, rivalries, challenges, and defining moments that make these athletes special. Every fighter has a story, and UFC 6 is built around bringing those stories to life both inside and outside the Octagon.

That thinking ultimately led to experiences like The Legacy and Hall of Legends, while also influencing how we evolved Career Mode. Whether you’re following Chris Carter’s journey, reliving iconic moments from UFC legends, or building your own path through the UFC, we wanted every fight to feel like it mattered because of the people involved, not just the result.

"One of our core ambitions for UFC 6 was to deepen players’ connection to the fighters and the sport."

The Legacy introduces Chris Carter’s journey from the regional MMA scene to the UFC. How does this standalone prologue help onboard players into UFC 6’s systems while also giving them a proper narrative hook before Career Mode begins?

One of the challenges with previous Career Modes was balancing onboarding with long-term progression. New players needed to learn the systems, while returning players often found the mandatory onboarding long and repetitive, especially as it was tied to each new Career run.

The Legacy allowed us to solve both challenges simultaneously. It acts as a narrative-driven prologue that introduces players to the fundamentals of gameplay, training camps, progression systems, and decision-making through the context of Chris Carter’s story.

Because players are emotionally invested in Chris’ journey, the onboarding feels much more natural. Instead of teaching mechanics through isolated tutorials, we teach them through meaningful moments that support the narrative. By the time players reach the UFC, they have learned the core systems organically while also developing a connection to the characters and rivalries that define the story.

Once The Legacy concludes, players transition directly into Chris Carter’s UFC career, carrying their choices and experiences forward into the larger Career Mode experience.

Career Mode has been reworked to get players into the UFC much earlier, with more emphasis on choices, rivalries, social media, training, fitness, and long-term momentum. How much more reactive is this mode compared to UFC 5, and what kind of consequences can player decisions have over the course of a career?

Career Mode is significantly more reactive than it was in UFC 5. One of our major goals was increasing player agency and making decisions feel meaningful.

We overhauled our dialogue and narrative systems, expanded the number of events dramatically, and introduced more situations where player choices create lasting consequences. Decisions can influence finances, training opportunities, relationships, rivalry development, progression paths, and even the types of opportunities that become available later in a career.

Dialogue tree complexity has been considerably expanded, far beyond a single decision leading to new outcome loops, usually triggering a complex set of branching opportunities that are revealed to the player throughout multiple weeks/fights. The back end structure we built targets fans playing multiple career runs: our goal here is to offer a wide array of depth and breadth that makes each run feel different and refreshing, while organically reflecting their actions with much higher accuracy than UFC 5.

We also wanted Hype and Fitness to have a more meaningful impact on player decision-making. Players are constantly balancing short-term gains against long-term goals, and there is rarely a single “correct” answer. The result is a career experience where players feel more ownership over the journey and where different playthroughs can evolve in very different ways.

"We also wanted Hype and Fitness to have a more meaningful impact on player decision-making."

UFC 6 reportedly expands the number of story events and dialogue choices significantly over UFC 5. How do these systems change the pacing of Career Mode, and how often should players expect meaningful decisions outside the Octagon to affect what happens inside it?

We expanded our narrative systems considerably in UFC 6 because we wanted decisions outside the Octagon to feel just as important as decisions inside it.

Compared to UFC 5, UFC 6 features significantly more narrative events, dialogue trees, and branching outcomes. Many of these events present players with choices that have meaningful gameplay consequences, whether that’s improving training opportunities, earning additional resources, developing rivalries, or influencing progression.

Our goal wasn’t simply to add more dialogue. We wanted narrative moments to serve as meaningful decision points that shape how players prepare for fights and build their careers. Players should regularly encounter situations where choices made between fights directly impact what happens when the cage door closes.

With training camps, fitness, hype, social media, and fighter condition all playing a bigger role, how does UFC 6 make the out-of-fight life of a UFC athlete feel important without slowing down the overall pace of the career experience?

We spent a lot of time refining that balance. We wanted the life of a UFC athlete to feel authentic and meaningful, but we also didn’t want players buried in menus or administrative tasks.

A big part of that effort was rebuilding our hubs and streamlining systems so players can quickly understand the impact of their choices. Information is presented more clearly, decision-making is more intentional, and actions tend to have more noticeable outcomes.

The result is that players spend less time navigating systems and more time making meaningful decisions. The out-of-fight experience becomes an extension of the overall strategy rather than something that interrupts the action.

Hall of Legends focuses on Max Holloway, Alex Pereira, and Zhang Weili. What made these three fighters the right choices for this mode, and how did the team approach representing their stories, cultures, rivalries, and defining career moments authentically?

Hall of Legends was built around the idea of celebrating the athletes who have helped define modern MMA and giving players a deeper understanding of why their stories resonate with fans around the world. Max Holloway, Alex Pereira, and Zhang Weili were natural choices because each represents a very different path to greatness. Their careers are filled with iconic moments, memorable rivalries, and personal journeys that have left a lasting impact on the sport.

What made the trio especially compelling was the diversity of experiences they brought to the mode. Max’s journey from Hawaii to becoming one of the most beloved champions in UFC history, Alex’s rise from kickboxing superstar to two-division UFC champion, and Zhang’s role in helping elevate MMA on a global stage each gave us unique stories to tell and distinct experiences to build.

Authenticity was a major focus throughout development. We worked closely with UFC archival footage, conducted extensive research, and collaborated with cultural consultants to ensure each Hall reflected the fighter’s background, achievements, and identity in a respectful and meaningful way. The environments, storytelling, and visual themes were all designed to capture the spirit of each athlete and the moments that defined their careers and the videos featured throughout the Halls were curated and edited by our team from hundreds of hours of UFC footage.

"Authenticity was a major focus throughout development."

Hall of Legends seems to be part museum, part documentary, and part playable challenge mode. How do the interactive fight podiums work, and how much freedom will players have when exploring each fighter’s legacy?

Hall of Legends was designed as an interactive celebration of each fighter’s career, blending exploration, storytelling, and gameplay into a single experience. We wanted players to feel like they were stepping into a living museum where they could discover the moments, rivalries, and achievements that defined these athletes, rather than simply selecting challenges from a menu.

The interactive fight podiums are the centerpiece of that experience. Each podium represents a pivotal fight or career-defining moment. When activated, players transition seamlessly from curated UFC footage and cinematic storytelling into gameplay challenges inspired by what happened in the real event. Our goal was to create a stronger connection between the history of the sport and the gameplay itself, allowing players to experience and feel these iconic moments firsthand.

Player freedom was equally important. Every Hall can be explored at your own pace. You can spend time watching videos, interacting with exhibits, learning about a fighter’s journey and accomplishments, or jump directly into challenges and rewards through the pause menu. Nothing forces a specific path forward. We wanted the experience to feel personal and self-directed, giving players the freedom to engage with each fighter’s legacy in whatever way interests them most.

The new Flow State system is one of UFC 6’s biggest gameplay additions. How did the team balance making each fighter feel more authentic without letting certain Flow State perks become too dominant in competitive play?

The foundation of Flow State is authenticity, not power.

Our goal was never to give fighters arbitrary bonuses. Instead, we wanted to reward players for embracing the styles, tendencies, and strengths that make each athlete unique. The best Max Holloway player should feel different from the best Alex Pereira player because they’re succeeding through the same kinds of approaches that make those fighters effective in real life.

Flow State reinforces those identities by recognizing and rewarding authentic behavior. Whether it’s pressure, precision striking, counter-fighting, volume, or aggression, the system encourages players to lean into what makes a fighter special rather than treating every athlete as a collection of ratings.

From a competitive balance perspective, we were careful to ensure Flow State creates momentum, not inevitability. Entering Flow State can provide meaningful advantages, but players still have to earn those moments through smart decision-making and execution. Just as importantly, opponents have opportunities to recognize, disrupt, and respond to that momentum before it becomes overwhelming.

Ultimately, Flow State adds another layer of strategy while making fighters feel more distinct and authentic. It rewards players for understanding who these athletes are and how they fight, which aligns directly with our broader goal of bringing fighter identity to the forefront of UFC 6.

What kind of post-launch support can players expect after release? Beyond fighter updates, how substantial will the two planned expansions be, and can players expect new modes, Hall of Legends content, gameplay tuning, new fighters, or seasonal live-service updates?

Supporting UFC 6 after launch is a major priority for the team.

Players can expect continued roster updates, gameplay balancing, fighter additions, Fight Week content, challenges, rewards, and ongoing live-service support. We also have two major expansions planned as part of the Expansion Pass.

While we’ll share more details closer to their release, our ambition is for these expansions to deliver meaningful new experiences for players rather than simply incremental updates. We view UFC 6 as a long-term platform and we’re excited to continue supporting the game with new content and experiences throughout its lifecycle.

"Supporting UFC 6 after launch is a major priority for the team."

On the technical side, what are the target resolutions and frame rates for UFC 6 on PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S? Will each platform have separate Quality and Performance modes, or is the game targeting one unified visual/performance profile?

In general, we offer a single preset, handcrafted to guarantee the desired balance between performance and level of fidelity. This translates into different techniques and target resolutions across the supported consoles.

Diving more into specifics, here is a full breakdown:

Cinematics (30 fps)

• PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X: TAA 4K DRS [1800p-2160p]
• Xbox Series S: TAA 1080p DRS [900p-1080p]

Gameplay (60 fps)

• PS5: FSR3 Native + DRS [1080p-1800p]->1800p + bilinear upsample from 1800p to 2160p. Typical internal resolution 1200p
• Xbox Series X: FSR3 Native + DRS [1080p-1800p]->1800p + bilinear upsample from 1800p to 2160p. Typical internal resolution 1300p
• PS5 Pro: Upgraded PSSR Native + DRS [1200p-2160p]->2160p. Typical internal resolution 1600p
• Xbox Series S: FSR3 Native + DRS [600p-1080p]->1080p. Typical internal resolution 720p

Front End Main Menu (30 fps) Ray-Traced Direct Illumination enabled

• PS5: FSR3 Native + DRS [1080p-1800p]->1800p + bilinear upsample from 1800p to 2160p. Typical internal resolution 1200p
• Xbox Series X: FSR3 Native + DRS [1080p-1800p]->1800p + bilinear upsample from 1800p to 2160p. Typical internal resolution 1300p
• PS5 Pro: Upgraded PSSR version Native + DRS [1200p-2160p]->2160p. Typical internal resolution 1600p
• Xbox Series S: Ray-Traced Direct Illumination disabled, TAA 1080p DRS [900p-1080p]

Our intent is to target a unified visual/performance profile on all the platforms.

Will UFC 6 support PS5 Pro-specific enhancements at launch? If yes, is the game using PSSR or Enhanced PSSR, and what improvements should players expect in image quality, internal resolution, anti-aliasing, crowd detail, hair rendering, sweat, skin, cloth simulation, or replay quality?

Yes, specifically:

• Latest version of PSSR instead of FSR3, providing reduced aliasing and ghosting.
• Higher internal and target resolutions, increasing overall image clarity.
• Improved shadow maps filtering, providing improved shadows and reduced jaggies.

Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion (RTAO) is fully supported during gameplay and replays, making the overall scene feel more grounded by using scene wide information (vs screen space on other platforms which would present disocclusion artifacts), being able to capture finer details, small cavities and precise objects contact.

For PS5 Pro, is the goal to deliver a higher-resolution 60 FPS experience, a cleaner 4K output via PSSR, improved visual settings over base PS5, or any 120 Hz/high-frame-rate option for supported displays?

The main goal for PS5 Pro on UFC 6 is to deliver a higher-resolution 60fps experience, cleaner 4K output via the latest PSSR version, and improved visual settings over base PS5.

On Xbox Series X, what is the target resolution and frame rate compared to PS5 and PS5 Pro? Are there any platform-specific differences in visual settings, loading, crowd density, physics quality, replay frame rate, or animation fidelity?

Xbox Series X is at parity with PS5, but runs slightly faster and is able to typically push a higher internal resolution than PS5 (1300p vs 1200p).

PS5 Pro is able to push higher internal resolution, higher fidelity settings, AI upsampler and even raytraced effects within the same frame budget.

Has it achieved that feat? Well, yes and no. Yes, because there are certainly improvements that might make you feel like the three-year wait for this one was worth it. No, because some of the things that plague sport simulators continue to be a part of the experience on offer in this one, for better or worse. Let’s start with what’s good, and the fighting is definitely among the stronger parts of the entire game.

UFC 6 is at its finest when you’re in the Octagon, which is always good for a fighter that carries its ambitions and the expectations of its players. The new real-time striking system is something that’s going to stand out the minute you engage with it. Strikes feel impactful with satisfying feedback that can make trading blows feel convincingly weighty, and you almost feel your blows connect with bone-crunching intensity.

Your strikes don’t depend on canned sequences that feel like they’ve already been decided before you make contact with your opponent. Instead, the outcome of such exchanges now depends on how well you position yourself for an attack, your timing, head movements, and of course, your inputs. It lends a layer of authenticity to every match in ways that immediately make the striking system feel like one of the evolutions we mentioned.

That’s because it makes knockdowns look and feel more believable than they’ve ever been, while each fight now feels more violent and unpredictable. They look so authentic, you’re going to feel like the driving force behind your chosen fighter’s fists and feet for the most part. That’s made even better by the fact that the damage you dish out and take in return is now visible enough to be a visual reminder of how well you’re doing in a fight. The blood paints a grim picture on the canvas, while the injury system makes things quite realistic, although it felt a tad too exaggerated for my taste. Your mileage with it is going to vary, but I did think it could be taken down a notch.

Sadly, the evolution of the striking system feels like it’s actively countered by the stamina bar, which drains far too rapidly for it to be ideal at times, and that does affect the rhythm of fights. It isn’t game-breaking, but it did happen enough for it to be a noticeable annoyance. But it isn’t going to be as divisive as the new Flow State feature. It’s one of the biggest gameplay additions, and is one that could either make or break your enjoyment of this one.

"You’re constantly feeling the ebb and flow of an intense clash, and it’s quite immersive as a result."

It’s a solid idea on paper, as it gives each individual athlete a unique set of strengths that play into their real-world fighting styles. Playing to your strengths increases your Flow Meter, which in turn activates your Flow State once it’s completely filled. That opens up opportunities for finishers, recovering from a bad round, or giving you a distinct advantage in a match you’ve already been dominating, allowing you to take your opponent out of the equation far more easily than you would have without it.

It encourages you to switch things up depending on which fighter you’re bringing to the fight, which is a great way to add a dash of individuality to each athlete while also giving each fight a sense of momentum. You’re constantly feeling the ebb and flow of an intense clash, and it’s quite immersive as a result. I’m a fan, although I can see how the purists among you might end up seeing it as a gimmick rather than a meaningful addition. It’s fun, but comes at the risk of feeling cheesy, as you tend to try sticking to moves that play to your strengths instead of responding dynamically to your opponents with ones that are outside of your chosen fighter’s comfort zone.

It might have worked very well in an arcade fighter, but in something that aims to simulate a real-world sport, it can feel a touch out of place. Aside from the Flow State mechanic, there’s grappling which can feel all too close to what was on offer in UFC 5, as it brings the same stiff rhythm and that deliberate approach from the previous game that’s recognizable almost instantly. It’s got that clunky pacing that makes it feel akin to a tactical exchange instead of a fluid struggle between two fighters who have trained to the peak of their abilities.

It’s a mind game in the middle of a physical fight that doesn’t necessarily make it terrible, but it doesn’t make any evolutionary changes to merit praise. It’s functional at best, and disappointing at worst, depending on whether you liked what was on offer three years ago. Thus far, the gameplay should tell you something about why this one feels like a solid experience, but not one that justifies the long gap between releases in the franchise’s line up. Well, that extends to other areas of the game, including the presentation.

"Some fighters don’t look as close to their real-world counterparts as they should be, with a few awkward body proportions that stick out like sore thumbs showing up from time to time."

In a game like UFC 6, recreating the atmosphere and sheer adrenaline of being at a UFC event is something that’s crucial to the experience. It’s certainly authentic, with walkouts, replays, lighting,  and broadcast-style elements that all contribute to making this one sustain the quality that the franchise has been known for. But there are inconsistencies that crop up and stand out against that backdrop quite prominently.

Some fighters don’t look as close to their real-world counterparts as they should be, with a few awkward body proportions that stick out like sore thumbs showing up from time to time. They stand out against the backdrop of a generally solid experience overall, while the HUD feels far too busy in a game that’s meant to have you laser-focused on your opponent, ready to respond to their attempts to take you down. It’s an issue that works in tandem with the inaccuracies on fighters to bring down the overall presentation from what should have felt like a premium, refined take on the franchise.

However, the game’s many modes kind of make up for those little mistakes. For instance, the Legacy Mode is now a great place for you to dive in when you boot up the game if you’re new to the franchise. It acts as a great tutorial, letting you follow Chris Carter’s career complete with cinematic sequences and fights both inside the Octagon and outside of it. It’s helped along by appearances from Coach Thompson and Carter’s rival Danny Lopez, with the drama and human emotions that come with a career such as his on full display. The fact that his family’s legacy underlines his journey from the regional MMA scene to the UFC is a highlight, and it’s something I found very entertaining.

It’s also a great way to come to grips with the game’s core systems, important mechanics, and more, allowing you to take it all in before you commit to the Career Mode, which features a lot of the same training camps, the integration of social media and your need to manage your online presence, and progression systems in a way that feels natural. It’s well thought-out, and a welcome presence in the game for newbies and franchise veterans alike. That you get to unlock new skills across categories is a nice touch, lending a bit of depth to the game’s progression loop as well.

It also helps the transition to the full-blown Career Mode a lot smoother since you can get to the UFC a lot faster thanks to all the work you’ve already put in. The Career Mode itself is now expanded, with more choices, narrative events, interactions via texts and social media, better training and fitness management systems, and other progression elements, all of which feed into the illusion that your character is climbing the ranks while trying to sustain their popularity among audiences in order to further their career.

"Too many activities are reduced to merely selecting between dialogue options, which doesn’t work well when most of the choices you’re allowed to make feel flat."

All of that’s pretty exciting, but UFC 6 falls prey to a pitfall that has plagued simulation games of its nature: you’re dealing with a lot of menus for too much of the time you spend outside the Octagon. Too many activities are reduced to merely selecting between dialogue options, which doesn’t work well when most of the choices you’re allowed to make feel flat. It all feels mechanical in a way that gives the impression that you’re trying to game the system instead of navigating a range of possibilities in a way that’s fluid and organic.

Moving on to the Hall of Legends, it’s an interesting diversion that’s sure to make UFC fans feel quite happy about its inclusion. You get to move through museum-like spaces, with halls dedicated to popular fighters across the sport’s history. Those halls come with Fighting Podiums that let you step into memorable moments of a fighter’s career, taking control of them in some of the most memorable bouts of their respective careers. It isn’t going to sell more copies of UFC 6, but it’s certainly going to be a nice way to blow off some steam when the pressure of your career threatens to overwhelm you. It’s always good to look to them greats for inspiration, after all.

Fight Now is where you’re going to go if you’re looking for a quick match-up, with different settings, fighters, and categories allowing you to mix and match to your heart’s content. I would have liked to test out the online multiplayer part of the experience, but try as I might, I could not connect to the servers despite multiple attempts. I can’t comment on it thanks to that limitation. It is what it is, though.

However, I can say that I’ve spent enough time with this one to know that it succeeds where it matters the most: the fighting. However, it isn’t the revolutionary sequel that any of us were hoping for, and that’s a damn shame considering how good what’s on offer really is. As an MMA simulator, this one’s as solid as they come, and you’re going to have a good time with it. But as the latest instalment in a reputed franchise, it doesn’t do enough to set itself apart. I’d still recommend it to you, but I can’t help but wish that I could do it more whole-heartedly than I am now.

It falls just short of a generational leap, but I’m hopeful about post-launch updates ironing out at least some of its issues to make it a better rounded-out take on a simulator. It’s got the potential to be the undisputed champion, standing tall among the franchise’s greats, but it’s not quite there yet. This could be the definitive UFC experience given enough time.

But as it stands, it falls just short of true greatness.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.

Note: Varun Karunakar contributed to this review.