@CombatESportsM – a Twitter account focused on delivering updates related to boxing games – recently claimed in a tweet that they had been told by anonymous sources that EA was “planning to announce a Fight Night game this year”. According to the account, boxers such as Jaron Ennis and Raymond Ford are “on board” with the title.

Interestingly, the aforementioned Ford shared the account’s leak in his Instagram story, seemingly confirming its validity.

Rumours of a new Fight Night game first emerged in 2020, when boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said that a new instalment in the series was being considered. It was claimed in multiple subsequent leaks that a new Fight Night had entered early development, before being put on pause so developer EA Canada could focus on UFC 5 instead- EA Sports UFC 5 went on to launch in October last year.

https://twitter.com/combatesportsm/status/1777765197748277491

Obviously cannot reveal the source but here’s Raymond Ford himself confirming the post pic.twitter.com/YNInKg7aVJ

— Combat eSports Media (@CombatESportsM) April 10, 2024

It’s been nearly two years since EA Sports UFC 4 launched though, so when can we expect its follow-up to launch. Responding to that question over on Twitter, Henderson recently stated that EA is currently targeting a summer 2023 launch window for EA Sports UFC 5.

Interestingly, Henderson also reiterated that the Fight Night reboot’s development had to be paused because of the UFC game, and in a follow-up tweet, said that the reboot hasn’t yet been “100%” canned. Whether that means EA Canada will move on to Fight Night once UFC 5 has launched next year remains to be seen.

Of course, there has been no official word from EA about a Fight Night revival (even though it has been in the rumour mill for a couple of years), while even EA Sports UFC 5 has yet to be officially announced. Either way, it’s clear that even in the best case scenario, it’s probably going to be a while before Fight Night makes its comeback- if it does.

https://twitter.com/_Tom_Henderson_/status/1524134475529076736

Wanted to rename the original QRT from "canned" to "paused" because I've not been told that it's 100% canned yet.

— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) May 10, 2022

Collision detection and realistic visual representation of the action on-screen were top-notch and had to be for the games to be successful. And for a time, they were successful. With over 5 games developed in the series (many more depending on where you feel the series truly started) and pretty decent reception throughout the life of the series, you’d think we’d still be getting entries every now and then, especially with EA’s uncanny ability to keep a series going well past its prime. But alas, here we are. Ten years after the last game in the series was released and not even a whisper of a new game. Why is that? What the hell happened to Fight Night?

Most know the series for those 6th and 7th generation games even though one could conceivably argue it really started back in the late 80’s with an Atari 7800 game of the same name. Fight Night for the 7800, Apple 2, and Commodore 64 was a primitive but earnest attempt at a boxing game that basically just boiled down to timing. Not that they really had much else to work with at the time, but fast forward to the mainline series of EA games that most gamers will recognize today and the complexity takes a massive leap forward. Fight Night 2004 would be EA’s way of testing the waters with the new franchise on the PS2 and Xbox. It would feature lots of real legendary Boxers like Roy Jones Jr who was pictured on the box art.

By PS2 and Xbox standards, it was a pretty good-looking game. It didn’t surpass some of the fighting game heavy hitters of the generation like Tekken 5, but it did hold it own pretty well as a game so heavily and singularly focused on its character models. Most of your movements were controlled by the analog sticks which helped the intensity of a punch of the depth of an evasive maneuver very naturally.

Blocking and weaving didn’t look particularly realistic as they had kind of a twitchy look to them, but they were highly functional, and again, for the time it was a neat idea and made for a pretty fun boxing game. If Fight Night 2004’s basic ideas seemed familiar to you at the time, then it’s not Deja vu, it’s because much of the game was built upon another boxing franchise that EA had been pushing out just a couple years before; Knockout Kings. As a franchise Knockout Kings was also fairly popular, so it’s hard to say exactly why the brand was morphed into or absorbed by Fight Night, but regardless, boxing fans were still getting their money’s worth and that’s the most important thing. Fight Night 2004 would sell well and receive mostly 8’s from the critics, so as logic would follow, more games in the series would be made.

Fight Night Round 2 would come out the following year and would deliver a different flavor of the last years’ experience. The game would add additional venues like Atlantic City as well as add clinching and haymakers that could quickly result in an instant KO. On top of that they would add multiple more legendary boxers like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Evander Holyfield and Bernard Hopkins. It would also go on to be the only game in the series that would have Floyd Mayweather due to the high price tag on his likeness. The haymakers wouldn’t go down smoothly with everybody and some would still prefer the more straight forward fighting of the previous game, but despite that the game would go on to review even better than the last game on average. And with the game getting PS2, Xbox, and GameCube versions it would sell extremely well, too.

Like clockwork, the following year would see Fight Night Round 3 which kept a lot of Round 2 intact along with some modest advancements in graphics and detail. For most reviewers that was enough, and the game would again get another slew of 8’s and 9’s across the reviewing community. Despite not getting a GameCube version this time around, Fight Night Round 3 would still have more versions than any other entry in the franchise before it with the game not only hitting the 6th generation but also getting PSP, PS3, and Xbox 360 versions which were tailored to those systems as well as they could be at the time. The PSP version didn’t fare extremely well, given that it was by far the weakest platform the game would be on and would feature the least amount of content of any version, but the 360 and PS3 versions were lauded for their excellent graphics and a first-person mode that added some extra fun to the package. Some real-world advertising in the game certainly drove the experience down a bit for some, but most would agree not by much.

Shockingly, Fight Night would take a break for a couple years before seeing Round 4 release in 2009. This would be the first entry of the series that was unencumbered by needing versions for 6th-gen hardware and it showed. Graphics were top-notch with sweat and skin detail going through the roof on the PS3 and 360. Facial damage was more apparent and dynamic, and accuracy and timing were far more akin to a real boxing match than ever before. Outside of some clunky menus and long load times, this was a huge step up from Round 3 in just about every way.

Instead of naming the next game “Round 5” EA Sports seemed to like the sound of “Fight Night Champion” better, so that’s what we got in 2011. The game again would feature the fantastic graphics and fighting acumen of the previous game, but now with an actual story mode and a real online mode that played out like actual tournaments for different weight divisions. The campaign was surprisingly good with far more context and motivation behind each fight and each opponent. This really brought gravity to each fight and helped the game rise to yet another level of excellence for the series. But despite how good Champion was, there was a new guy in town. The UFC had been gaining steam since around 2009, and despite EA not wanting anything to do with it early on, the success of THQ’s UFC games was undeniable. Upon THQ closing its doors, EA would swoop in and start making UFC games instead of Fight Night ones; despite apparent plans to initially alternate between both franchises.

Despite how this probably makes some Fight Night fans feel, the bet on UFC by EA turned out to be a good one as that series has gone on to include several good games that don’t seem to have quite fallen into the repetitive, recycled trap that FIFA and Madden have. Usually, these stories of what happened to certain franchises are mysteries lost to time and open to speculation, but not this one.

The writing was on the wall for boxing as a sport for a long time as it became more about the commercialism and branding deals than the actual sport itself. While that decline in general interest in boxing hadn’t really manifested as poor sales for the Fight Night series, it surely would have eventually. UFC and MMA fighting was an alternative to the overly polished world of boxing, and it caught on just as interest in boxing started to dwindle, and EA followed suit. With UFC continuing to gain popularity today, I wouldn’t hold your breath for a revival of the Fight Night series anytime soon. Never say never of course, but I’d say it’s all but lights out for the Fight Night games.

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 has been, for years, the king of sport games. While 2K and Sony have somewhat challenged that in some fields, EA still hold the biggest licenses for most major sports games. At one point, they were also among the prime boxing contenders for the Fight Night franchise. With boxing being somewhat displaced in popular culture by MMA, Fight Night fell to the wayside. But it seems like a comeback is being considered in some form.

Speaking with Thaboxingvoice, English/UK boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said he had contacted the publisher about bringing back the franchise. He said they actually got back to him saying, “Oh, we’re looking at it, we’re looking at it.” While that’s obviously not something all that solid, it does seem as if EA might have an itch they’re willing to scratch.

As it stands, there’s no major boxing title (or MMA title, for that that matter) on the market. The last Fight Night was Round 4, which came out all the way back in 2011. Even though boxing isn’t nearly as popular as it once was, a new boxing game could still hit hard.

The development for the Fight Night franchise is currently on hold according to IGN. They confirmed this after speaking with Andrew Wilson the CEO  of EA Sports.

“Right now, a great portion of the core of the Fight Night team are actually the team that are building UFC,” said Andrew Wilson to IGN.

EA Sports is currently developing FIFA 14, new UFC title, NBA Live 14 and a new Madden that will be running on Ignite Next-Gen Engine for next-generation platforms.

Those who were looking forward to seeing a next-generation Fight Night title are going to be disappointed for the time being. Meanwhile, the best thing to do is wait patiently and see what happens next. I am pretty positive that EA Sports won’t leave out Fight Night fans lurking in the dark for too long.

Let us know what you think of this situation in the comments below.

Check back on GamingBolt for more news and updates regarding next-gen plans.

Here is one of the newer videos for Fight Night Champion, with this one explaining how the online gym works.  You will be able to take your gym online against another gym almost like teams.  You can customize yourself in many ways and go online to fight in a season or tournament.  The video explains it much better and more in depth, so check it out below.

What’s the most important thing about boxing?  Well punching the opponent in the face of course according Fight Night Champion producer Brian Hayes.  He gives us a brief tutorial on offensive and defensive skills to use in Fight Night Champion.  The game has some intense graphics and currently has a demo available for download.  Fight Night Champion will be out March 1st, 2011 for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 as well as an iPhone version possible in the works.  Fight Night fans will be fairly familiar with the controls but things have changed slightly with added features.

Offensive Tutorial

Defensive Tutorial

Now available for download now is the Fight Night Champion game on the Xbox Live online marketplace here.  Below is a trailer of what to expect from the game and to promote the demo.  The demo will feature two fights which are Mike Tyson vs Muhammad Ali and Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto.  The trial will last two weeks and you can change the control scheme to your liking which is nice.  It is a hefty 1.5Gb so clear out your hard drive.  Fight Night Champion will be out later this year for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

EA have stated that they are testing a prototype version of a Fight Night game for Microsoft’s new Xbox motion controller. The company haven’t officially announced if a Fight Night Kinect will ever get a full release. Fight Night producer Mike Mahar stated that “right now the best simulation experience we can give users is through a conventional controller. I also think that most of our users don’t want to, and can’t, punch for 10 rounds. I just don’t think people are capable of it! If you’re going to make a full fighting game it might be a different experience than a Fight Night or an MMA.”

He further added that “We’ve done some pretty cool prototyping. It could perhaps be a mini-game embedded in. Then again with how precise and how robust the movement and motion controls are now, I think we’d be doing them a disservice if we simply said that our version of a motion control game is a mini-game within Fight Night.”

Thanks to VG247 for the info.

Check out the newest trailer of EA’s upcoming boxing game, Fight Night Champion. It shows some cool action inside the ring, and let me tell you, the visuals are really good.

Fight Night Champion releases March next year for the Xbox 360 and PS3.